Juan williams fired from NPR

Ziggurat said:
I'm reminded on another quote similar to what Williams got fired for:

"I hate to admit it, but I have reached a stage in my life that if I am walking down a dark street late at night and I see that the person behind me is white, I subconsciously feel relieved."

Any guess as to the bigot who said this?
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Does the fact that Jesse Jackson said a bigoted thing (and he's said many, many bigoted things, against far more than other African-Americans) make what Williams said any less bigoted?
 
Update at 4:30 p.m. ET





"Used an honest statement of feeling as the basis for a charge of bigotry to create a basis for firing me. Well, now that I no longer work for NPR let me give you my opinion. This is an outrageous violation of journalistic standards and ethics by management that has no use for a diversity of opinion, ideas or a diversity of staff (I was the only black male on the air). This is evidence of one-party rule and one sided thinking at NPR that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing. It leads to people, especially journalists, being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...terminates-juan-williams-contract?ft=1&f=1003


Gulag? Really? He was there for 10 years!


I foresee the Juan Williams Show coming to FOX soon.
 
ANTPogo said:
Does the fact that Jesse Jackson said a bigoted thing (and he's said many, many bigoted things, against far more than other African-Americans) make what Williams said any less bigoted?
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Is Roadtoad a bigot for saying the same thing?
 
Ziggurat said:
So what's wrong with admitting that? Why are you doing it now, and why was it verboten for Williams to have said essentially the same thing that you just said?
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Humans have that reaction sometimes. But while it's an understandable and common reaction, it's still a bigoted reaction.

Saying "I get nervous around people of race/nationality/creed/whatever X, but I understand that's an irrational and bigoted reaction in me" is one thing (and hopefully followed by saying something like "I don't like that reaction in me, and am working on that").

Saying "I get nervous around people of race/nationality/creed/whatever X, but I'm totally not a bigot, so it's perfectly okay for me to do that" is something else entirely.
 
ANTPogo said:
Does the fact that Jesse Jackson said a bigoted thing (and he's said many, many bigoted things, against far more than other African-Americans) make what Williams said any less bigoted?
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Why is it bigoted?
 
Roadtoad said:
Why stay stupid? (And, yes, I'm genuinely curious about Muslims, and would like to know more, rather than get my information from antagonistic sources.)
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What is stupid about having a feeling that you yourself admitted to having?
 
applecorped said:
Is Roadtoad a bigot for saying the same thing?
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No, as I explain in my post above. He has an admittedly bigoted reaction, but he does not see that as a good thing, and has said he sees it as an opportunity to change and to reach out.

Having bigoted reactions does not make you a bigot. Having bigoted reactions, and embracing those reactions, refusing to acknowledge that they are bigoted, that's what makes you a bigot.
 
ANTPogo said:
No, as I explain in my post above. He has an admittedly bigoted reaction, but he does not see that as a good thing, and has said he sees it as an opportunity to change and to reach out.

Having bigoted reactions does not make you a bigot. Having bigoted reactions, and embracing those reactions, refusing to acknowledge that they are bigoted, that's what makes you a bigot.
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Thank you.
 
Ziggurat said:
Why is it bigoted?
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Because it's making a judgment about an individual's attitudes and behavior based not on directly experiencing said individual's attitudes and behavior, but based on some superficial characteristic that the individual shares with someone else. It's pre-judging that individual - prejudice.
 
Roadtoad said:
It is stupid to keep feeling it when with additional information, (and open contact), you discover there's no reason for it.
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You said: "Yes, people in traditional Muslim garb make me nervous, too .."

Seems like present tense. Are you stupid to feel this way or was it a one time thing that you have gotten over since you posted that?
 
applecorped said:
You said: "Yes, people in traditional Muslim garb make me nervous, too .."

Seems like present tense. Are you stupid to feel this way or was it a one time thing that you have gotten over since you posted that?
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You're assuming that a prejudice is easily dealt with after one or two contacts. Not so.

Sadly, there are those Muslims I meet who enjoy confirming my worst biases, but there are also those who don't. Dealing with your own hate is a long term process, and there are times when we fail, sometimes badly. The trick -- at least for me -- it to maintain the effort and learn from our mistakes, as well as our success.

Funny, the more I talk to Muslims, the more I come to realize that they're not as advertised.
 
ANTPogo said:
Humans have that reaction sometimes. But while it's an understandable and common reaction, it's still a bigoted reaction.
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So if it's understandable, and in fact fairly normal, why was Williams fired for admitting it?

Saying "I get nervous around people of race/nationality/creed/whatever X, but I understand that's an irrational and bigoted reaction in me" is one thing (and hopefully followed by saying something like "I don't like that reaction in me, and am working on that").

Saying "I get nervous around people of race/nationality/creed/whatever X, but I'm totally not a bigot, so it's perfectly okay for me to do that" is something else entirely.
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So some thoughts can only be expressed if you follow the appropriate formula, the determination of which is arbitrary and capricious. But that's nonsense. That isn't a tenable situation if you actually want open debate. Of course, not everyone does want open debate.

The deep irony here is that Williams was actually arguing that O'Reilly SHOULD qualify his statements more than he did.
 
