CNN article tries to be fair to Tea Partiers—and nearly succeeds
See that pig flying overhead? It’s CNN’s relatively fair article about the Tea Partiers.
The only flaw (and it’s a biggie; but hey, CNN’s just a news outlet, so we can’t really blame them for spreading undocumented “facts”) is that it repeats the unverified claim that the Washington DC Tea Party crowd voiced racial slurs at Reps Lewis and Cleaver and spit at the latter. But other than that, African-American political producer Shannon Travis is—dare I say it?—fair and balanced in his coverage of the many other Tea Party Express gatherings that he actually did attend in his thousand-mile trip with the movement (and yes, Shannon’s a man; I thought from the name that he was a woman, until I saw a photo):
But here’s what you don’t often see in the coverage of Tea Party rallies: Patriotic signs professing a love for country; mothers and fathers with their children; African-Americans proudly participating; and senior citizens bopping to a hip-hop rapper…
[B]y and large, no one I spoke with or I heard from on stage said anything that was approaching racist.
Almost everyone I met was welcoming to this African-American television news producer.
The only “racist” things Travis saw with his own eyes at countless rallies on the Tea Party Express? “[A] few signs that could be seen as offensive to African-Americans.”
Note the careful wording: “could be seen.” This is often the new and more inclusive definition of racism: anything that might be perceived by the beholder as offensive. Of course it’s possible that some of these signs actually were offensive and racist in the objective sense (the only one that should matter). But my guess is, if that were so, they would have been described quite differently.
Since overt expressions of racism have become so relatively rare these days, would-be victims are forced to either (a) try to provoke it, as with Lewis and Cleaver; (b) make it up if it cannot be provoked, as with the DC Tea Party reports; or (c) impute it from other non-racial words which are felt to be “code words” for racism (such as, for example, socialist). Or even, if all else fails, to see it in the fact that a crowd is white, which by definition must be racist.
I would not be at all surprised if CNN had sent Travis—a rather large and imposing African-American man—on this assignment in hopes of encountering and reporting on the racism he found at Tea Parties. Travis is to be commended for not falling into any of those particular traps. He honestly reported what he saw, and what he saw was uniformly good.
Not that it will matter; the public has already been well-saturated with the competing meme, and quite a few will unquestioningly believe it.
I believe one of the alphabets–NBC?–sent four guys dressed like Arabs, head to feet in ME clothing, to a NASCAR event, hoping to find some nastiness from those racist rednecks.
Didn’t happen and NASCAR switched their contract to another network.
Seems the viewers are doing the same to CNN.
For a huge and concurring example of “could be seen” as racist, read Harry R. Jackson, Jr.’s essay in Townhall titled, “Is brewing tea dangerous?”
In that essay, Mr. Jackson states, “In light of his history and credibility, I believe Rev. Cleaver was actually called the “N” word.”
Mr. Jackson also states, “Conservative analysts have wasted time asking whether the man spit on Rev. Cleaver or whether it was an unintentional spray.”
Mr. Jackson then proposes a number of re-educational sensitizing activities: apologies, media training, and more public appearance by minorities as representatives for the tea party. Plus, there’s a need for collaborative leadership to emerge and manage the tea partiers.
Mr. Jackson’s analysis occurs well after the salient facts are known, namely: The encounter was initiated by Mr. Cleaver and the Pelosi gang, there was no spitting and no “N” words, Mr. Cleaver is well known himself as a race hustler, and Mr. Cleaver is backing down from his claims.
Since Mr. Jackson is black, is it racist to point out his statements and proposed strategies appear racist?
Curtis: It is racist to point out anything negative about a black person.
And it is racist to be a white person.
Not that it will matter; the public has already been well-saturated with the competing meme, and quite a few will unquestioningly believe it.
I think it will matter some. The “meme’s” been out there, yet more Americans think the Tea Party represents their views than think Obama does. A bit of accurate reporting will strengthen the backbone of these Americans and perhaps open a few eyes.
Feds tight-lipped about IED found at Courthouse
http://www.kxly.com/news/23080126/detail.html
“Not that it will matter; the public has already been well-saturated with the competing meme, and quite a few will unquestioningly believe it.”
I think more will not believe it. The MSM has jumped the shark on this. Only progressive leftists still believe them.
They were already in a hole after the last election and now they’ve kept digging…
Our descendants will make note of the cruel trap that post civil rights liberals laid for black people. Where blacks could risk growing as a vibrant and independant people in America, but only at the cost of the threatened loss of liberal handouts that guaranteed them a subsistance level with little or no effort.
Liberals are the real racist in our country. They never did believe, and still don’t believe, that blacks possess the capacity to compete on a fair and equal footing in American society.
Truly one of the saddest stories that will ever be told about America.
It is possible that CNN has been looking at its ratings and bottom line.
This is often the new and more inclusive definition of racism: anything that might be perceived by the beholder as offensive.
hey! i remember that change… that was when the harrasment stuff was going through and we learned a new pc rule to incorporate…
it wasnt put that way, it was put another way to argue against the reasonable person idea. that is, feminists argued that the reasonable person view was wrong. remember? and that one had to apply the view of the ‘victim’…
so to be clear here, the person who sees the sign is the designated victim, the person who made the sign is the attacker, and we no longer use the reasonable person doctrine, we apply the feminist introduced socialist idea that if you feel the victim then you are a victim..
whats interesting is if you know these rules we have been given, and you can cast them to whats going on, you can understand completely why they are taking the position they are or saying things in that odd manner.
you might realize that rather than be the new way to say it, its really the effect of what happens when a schema rule is adopted and then is automaticlly being applied.
whats interesting in how this rule works, is that it makes everyone hyper sensitive to the potential of an existing person with a certain view, not the actuality of a person existing with that view.
in other words we spend all our times imagining we are victims so we do not accidently do something that someone will find, if they exist, offensive. and if they dont exist, they might as well do, since the behavior is the same!!!!
talk about schizo..
they live (and by extension we live) in a world in which we are all afraid of victims that dont exist, and we know that its the right thing to do, because sometimes, someone will drop themselves right into that empty space and claim the prize.
that is the other size of this freaky coin are the ones who see opportunity in it, and perpetuate it by jumping into the hole of whats expected.
so you have people who walk around hyper aware in hopes of hitting a prize… and you have others hyper aware in hopes of not getting snagged by the hyper aware searching for a reward.
and all because we no longer have a concept of a reasonable person, so we can protect those special groups from the hostile horrible world they live in (while they dont look to how they are treated in other places).
Perhaps CNN has been forced to contemplate the proverbial “writing on the wall”, and work more toward fair and balanced reporting. Seems as though the Washington Post has been trending more even-handed in some of their coverage as well…