8109: Fear Of Failure To Communicate.

From The Chicago Tribune…

Islamophobia now competes with fearophobia
If we ban discussion of our secret fears, how can we bring light to bear on them?

By Ron Grossman

Like perhaps no other city, Paris is burdened by visitors’ expectations; images drawn from novels and movies are so freighted with emotion the reality can be disappointing.

And so it was for me during a month’s stay in the City of Lights. I didn’t see a single face-covering veil.

That wasn’t the reason for my visit, yet I was led to expect it. France, like other European countries, is rebounding from the open-arms welcome it once extended to Muslim immigrants. The French parliament recently outlawed the public wearing of the veil, though the ban has yet to go into effect.

Given the heated argument the legislation provoked, you’d might think it was addressed to a widespread phenomenon. Yet having walked the streets of Paris, from tonier neighborhoods to immigrant ghettos, I suggest that if you’re looking to see veiled women, Chicago’s Devon Avenue is the place to go.

In Paris, the only eyes I saw starring out of cloth-draped faces were in lithographs and paintings hanging in Paris’ museums. Nineteenth century French artists romanticized the mysterious East, just as contemporary France increasingly fears it.

It’s not that the French don’t have something to fear. On a newly released recording, Osama bin Laden threatened France with violence for its support of U.S. policy in the Middle East. When I left last Wednesday, heavily armed soldiers were patrolling tourist sites and the airport.

Yet if the problem is real, it’s hard to see how outlawing the veil is the solution. Theoretically, it could be — but wouldn’t there have to be veils to ban? To at least this visitor’s eyes, it seems like the French are opting for a psychological solution to an all-too-real danger. The Swiss took a similarly big step in the direction of irrationality, approving a referendum in December forbidding the building of minarets. Wars haven’t been won or lost by shooting down from urban towers since the feuds of the Medici and Borgia families in Renaissance Italy.

In the U.S., meanwhile, it’s not a distinctive dress or building form that’s under irrational attack, but fear itself. NPR fired a longtime on-air personality, Juan Williams, for having said that seeing Muslim attire on an airplane scares him. Now, I have no idea whether Williams is a fair-minded or narrow-minded person. But I ask you: Who among us hasn’t sometime felt something akin to that?

On leaving Paris, I had to take off my shoes at the airport. We didn’t used to have to do that and, I’d be willing to bet, every time we do, it’s a troubling reminder that the world changed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Ever since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we’ve been engaged in a two-front war: We’ve had to institute security procedures virtually unthinkable before this — and, at the same time, struggled to remind ourselves that not everyone who happens to share a religious conviction with the perpetrators of 9/11 is a terrorist.

That’s not an easy mental task. We weren’t able to make that distinction in World War II, and interned American citizens of Japanese descent. During World War I, anything German was verboten. Sauerkraut was rechristened Victory Cabbage.

We’ve been teetering on the brink of something similar lately. Islamophobia is alive in the land. Listen to talk radio, whose broadcasters and audience seem convinced there’s a terrorist in a turban or burqa hiding under their beds.

Yet the antidote for irrationality is not outlawing fear, or banning it from the airwaves, as NPR’s bosses seem to think. During World War II, it was said that Americans were fighting for freedom from fear. During the war on terror, we should be mindful of a parallel freedom: to be fearful, to have an emotional reaction to living with the threat of terrorist attack.

You don’t convince people that not all Muslims are violent by asking them to expunge their memory in the name of political correctness. The French tried that, which led to the current anti-veil backlash. Germany’s chancellor is now calling for an end to multiculturalism — a scarcely veiled attack on that country’s Turkish community.

If we want to keep that from happening here, we all — liberal, conservative and everything in between — need remind ourselves that the other person is entitled to his or her fears, however irrational they might seem. Or, to put it the other way around: Fearophobia is a surefire route to Islamophobia.

Ron Grossman is a Tribune reporter and former history professor.

8099: NPR Can’t Unplug Juan Williams Debacle.

From USA TODAY…

NPR’s disaster: The firing of Juan Williams

By Patrick Maines

OK, so right off the bat let’s deal with what NPR’s firing of Juan Williams is, and what it is not. It is a free speech issue, but it is not a First Amendment issue. This is an important distinction because while many First Amendment issues involve freedom of speech, and many free speech issues involve the First Amendment, it is not the case that all free speech issues are First Amendment issues.

At bottom, the Speech Clause of the First Amendment is a proscription on what government can do to the media, not on what the media can do themselves. As a practical matter what this means is that NPR’s management had the right to do what they did, and that, were this matter to go before a court, its resolution would not turn on First Amendment case law.

This said, the wisdom of the action taken, and what it suggests about the future of freedom of expression generally, are very much at issue here.

People of a certain age may remember the sad case of Jimmy (the Greek) Snyder, who was fired by CBS for some bizarre off-the-cuff comments he made about black athleticism while having a meal at a Washington restaurant. Other similar cases are those of Don Imus, and more recently Helen Thomas and Rick Sanchez.

So while there are some important differences in these cases, we’re beginning to see a pattern here: When reporters and commentators say things that arguably offend minorities (and thereby disturb the politically correct equilibrium) they get fired. And the question is whether this is the right, or even the intelligent, way to deal with such issues, especially for media companies?

It used to be believed that the best way to handle speech that is unfair or false was for more speech, not less, and by that measure a better way to have resolved many of these matters would have been for management to issue comments that mock, or directly challenge the falsities, in the offending comments.

Though the dust hasn’t even begun to settle, it’s already clear what many people, of varying political stripes, think of the way NPR has handled the Williams affair: They think it’s a disaster. As Howard Kurtz put it in a Daily Beast piece: “His firing has backfired, handing FOX a victory and making Williams a symbol of liberal intolerance — on the very day NPR announced a grant from George Soros that it never should have accepted.”

