You’d believe that if you’re the kind of person who thinks that daily periodical USA Today is printed by way of spraying truth dust on bible parchment. Judging by the fact that it’s the #1 selling newspaper, the odds are high that the average American might just agree with my sarcastic and misleading headline.
While they also threw Joe Wilson, R-SC on the page too, to make it seem like they’re not trying to paint black people as the reason for the peril of civility, I’d say that Joe Wilson should have been there, because he did something that actually matters. All Kanye West did was hurt a 19-year-old megastar’s feelings, and all Serena Williams did was threaten a referee with death by tiny yellow fuzzy sphere. Joe Wilson continued the hack tradition of misleading the public to believe bullshit about the healthcare debate that is simply and easily disproven.
In the House Bill, (Sec. 246) titled “NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS,” states: “Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.”
A rapper and an athlete were rude, but their acts, albeit in the public sphere, are far from the DESTROYING THE NATIONAL FABRIC level of sin that the mainstream media (i.e. old white people in dead tree media, like David Brooks, who had to mention Kanye and Michael Jordan in the same sentence as Joe Wilson in his NYT op-ed today) are making these moments out to be. Also, their professions are in the Entertainment industry, which I think it’s safe to say Politicians should not be classified as, no matter how unproductive they tend to be.
Is there anyone that should be blamed for demolishing the national conversation that we’ve been led to believe this nation used to have and hold so near and dear to itself?
Well, I’d say all of us are to blame, at least those of us who don’t speak out when douchebaggery goes unchecked. We let our tempers undo our thinking for us, and it leads to a nation where the phrase “Fox News Channel” isn’t always followed by laughter.
A nation where one of my favorite funnymen, Jon Stewart, during his return from a three-week vacation last night, still thinks it’s great to make Black People Yell During Movies jokes (Jon, remember: you’re the host of a quasi respectable news show, you’re not Greg Giraldo scraping the barrel of obvious at the Comedy Central Roast of Flavor Flav).
A nation where science is on the verge of being outlawed below the Mason-Dixon line because Jesus isn’t in The Periodic Table Of Elements.
A nation where doctors at Planned Parenthood fear for their safety on a daily routine, simply because they practice legal medicine.
Simply put: we’ve got a tendency to walk around as a nation of haters.
Yes, Kanye is a douchebag, and the Williams sisters really get into the game of tennis to the verge of orgasm-sounding guttural noises on the court, but for both of these examples, they’re far from the only ones in their field who are guilty. Tim Commerford, of the sort of defunct Rage Against the Machine, was so offended that MTV, bastion of great music programming, gave an award to Limp Bizkit and not his band, that he stormed the stage, and scaled the set and had to be talked down from his temper tantrum, which lasted FAR longer than Kanye’s did. And in terms of Tennis, I only have two words for you: John McEnroe. But because USA TODAY needs to sell copies, they forget that everybody’s been shitting on each other for far longer than this almost over decade, and the especially vitriolic last summer.
And the public loves this stuff. Almost everyone on Twitter for the last two days has just turned into Kanye Joke Spam Bots, myself included. But there’s a simple line between joke and hate: anger. Where else is anger less stomachable and obvious than when the N word comes into play. Reggie Osse, twitter user Combat_Jack, spent a good part of tonight highlighting the guano-insane racism directed in Kanye’s direction on twitter.
It’s the responsibility of the adults in the room, who used to be the media, to step in and try to curb the anger and racism and educate people, back to sensibility, even if they’re kicking and screaming. But no, Glenn Beck, who I mentioned earlier, is at the center of this all, making himself filthy rich, not that CNN Headline News didn’t bring him there already, off of his 9/12 Movement, which is another phrase that the lunatic fringe The Birthers/Truthers/Lyndon LaRouchers/Tenthers/Deathers/etc. will be veiled in other than their real name: The Racists.
The rest of the non-Fox MSM, for the most part, gave a lot of coverage to the Glenn Beckers as they marched on Washington this weekend. Lately, in discussion with friends and family, I’ve shared my disapproval for the way Obama’s handling the health care reform. I think he’s been ineffective and too defensive. The same can be said 100 times over for the majority of the Democratic Party. What I do approve of, though, is the constant turning of the cheek that Obama’s given to the nutters in the street. I don’t know how I could have not, if I were in his shoes, spent my weekend throwing water balloons filled with piss at these groups, or at least had Rahm Emanuel do it for me. At least in this capacity, we finally have a President who displays the maturity we all should strive to achieve.
But yes, every moral high ground has an exception, and mine is Glenn Beck, who I will argue is one of the five biggest assholes on television.
