I haven't been too compelled to write the last few weeks, life, as it were, with its events, busy, happy and sad, edging it out, particularly when its evidence does not also represent income, but only the urge and desire to share something with a larger audience who might be interested or moved by it.
But today is different. There is still lots to do. It's April 15th, after all, and taxes loom and hover everywhere if yours too are not yet done, just as in those clever TurboTax commercials.
I heard the most thoughtful and promising, which is the key to this post, discussion on Meet The Press today among the following participants - it's host, Tim Russert, and guests David Brooks, Gwen Ifill, John Harwood, and Eugene Robinson. The discussion was about Don Imus and the remarks he made in reference to the Rutgers women's basketball team, who made it to this year's NCAA Division I basketball championships. And since that discussion and this post is in part about race, it's informative to know that David Brooks is Jewish, and Gwen Ifill and Eugene Robinson are African-American.
I won't repeat what Mr. Imus said, but it's everywhere, and you've likely already heard, more times than you care too. The comments were a critique of the women's - appearance - not their basketball prowess, and certainly not, as Dr. King long ago asked of us, on the content of their character.
Now, sometimes people doing a very public thing, and certainly performing in the NCAA championship qualifies, consciously exhibit an appearance so outlandish that it literally begs for attention, begs for people to notice, begs for comment. I googled a team photo shortly after hearing about the incident. I saw a great photo of what looked like the entire starting five walking toward the photographer, dejectedly, after just having lost.
They looked fine. A basketball game is not a dress-up affair, but for a national game it will occur to many to look his or her best, and I thought they all did. They were an attractive group of young women, of student athletes. And I suspect they did their parents and everyone proud.
And they accomplished a great thing which only comes from dedication and hard work. So why was Don Imus criticizing their appearance?
The Meet the Press crew captured this brilliantly. Apparently, we found out at the end, they were supposed to also discuss Iraq and Alberto Gonzales' latest troubles, but their conversation grew organically and overtook those priorities. Thankfully so.
Brooks hit on it first - somehow important given that he is white - then Ms. Ifill spoke from a self-evident and concise moral rectitude one could have imagined coming from Dr. King were he seated at that table. Everyone else followed with bulbs and garland for the same tree. Remarkable, among journalists, media people, and just movers-and-shakers in Washington in general who seek to draw the conclusion, make the point which distinguishes and sets them apart.
Brooks said, in effect - and I encourage you very much to hear or watch the entire segment online - and Ifill quickly followed, literally, with an eloquence only available to those possessive of an enlightened and bare moral truth, the Imus event was a "national moment" (Ms. Ifill's phrase) with regard to cruel characterizations of race, in this case, of African-Americans, but not limited to African-Americans.
They acknowledged that what Mr. Imus said was no worse, perhaps not as bad, as comments made by other "shock jocks", like Howard Stern, for instance, or by comedians (one need only tune in David Letterman or The Tonight Show) white, black, or of any other racial stripe, or in hip-hop music which denegrates and degrades liberally based on race and gender.
And there was also acknowledgement, among this racially mixed group, that it all represents a collective polluting of discourse, our public, national discourse, something akin to foul air that we have all breathed for a long time without thinking too much about it, yet with a sense of unease, not generally shared, but accepted, tramped down and kept inside for reasons for which we are not fully certain.
It's how national moments gestate - from having been kept down, from not having been objected to in a way which is impactful and actually makes a difference, holds someone or something accountable, where that someone and something may include us.
David Brooks acknowledged such complicity in going on Imus because it had become, with all clever and capable credit to Mr. Imus, an elite place where elites in politics and media went to make their case. He said he wasn't a listener and didn't pay attention to what Don Imus had to say the other 99.9% of the time (my words), but he confessed to the same unease everyone confessed to when, in the five minutes or so prior to going on the air via phone he heard some exchange between Imus and his wife and son, I believe, where Imus called his wife stupid (or similar insult) and she countered with her own insult, while the son just laughed. Our faces often give us away, and his, Mr. Brook's, was one of a sinking unease even as he told the story.
If these five individuals are right - and it's hard not to be struck by the genuineness and intelligence of this group - then the Imus moment was more than an insult, it was a percolating, no, an eruption of "enough". It was an explosion within a grain elevator filled too high with an acceptance of mean-speak within a broad and diverse culture, and from many corners of it. Enough. It's not cool, anymore. It's not hip, anymore. Not for Jay Leno. Not for Chris Rock. Not for Don Imus. Enough. I'm not suggesting we can't any longer have fun with the differences between us, including as tied to race, religion, culture, behavior, likes, dislikes and so on. I'm saying meanness and denegration as humor or sport had its day, its era when we ignored it sometimes, laughed at it other times, and uneasily accepted it most of the time. The Imus incident led quickly, almost impatiently to a larger consideration of mean and denegrading speech from all quarters. And the verdict among this group, and I think among many of us is - enough.
Thank you to Meet The Press for bringing us that discussion, to those individuals, and to Tim Russert for sensing the importance of that conversation and allowing it to continue. The link to the entire show is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10005066/
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