ANTPogo said:
Because it's making a judgment about an individual's attitudes and behavior based not on directly experiencing said individual's attitudes and behavior, but based on some superficial characteristic that the individual shares with someone else. It's pre-judging that individual - prejudice.
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This is an uncomfortable truth for many people, but there's a very good reason people use prejudice: it works. There really are correlations between appearance and behavior. If you see someone in a paramedic's uniform, is it prejudicial to assume they know CPR? Why yes, yes it is. It's also eminently sensible. There's nothing categorically wrong with prejudice when it's built on real correlations. And there is a genuine correlation between airplane terrorism and Muslims.

In this particular case, you don't like the effects that prejudice can produce: namely, you don't like that people may move from thought to action, and treat people badly who don't deserve to be treated badly. I would agree that such a result is a bad thing. But actions and thoughts are not the same thing. There's a reason that punishing people for "thought crimes" is repugnant. And it's hard to escape the conclusion that what Williams is being punished for here is admitting to a thought crime. At no point did Williams ever advocate doing anything against Muslims. At no point did Williams even say that the thoughts he had should be shared by anyone else. The only thing he did was admit to having a prejudice that comes from noticing a genuine (and obvious) correlation. Given everything else he said (and I'd recommend watching the full segment, not just the short clip), it's clear that Williams actually took pains to say that he didn't think Muslims in general were any sort of threat.
 
I don't think that Juan Williams should have been fired from NPR for what he said, but he's wrong. The Muslims we need to worry about don't wear exotic outfits- they blend in so they don't attract attention to themselves.

A short list of examples: the 9/11 terrorists, the 7/7 terrorists (the London bus bombing), Colleen LaRose (aka "Jihad Jane"), Richard Reid (the shoe bomber), Nidal Hasan (the Fort Hood massacre), Bilal Abdullah (attacked the Glasgow airport), Umar Abdulmutallab (the underwear bomber), Faisal Shahzad (the Times Square Bomber), etc, etc, etc.

The moral is: don't worry next time you see a Muslim with a skullcap, white robes, and a long beard on a plane. He wouldn't dress that way if he wanted to hurt you.
 
Roadtoad said:
You're assuming that a prejudice is easily dealt with after one or two contacts. Not so.

Sadly, there are those Muslims I meet who enjoy confirming my worst biases, but there are also those who don't. Dealing with your own hate is a long term process, and there are times when we fail, sometimes badly. The trick -- at least for me -- it to maintain the effort and learn from our mistakes, as well as our success.

Funny, the more I talk to Muslims, the more I come to realize that they're not as advertised.
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I don't think Juan disagrees with you. He went on to explain this to O'Reilly after his initial comments. This reminds me of the Sherrod debacle.
 
Praktik said:
I dunno why jews wear those things on their heads. It's like they're identifying them first and foremost as jews - not Americans.

I am suspicious their loyalty may be to another state.
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For that matter, why do black people like Juan have to go around showing off their skin color? They put their race before everything else. It maketh me poop my pants.
 
Ziggurat said:
This is an uncomfortable truth for many people, but there's a very good reason people use prejudice: it works. There really are correlations between appearance and behavior. If you see someone in a paramedic's uniform, is it prejudicial to assume they know CPR? Why yes, yes it is. It's also eminently sensible. There's nothing categorically wrong with prejudice when it's built on real correlations. And there is a genuine correlation between airplane terrorism and Muslims.

In this particular case, you don't like the effects that prejudice can produce: namely, you don't like that people may move from thought to action, and treat people badly who don't deserve to be treated badly. I would agree that such a result is a bad thing. But actions and thoughts are not the same thing. There's a reason that punishing people for "thought crimes" is repugnant. And it's hard to escape the conclusion that what Williams is being punished for here is admitting to a thought crime. At no point did Williams ever advocate doing anything against Muslims. At no point did Williams even say that the thoughts he had should be shared by anyone else. The only thing he did was admit to having a prejudice that comes from noticing a genuine (and obvious) correlation. Given everything else he said (and I'd recommend watching the full segment, not just the short clip), it's clear that Williams actually took pains to say that he didn't think Muslims in general were any sort of threat.
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^^this
If I am on a college campus, black, brow, yellow or green kids in baggy pants with their drawers showing are not going to bother me.
If I pull in to an all-night gas station in North Ft Worth at 2:00 Am, they will make me nervous--possibly to the point of going elsewhere for my snickers bar and gas. Is that bigotry? Nope--it is called "Situational Awareness"
Being nervous about folks in Muslim Dress in an airport is a legitimate reaction to past events and human failings.
Doing something about it--reporting them as "suspicious", or refusing to board the same plane, would be a different story. Feeling nervous? no.
 
ANTPogo said:
No, as I explain in my post above. He has an admittedly bigoted prejudiced reaction, but he does not see that as a good thing, and has said he sees it as an opportunity to change and to reach out.
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Having bigoted prejudiced reactions does not make you a bigot. Having bigoted prejudiced reactions, and embracing those reactions, refusing to acknowledge that they are bigoted unethical when they become apparent, that's what makes you a bigot.

Here's where I think the distinction between prejudice and bigotry is useful.
 
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