Illiberal Liberals: The Firing of Juan WIlliams
This was a DUMB move by the head honchos at NPR. They put their collective head on the block when they did this. Now Williams is going to make the rounds on Fox, and the anointed ones are going to look like absolute idiots. And the fact that he's a brother isn't going to win any hearts in the mezzanine level either.
This reads like a 'thoughtcrime' straight out of Orwell's 1984. If NPR had a device that monitored WIlliam's creed-o-meter, then it would have alarmed the day he had that experience on the aeroplane. He would have gotten a phone call the moment the plane landed that indicated his termination for having a PERCEPTION of another person.
This reads like a 'thoughtcrime' straight out of Orwell's 1984. If NPR had a device that monitored WIlliam's creed-o-meter, then it would have alarmed the day he had that experience on the aeroplane. He would have gotten a phone call the moment the plane landed that indicated his termination for having a PERCEPTION of another person.
Comments
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what makes you think that NPR is different than anyother media?
....just because a few of the directors drive Volvos doesn't mean they can't use Raiser's Edge (a donor database) to see who will be offended by such a firing and who won't be.
"Let's see, who donates more to us ....those who like this guy, or those who don't care about him...." -
I didn't say that NPR is different than any other medium. I said that their firing of him makes NPR, an outwardly tolerant public entity, seem not so. If firing Williams was a choice made out of pragmatism, then that is actually worse than firing him because of any sentiment the management board of NPR themselves have.
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Whew, glad you don't idealize NPR. I hought you might have a cloth bookbag there for a moment.
Anyway-
In medialand, one's continued employment is directly related to one's thoughts which is directly related to how much money those thoughts bring in.
At Fox, its an inverse relationship.
The fewer thoughts you have, the more viewers you attract, which in turns brings in advertisers (aka money). -
Williams already made the rounds on Fox. Frequently. In fact a couple years ago NPR told him he had to stop using NPR's name in his title on Fox.
Williams is another bigot who lumps all Muslims together. Fox News is precisely where he belongs. -
completely agree ^^^^
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....So he's a bigot if he feels a little unsettled when a Muslim gets on an airplane?
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It's a bigoted view to have. Whether that makes him a bigot is a matter of semantics.
Here's Andrew Sullivan arguing the point better than I can:
Glenn Greenwald with more:
Malkin Award Nominee
20 Oct 2010 10:09 am"Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous," - Juan Williams.
No, Juan, what you just described is the working definition of bigotry.
What if someone said that they saw a black man walking down the street in classic thug get-up. Would a white person be a bigot of he assumed he was going to mug him? What percentage of traditionally garbed Muslims - I assume wearing a covered veil or some other indicator and being of darker skin - have committed acts of terror? And, of course, the 9/11 mass-murderers were in everyday attire, to blend in. So was the Christmas Day undie-bomber. The Fort Hood murderer was in US military uniform, for Pete's sake.
The literal defense of anti-Muslim bigotry on Fox is becoming endemic. It's disgusting.The bottom line here is that equating Muslims with Terrorism -- which is exactly what Williams did -- is definitively bigoted (not to mention demonstrably false).
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didn't we have this conversation recently?
http://www.brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=58921&start=0 -
Refresh my memory.
hahaha -
the movie Groundhog Day.
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I too go into defense mode when faced w/a young urbanite in their home territory + will cross the street if I feel the threat is that imminent
And I too, just for a moment before logic kicks in, get a little tense when I see what appears to be a Muslim boarding my (or pretty much any) flight
It's silly to posture as though people have become so tolerant that they're able to completely quell their natural instincts. I think in this age of unreasonably high political correctness & sensitivity Juan said a stupid thing, but I don't think what he said was wrong.
I mean how far are we gonna go? It's like people in the media are contestants on a reality show in which he who feigns the most tolerance, no matter how unrealistic, wins. C'mon now this is getting ridiculous. Liberals have shown their true colors here -
The issue isn't whether anyone agrees (or disagrees) with what Juan Williams said, but that he was fired for saying it! How is the American public going to have a serious conversation about sensitive issues if public figures fear this kind of backlash? Juan Williams said something that millions of Americans think (including CTK who has the courage to admit it publicly). Firing Williams is just going to contribute to the denouement of our media and flame the extreme political polarization in this country.
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Juan was correct and had every right to voice his opinion. If he said that about Christians they would have given him a raise. I hope he sues their ass big time. The dumb bitch who made the comment about Juan's psychriatrist needs to go first.
Funny how this happened 36 hours after his remarks and after anti American george soros just gave NPR one million dollars as well as to huffington and media matters.
NPR fired the only black man on air. Bunch of racists.
Defund NPR now. -
eggcream wrote: Juan was correct and had every right to voice his opinion. If he said that about Christians they would have given him a raise. I hope he sues their ass big time. The dumb bitch who made the comment about Juan's psychriatrist needs to go first.
You're becoming a parody of yourself.
