Another big "race" issues pops up and the punditariat (to borrow a term from Christopher Buckley's new book Boomsday, which is hilarious and highly recommended) would like to convince the public that this issue will spark a "broader conversation about race" and "it just goes to show how far we still have to go".
So jejune. So very jejune.
You have no interest in discussing race. It is the most uncomfortable issue for most in the media, fear of being branded a racist abounds and keeps it out the talking points unless an easy target (Imus, Gibson, etc) pops up and we can point out overt bigotry. Hurricane Katrina, Crash, Michael Richards, the examples abound of issues that are sure to spark a debate about discrimination in America. Of course no one wants to confront the possibility that they too might, on occasion, exhibit racist tendencies (Stephen Colbert's color-blindness gives him an exemption, so he is safe) so it's best announce a "broader conversation" (where no conversation existed in the first place) and hope every forgets or is intimidated by the scope of its broadness that it goes away.
And the idea of "having a long way to go" is just another platitude. We forget that integration (or at least desegregation) was forced on us "with all deliberate speed". It was forced on us in 1957 at Central High School, and in the 50 years since we are still getting used to it. I think we see it in Iraq and other such places; when the notion of equality/democracy/liberty/freedom is forced on a group wherein it was not a natural outgrowth there is an acclamation period wherein the impressed-upon has to come to own the concept (or reject it outright) and learn to adjust the norms and boundaries of their society to fit this new constraint, and I think we are still on the road to claiming integration for ourselves. We'll get there eventually (or reject it outright and have mass racial upheaval, which would probably be bad for society but would probably make great TV).
It was nice this week to see our semi-annual cavalcade of black pundits on the major news/news-esque outlets. Clarence Page, Eugene Robinson, Larry Elder, and the like get plucked from relatively obscurity for a few days to give the 'black perspective' on this one issue and they disappear, waiting eagerly for another white person to say something racist in a very public setting so they can get back on TV, because that's the only time we ever see them (other than Juan Williams on Fox). As Jesse Jackson (incessantly, if accurately) put it on Hardball (among other places), "All day, all night, all white". David Gregory was visibly uncomfortable at the idea and racking his brain for a refutation, but, coming up empty, he shifted gears and steered the conversation back toward the Imus situation specifically. (Keith Olbermann was at least able to counter that his in-absentia host is a black woman). No one has been, to my knowledge, silly enough to invite on their first ever Latino pundit to discuss illegal immigration.
Speaking of Jesse, it may be about that time, old buddy. It may be time for you and Al to hit the ol' dusty trail. You all attempt a noble undertaking, but every cause you champion is undermined by the right-wing outcry against your respective tumultuous personal pasts. I don't believe one need be a blameless shining beacon of moral rectitude to call out bigotry or malfeasance, but it hurts your cause when people don't relate or grant you credibility. I won't go so far as Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star and AOL sports who declared you two "terrorists", but I will ask you to reduce your visibility every time the media blow a case out of proportion.
Excerpted from the Whitlock piece:
"We’ve turned Jesse and Al into Supreme Court justices. They get to speak for us for a lifetime. Why? If judged by the results they’ve produced the last 20 years, you’d have to regard their administration as a total failure. Seriously, compared to Martin and Malcolm and the freedoms and progress their leadership produced, Jesse and Al are an embarrassment. Their job the last two decades was to show black people how to take advantage of the opportunities Martin and Malcolm won...It’s time for Jesse and Al to step down. They’ve had 25 years to lead us. Other than their accountants, I’d be hard pressed to find someone who has benefited from their administration...None of this over-the-top grandstanding does Black America any good."
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