Juan williams fired from NPR

Puppycow said:
I do agree with this. A terrorist, unless he was stupid, would probably dress in anything but traditional muslim garb. And I also think that NPR has every right to fire him. Because, while not bigotry, his comments were insensitive. Williams just got a new $2 million contract from Fox, so he's laughing all the way to the bank anyway.
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Glad we agree, but I am going to pull one of the all-time nitpicks ever on you for something off-topic:

I prefer the term, "He's crying all the way to the bank." This is the natural sarcastic response to when people say something like, "Gee, I feel for the poor guy, they fired him!"

"Yeah, me too, I'll bet he's crying...all the way to the bank!"


:):)
 
thaiboxerken said:
2 million dollar contract to work for Fox. This just confirms that he's a bigot.
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Now that he's been fired from NPR, it will be interesting to see how much he resembles a "Liberal on Fair-and-balanced Fox" that people like Cicero so like to point to.
 
William Saletan from Slate has this take:
The left is doing to Juan Williams what the right did to Shirley Sherrod

The passage quoted by NPR and the Times is a dead ringer for a video clip of Williams, branded and distributed by Think Progress. The clip, which cleverly isolates the offending comment, has circulated among left-wing Web sites, just as the Sherrod clip circulated among right-wing sites. (The Washington Post also directs readers to the clip.) But the full transcript of Williams' appearance on The O'Reilly Factor, like the full video of Sherrod's speech to the NAACP, tells a much more complicated story.
. . .
Sometimes a confession of prejudice is part of a larger reflection on the perils of prejudice. That was true of Sherrod. And it's true of Williams.

The damning video clip of Williams, like the damning clip of Sherrod, cuts off the speaker just as he's about to reverse course. According to the full transcript, immediately after saying, "I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts," Williams continues: "But I think there are people who want to somehow remind us all as President Bush did after 9/11, it's not a war against Islam." That continuation has been conveniently snipped from the excerpt.

A few seconds later, Williams challenges O'Reilly's suggestion that "the Muslims attacked us on 9/11." Williams points out how wrong it would be to generalize similarly about Christians:

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.

Williams reminds O'Reilly that "there are good Muslims." A short while later, O'Reilly asks: "Juan, who is posing a problem in Germany? Is it the Muslims who have come there, or the Germans?" Williams refuses to play the group blame game. "See, you did it again," he tells O'Reilly. "It's extremists."
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Just thinking said:
This I find interesting.

Whether one agrees with Whoopie isn't the point, as is what I see as a blatant hypocrisy. When Bill O'Reilly said on the View that Muslims attacked us on 9/11, it was simply a fact. Of course he didn't mean all Muslims are terrorists --- anyone with 2 or more working brain cells knew that --- but that didn't matter. To many that was clearly going to be how they wanted his words to be interpreted, end of story. Now, with Juan --- whom Whoopie is defending --- it seems we have a very similar view, in that the appearance of observed Muslims boarding a plane gives him pause to be concerned. For this concern to be real, it seems to me that one must view all identifiable Muslims as potential threats, at least on planes.

So why is Bill's comment --- factually correct --- so repugnant to her while only days later Juan's comment is highly defensible?
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If only Whoopi walked off the "The View" set after defending Juan. Then at least she would be consistent.
 
GreNME said:
Actually, that is bigotry, and pretty textbook at that.

Listen, my house is in southern Dallas-- good luck finding a gas station at 2 AM where there aren't some kids with baggy pants and darker skin. What you describe isn't situational awareness, it's just prejudicial blaming of an entire group for actions not representative of the group. What you're calling situational awareness is based on ignorance and paranoid assumption... pretty much core components of bigotry.
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Inside Washington host Tina Gulland: "I don’t think I have any Jesse Helms defenders here. Nina?"

Nina Totenberg: "Not me, I think he ought to be worried about what’s going on in the Good Lord’s mind, because if there is retributive justice, he’ll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it."-- National Public Radio and ABC News reporter Nina Totenberg reacting to Senator Jesse Helms’ claim that the government spends too much on AIDS research, July 8, 1995 Inside Washington.

Nina should be getting her pink slip from NPR any day now. Oh wait. That's the sort of comment that attracts George Soros to support NPR.
 
Just thinking said:
This I find interesting.

Whether one agrees with Whoopie isn't the point, as is what I see as a blatant hypocrisy. When Bill O'Reilly said on the View that Muslims attacked us on 9/11, it was simply a fact. Of course he didn't mean all Muslims are terrorists --- anyone with 2 or more working brain cells knew that --- but that didn't matter. To many that was clearly going to be how they wanted his words to be interpreted, end of story. Now, with Juan --- whom Whoopie is defending --- it seems we have a very similar view, in that the appearance of observed Muslims boarding a plane gives him pause to be concerned. For this concern to be real, it seems to me that one must view all identifiable Muslims as potential threats, at least on planes.

So why is Bill's comment --- factually correct --- so repugnant to her while only days later Juan's comment is highly defensible?
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I agree with this.

But the robot avatar makes me nervous that I am going to be enslaved.
 