Funny how this happened 36 hours after his remarks and after anti American george soros just gave NPR one million dollars as well as to huffington and media matters.
NPR fired the only black man on air. Bunch of racists.
Defund NPR now. -
Does NPR get public funds anymore? Aren't they a stand alone non profit at this point?
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whynot_31 wrote: Does NPR get public funds anymore? Aren't they a stand alone non profit at this point?
Yes and no. -
If it is funded by donations from the public, corporations and foundations, how would you go about "defunding" it?
.....seems voluntary by it's listeners -
Wow, CTK and I are in agreement. I too have boarded a plane and seen some Muslim brothers get on, and it was enough to make me to furrow my brow for
awhile. I recall two instances where it occurred, and there were on both instances some Muslim women in full covering and also veiled.
Similarly, I recall a polemic from Jesse Jackson where he said walking down the street and coming in his direction were a group of young Black men, hats turned backwards and jeans sagging, and he had a moment of trepidation about the whole thing. Like CTK, I too have had this experience. I don't think the word 'bigot' is appropriate to describe these pre-judgments. A bigot is something else. I resent the usage of strong words to describe everyday common mis-perceptions about reality.
As an addendum, I've had the same sense of trepidation in Crown Heights walking on Eastern Parkway and seeing a group of young Hasidic men coming in the opposite direction. Having heard of and read about confrontations between Hasidic men and Black men, when I see these situations, there is a moment of unease.
Two days ago a young lady was walking 4 dogs, one of which was a very muscular male pit bull. As I got nearer I got more anxious and I walked into the street to avoid having to walk by her with all of those dogs. She stopped me and asked me why, and I told her because I don't trust pit bulls. I've heard too many stories about them. She said, 'that's understandable' but the irony is that you put yourself in more danger walking in the street than you do walking by the dog. I smiled. What I didn't tell her is that I would rather trust the judgment of a driver who must now share the road with me than a 100 pound woman walking 4 sizable dogs, who did not have to pass a test to get their teeth.
We prejudge all the time, and we usually do it for plausible reasons. As a Black man who often has tried to catch a cab and have them go right by me, I am terribly frustrated by the prejudice of the drivers, but sadly, I know that their prejudice is often buttressed on some qualified experience: They were robbed by Black men, or know someone who was, or because of their experience are inclined to think if they get robbed more than likely the perpetrator will be Black, and male.
Juan Williams should not have lost his job for this.
Andrew Sullivan is projecting his knee jerk reaction to alleged 'homophobia' on to Juan Williams here. I don't buy his rationale. And just because Andrew Sullivan thinks it's bigotry doesn't make it bigotry. -
I don't think the kneejerk, temporary, internal hesitant reaction to any group of people is bigoted. I agree with yall that its natural and needs to be recognized and managed.
What's bigoted about Williams was his overall fear of Muslims period, and his hinting at something many people on Fox News and elsewhere believe, namely that all terrorists are Muslims, and that America is at war with Islam.
Edited to add:
As Glenn Greenwald says better than I can:Williams began by telling O'Reilly that he was "right" in his view on Muslims. I don't think there's anything wrong with candidly admitting that he gets nervous when he sees Muslims on airplanes -- even though those feelings reflect some highly distorted thoughts -- as we all have irrational reactions to various situations. But Williams was not condemning his own reaction; to the contrary, he went on to justify it by saying that people who wear "Muslim garb" are "identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims," and that "the war with Muslims" (quoting Faisal Shahzad) is one of those "facts we can't get away from." All of those comments were prefaced with the standard defense of bigotry: "political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don't address reality." What "reality" are we supposedly all afraid to address? The full context makes clear that he is not only agreeing with O'Reilly's perspective on Muslims and Terrorism, but defending the linkage between the two.
As GG argued, the reason Williams needed to lose his job over this, is because the mainstream media has established precedent before, but usually only if you criticize America, our Armed Forces, Israel, and other "good guys", as defined by the mainstream media or conservatives.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17462-2005Feb11.html wrote: firing of executive Eason Jordan in 2004[/url] for observing -- correctly -- that the U.S. military had repeatedly attacked war journalists; and CNN's 2003 firing of Peter Arnett for criticizing the Iraq War; and MSNBC's demotion and firing of Ashleigh Banfield after criticizing media coverage of American wars, or the same network's firing of Phil Donahue for being too anti-war; or, for that matter, the University of Colorado's dismissal of Ward Churchill for arguing that the World Trade Center was a legitimate target to retaliate against American foreign policy. If you only object to speech-based firings when you agree with the ideas being expressed, then you don't actually believe in the principles you claim to support.
And finally, GG:I'm not someone who believes that journalists should lose their jobs over controversial remarks, especially isolated, one-time comments. But if that's going to be the prevailing standard, then I want to see it applied equally. Those who cheered on the firing of Octavia Nasr, Helen Thomas and Rick Sanchez -- and that will include many, probably most, of the right-wing polemicists predictably rushing to transform Juan Williams into some sort of free speech martyr sacrificed on the altar of sharia censorship -- have no ground for complaining here.
