BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Facts do not apply in the world of <>
It seems to me this line of thinking--that voicing one's own private, emotional responses to the sight of people in "Muslim garb" boarding a plane (before a national audience, as if it were a respect-worthy contention), just shows that you're keeping it real, righteously resisting PC "paralysis" and addressing "reality"--itself emerges from buying into perhaps the most problematic aspect of O'Reilly's position: that such feelings are fundamentally rational, grounded in a considered response to facts, and therefore if any mis-fit occurs between what reason tells you and what your gut tells you, integrity demands that you share it. But of course, that's not how prejudice works, and Williams knows it in spite of himself ("I'm not a bigot, but..."). We've been exposed for decades now, certainly not just since 9/11, to a steady diet of highly negative images of (otherwise unfamiliar) Muslims: the requisite "angry Arab street" clip when Middle East events make the news; the "Death to America!" sequence when Iran makes the news; the merciless mujahideen story when Afghanistan makes the news, etc. When you're living in an environment where you have what's perhaps in some ways the luxury of all this seeming quite remote, then it doesn't necessarily affect your gut reactions to everyday social situations. But when a 9/11 occurs, something which causes us to feel threatened in a far more immediate way, the 'conclusions' drawn from those images can readily sync with that fear, enabling precisely the kinds of associative leaps that--as Williams himself points out--we wouldn't make with entities that seem familiar, trusted. The resulting emotions aren't based on reasoned evaluations of how statistically likely a given individual is to constitute a meaningful threat, and addressing them adequately isn't a simple matter of saying, Oh, okay, so my math was off in that case.(WILLIAMS) ...But I think you're right. I think, look, political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don't address reality. I mean, look, 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. Now, I remember also that when the Times Square bomber was at court, I think this was just last week. He said the war with Muslims, America's war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts.
... Wait a second though, wait, hold on, because if you said Timothy McVeigh, the Atlanta bomber, these people who are protesting against homosexuality at military funerals, very obnoxious, you don't say first and foremost, we got a problem with Christians. That's crazy.
(O'REILLY) But it's not at that level. It doesn't rise near to that level.
(WILLIAMS) Correct. That's--and when you said in the talking points memo a moment ago that there are good Muslims, I think that's a point, you know?
I can understand the criticism that NPR would've done better simply to reprimand Williams and demand an apology/'clarification' instead. Then again, his own voluntarily offered 'clarifications' since his firing suggest to me that he still doesn't really grasp (or accept) why what he said was problematic.
Good to have you back.
^Yes!
Jesse Jackson disagrees w you
what kills ppl here is:
One man:Juan Williams > NPR.
a crushing blow.
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