Just thinking said:
So why is Bill's comment --- factually correct --- so repugnant to her while only days later Juan's comment is highly defensible?
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Because context and implication counts. Though, for what it's worth, I still don't find Williams' comments "highly defensible" even given the context. He simply displays what's wrong with perceptions of Muslims. O'Reilly does jack and squat to accept that there's anything wrong with stating things in an inciting manner, and tends to give every indication that his doing so is deliberate.
 
GreNME said:
Because context and implication counts. .
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And NPR couldn't resist taking Juan's comments out of context.

"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.

But I think there are people who want to somehow remind us all as President Bush did after 9/11, it's not a war against Islam."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71pWw51uLsc


Is NRP disputing what Faisal Shahzad said when he pled guilty in the Times Square plot?

"Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me."

Why can't Juan manage to keep his feelings to himself such as the other NPR stoic folks such as Terry Gross, Diane Rehm, Nina Totenberg and Daniel Schorr. Maybe NPR is just afraid of Muslim retribution. You know, the way the Washington Post and other papers panicked and pulled "Non Sequitur" 'Where's Muhammad?' cartoon.
 
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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Except there is a reason for the fear.

The reason is that there are some Muslims around the world that have worked very hard for a very long time to put that fear into people. It's the reaction the OBL's and other extremists want and have spilled a lot of blood to make happen. It's not your fault or Juan William's fault if you have a normal reaction.

It's certainly wrong to categorize all Muslims as bad based on the behavior of a few, but wondering where any given person falls on the spectrum isn't itself prejudiced. The truth is Islamic terrorism is the leading cause of Islamaphobia. Without that, nobody would care about Muslims on airplanes.
 
Mycroft said:
Except there is a reason for the fear.

The reason is that there are some Muslims around the world that have worked very hard for a very long time to put that fear into people. It's the reaction the OBL's and other extremists want and have spilled a lot of blood to make happen. It's not your fault or Juan William's fault if you have a normal reaction.

It's certainly wrong to categorize all Muslims as bad based on the behavior of a few, but wondering where any given person falls on the spectrum isn't itself prejudiced. The truth is Islamic terrorism is the leading cause of Islamaphobia. Without that, nobody would care about Muslims on airplanes.
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I think this is true except that what is being magnified is also being distorted in the effort. You could see this if you prefaced everything the U.S. is doing in the middle east with the adjective, "Christian".

The root question that isn't addressed is whether the terrorism is driven by religion or politics -- or some mix. When I hear Christian commentators on U.S. television espousing their particular spin, I wonder how it would go down if they inserted "Christian" in the mix. It would be true in most cases, but it would also be irrelevant.

"Christian President Barack Obama announced today..."
"The Christian forces of the U.S. Army continue to make progress..."
"Bill O'Reilly, a Christian commentator on FOX, had this to say..."
 
rwguinn said:
Are you intentionally being obtuse?
The relevance is not the dress--it is the association, and the self-identification "Hey, look at me! I am a Muslim, in an airport. Remember what Muslims did on 9/11/2001?" is the message many people see. Were it not for the dress, one might have no idea that they ARE Muslim.
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Let's try a thought experiment. Let's say the subject is a Catholic priest in full religious clothing. Is the following statement acceptable?

The relevance is not the dress--it is the association, and the self-identification "Hey, look at me! I am a Catholic priest. Remember how some Catholic priests sexually abused children?" is the message many people see. Were it not for the dress, one might have no idea that they ARE Catholic priests.
 
rwguinn said:
^^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.
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Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasp!

OMFSM! Just last night my wife and I went to a Chinese take our place to get food for the people at the clinic! There were 5-6 black guys hanging around the shop & I got a phone call right before we got there so I let her go in by herself! When I read you and Zig's posts I asked her if she was nervous and she said no! Ohhhhh lawdy lawd! My black semen must have blinded her to such perils! (Insert joke here.)
 
Threads on same subject merged. Apologies for any confusion from mixing up of posts.
Posted By: Cuddles
 
GreNME said:
Because context and implication counts. Though, for what it's worth, I still don't find Williams' comments "highly defensible" even given the context. He simply displays what's wrong with perceptions of Muslims. O'Reilly does jack and squat to accept that there's anything wrong with stating things in an inciting manner, and tends to give every indication that his doing so is deliberate.
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If you are referring to Bill's line that Muslims attacked us on 9/11 as inciting, even after numerous clarifications that he knows we all know that he doesn't mean all Muslims, and that its the sensitivity of the Mosque issue, then I don't really see how it's inciting. Controversial, perhaps ... but inciting? I would bet that if no one made any issue of his comments at that point in time, it would have simply gone over with no further reaction, and the discussion would have continued debating the people's reaction to the Mosque's location.
 
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Mycroft said:
... The truth is Islamic terrorism is the leading cause of Islamaphobia. Without that, nobody would care about Muslims on airplanes.
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And it's not just 9/11. Fortunately the 2006 plot out of Europe failed where numerous airplanes were targeted to have liquid devices detonate thus causing planes to literally fall out of the sky over several US cities. Those weren't the Amish getting all fired up. And let's not forget the shoe-bomber.
 
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Should Nina Totenberg been let go for wishing AIDS on someone? Doesn't that cross journalistic and ethical lines?

 
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