Indeed, the Soros revelation, combined with Republican and (especially) conservative antipathy for taxpayer support of PBS and NPR, guarantee that the Williams flap is not going away any time soon. As lamented here, there has been a coordinated and richly financed effort underway for months that has, as part of its aim, a substantial increase in government funding for public media generally, and that would oblige PBS member stations to redirect their news programs to more local coverage — the very thing that Soros’s contribution is designed to facilitate at NPR.

But that is a story that will play itself out in days to come. Front and center now is the question of the impact of the Williams affair on NPR, in which regard it might be useful to examine a couple statements; the offending one, made by Williams, and another, made after his firing, by the president of NPR, Vivian Schiller.

Here’s Williams’ comment: “Look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. But when I get on a 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.”

And here’s Schiller’s: “Juan Williams should have kept his feelings about Muslims between himself and his psychiatrist or his publicist.”

Under pressure, Schiller later apologized for her remark, but going forward that may not mean much. Put it this way, of these two comments which one do you think is the most mean-spirited and intemperate? And of the acts at issue — Williams’ comments or his firing — which one do you think does more damage to NPR?

Yes, I think so too.

Patrick Maines is president of The Media Institute, a non-profit organization that is funded by media and communications companies, including Gannett, parent of USA TODAY. The institute promotes a strong First Amendment, sound communications policies and excellence in journalism. The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not necessarily of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

8092: Appealing Rejections.

Weekend News in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• The Nevada Supreme Court rejected O.J. Simpson’s appeal. “This is but the first step in a very long line of appeals that Mr. Simpson has before him,” said one of Simpson’s attorneys. And yet another day Simpson is denied the ability to hunt for ex-wife Nicole’s real killers.

• Irate NPR listeners are responding to Juan Williams’ firing by curbing donations to radio stations nationwide, prompting board members to comment. “I agree with the principle, but am not happy with the execution,” said an NPR board member about the termination. “The execution was very poorly timed. You have a lot of stations who are in fund drive mode now and that’s making it difficult.” Or maybe NPR should make a fundraising appeal to Muslims.

8089: Taking Back And Talking Back.

Working toward the weekend in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, has asked that her name be removed from the memo criticizing the new healthcare law as being unconstitutional. Wonder if she’ll soon request that the bizarre apology message be deleted from Anita Hill’s voicemail.

• Ginni Thomas’ message for Anita Hill likely inspired other unintended responses from women who knew Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. A former colleague and girlfriend declared Mr. Thomas was “obsessed with porn” and the bodies of female associates. “He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners,” said the ex-girlfriend. “It was a hobby of his.” Yes, he’s always appeared to be a hobbyist.

• Juan Williams is firing back at the NPR CEO who fired him over his comments about Muslims. NPR CEO Vivian Schiller stated that NPR reporters and news analysts should not forward controversial opinions. She also snipped that Williams’ feelings about Muslims should remain between him and “his psychiatrist or his publicist—take your pick.” Williams argued Schiller’s remarks were made because she had a weak case for firing him. “I think it’s a very weak case,” said Williams. “And so ultimately what I think she had to do then is to make it an ad hominem or personal attack.” Gee, Williams even gets nervous when he encounters NPR CEOs.

• Mickey D’s plans to increase the prices of menu items by at least 2 percent in 2011. Look for similar increases in global obesity rates.

8088: Juan Williams’ Defenders Make You Nervous.

From The Chicago Tribune…

Defenders of NPR commentator miss the point

By Rex W. Huppke
Tribune staff reporter

National Public Radio, usually one of the less controversial outlets in today’s noisy media world, has found itself at the center of a political firestorm, launched by news analyst Juan Williams’ televised admission that he gets “nervous” when he sees Muslims on planes.

NPR wasted no time firing Williams, saying his comments on Fox News weren’t in line with NPR’s ethics and that he had been warned previously to not express public opinions on controversial issues. Later, Fox News handed Williams a contract worth nearly $2 million, a considerable bump from his previous salary.

Predictably, Republican talkers like Mike Huckabee pounced on NPR, saying today that the news organization was guilty of censorship. Newt Gingrich encouraged Congress to investigate NPR and consider pulling its federal funding, saying, “Every listener to NPR should be enraged that there’s this kind of bias against an American.”

And in her now easily recognizable Twitter voice, Sarah Palin posited: “NPR defends 1st Amendment Right, but will fire u if u exercise it. Juan Williams: u got taste of Left’s hypocrisy, they screwed up firing you.”

Firing someone for violating company protocol doesn’t seem like a First Amendment violation, but such nuanced legal arguments are best left to scholars. What should be agreed upon swiftly by regular folks is that there’s rarely, if ever, anything to be gained by painting people with a broad brush.

We’ve been dealing with this issue for months now, since debate began raging over the construction of an Islamic cultural center several blocks away from Ground Zero in New York City. It seems the country is divided over whether it’s fair to peg responsibility for the atrocities committed by a group of extremists on an entire faith, one that comprises 1.5 billion people worldwide.

It’s not fair. We should know this. It’s a basic tenet of human decency to not damn the masses for the actions of the few.

If there’s a complaint to be made about Williams’ firing, it may be that his comments were out of character. Many have already stood up to defend him against cries of bigotry. It’s even fair to argue his comments were taken out of context, as he went on to say that America has “an obligation to protect the constitutional rights of everyone in the country.”

But Gingrich and Palin and Huckabee said nothing to indicate they were bothered by Williams’ assertion that it’s OK to lump all Muslims in with the 9/11 terrorists.

Juan Williams’ comments, however he meant them, were offensive. But the swift responses from his defenders on the right may have been, in what they failed to say, even worse.