I searched back through the archives and I couldn't find a post by eggcream or anyone else expressing outrage at the "overzealous political correctness" in the cases of Nasr, Thomas or Sanchez.
Similarly I missed the public comments by half-term quitter Sarah Palin supporting these others who were fired for saying something deemed inappropriate. -
"But Williams was not condemning his own reaction; to the contrary, he went on to justify it by saying that people who wear "Muslim garb" are "identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims," and that "the war with Muslims" (quoting Faisal Shahzad) is one of those "facts we can't get away from."
Exactly. Williams is being disingenous. He IS NOT SIMPLY being honest about a fear of Muslims, which many people have.
He is defending a prejudiced view that you can guess at a Muslim's LOYALTY by how they dress.
Saying "Muslims scare me" is honest. Implying that Muslims who wear Muslim garb are more loyal to Islam than to America and further implying we're in a "war with Muslims" is DISHONEST.
He's trying to pass that off as a-gee-whiz-I'm-just-being-honest-everyone-thinks-this. I am so sick of people going "I'm not a racist BUT...." as a justification to spout something racist.
Talk to Muslims in Brooklyn, and ask if they're scared about people physically hurting them or their families.
I know of at least one Muslim woman (living in Astoria) who stopped wearing the hijab recently. Why? Because other New Yorkers started trying to touch her scarf and flick their cigarette ashes at her as a hostile gesture, because she's wearing Muslim garb. Those scarves are flammable. She's scared. She's lived here a long time and never experienced that hostility from fellow New Yorkers until these recent months.
Because of what, do you think? What's changed in recent months? What are people bashing now that we're in election season? MUSLIMS! Scary MUSLIMS!
People get nervous when they hear stuff like this because, as they say on Avenue Q "everyone's a little racist.... maybe even you." And no one wants to be judged for what they can't help.
I include myself in that category -- I am not color-blind, I put people into categories without really knowing them. But I have a conscience about blasting my opinions about a group of people when it can actually hurt them, and I acknowledge my own ignorance about many things. I don't hunker down and start defending my ignorance.
Free speech does not mean you get to yell FIRE in a crowded theatre, or say racial slurs. Or abdicate your responsibility to others.
Don't conflate regular "soft racism" that most of us have with plain old bigotry of the sort that Williams and his ilk spout on air. Bigotry that they make money off of. -
Finally someone else who has seen Ave Q.
nice post chuleta.... -
Chuleta's on the money. I've got Muslim neighbors & seen the nasty little things the sometimes have to deal with.
Juan Williams seems to think it's OK to encourage people to fear The Other for no good reason. (I don't remember that any of the 9/11 perps were wearing hijab, or shalwar kamis, or jelabahs, or keffiyahs, or...) His comments are part of this politics of fear - Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid - even if it makes you look like an ill-educated rube. That then qualifies you for a multi-million $ deal with Fox ASAP; sure pays more than NPR. We've got a new motto for our times - Be Afraid and Make Money At the Same Time!
Dude, where's my country? Land of the free and home of the afraid? -
whynot_31 wrote: Does NPR get public funds anymore? Aren't they a stand alone non profit at this point?
Not sure if anyone answered, but they get about 2% of their funding from federal dollars. -
Ishtar wrote: [quote=whynot_31]Does NPR get public funds anymore? Aren't they a stand alone non profit at this point?
Not sure if anyone answered, but they get about 2% of their funding from federal dollars.
That's what I thought. ....it kinda makes Eggcream's "defund NPR" crusade a little more complicated. He'd have to change the minds of millions of donors, as opposed to that of a few government representatives.
....and I like a lot of their programming. It is pretty intelligent. -
whynot_31 wrote:
I think part of that is because they really do make an effort to remain impartial. It's almost my sole source of news from the main stream media.
....and I like a lot of their programming. It is pretty intelligent. -
I think their news reports are quality for two reasons:
1. they're not ad-based revenue, which means they don't have advertisers to appease and they don't have to break up their programs into 30 second sound bites
2. they frequently run longer-item reports where you actually have to listen and focus for more than 30 seconds. It means you get a lot more out of the broadcast.
It seems impossible to me to be a decent news outlet and rely on ad-based-revenue. -
yes.
....although they do accept large donations from Foundations and the like, they seem to be the more moderate ones.
I can't remember the last time I watched CNN, MSNBC or Fox. -
It seems as though for most on this thread there is consensus that Juan Williams' statement was bigoted and also for many that, given this statement and others, he is a bigot.
Was it acceptable then for NPR to fire him for this? -
It was. A news organization should be unbiased and objective. His bigotry threw NPR's objectivity into question.
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A news organization is completely free to associate with whoever they want.
If they don't like what Williams claims publicly, they don't have to keep employing him.
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