Juan Williams made a foolish and silly comment to Bill O'Reilly about Muslims the other day. But does it amount to a firing offense? No way. National Public Radio has badly blundered in sacking Williams.
No one who is familiar with Williams or his written record could possibly think that the man is a racist. On the contrary, he's been one of the most lucid journalists on race, not to mention a host of other matters. One of his most memorable pieces came years ago when he described his stint living in Japan. One day he went into a public bath and everyone immediately exited. He realized that it wasn't because he was African-American. It was because they were discombobulated at the notion of sharing a bath with any westerner. That's the kind of distinction that testifies to a keen journalistic eye, and Williams has one.
Williams won't be the loser for leaving NPR. NPR will. At some point political correctness overwhelms common sense. Yes, there should be taboos when it comes to public discourse. Some taboos are necessary and even vital. Yes, trash-talking about Muslims has become dangerously prevalent.
But firing Williams only feeds those sentiments. The honorable thing would have been for Williams to apologize and for NPR to have moved on. Now it's created a furor and turned Williams into a martyr. Williams will survive his firing. The real loser isn't Williams, but NPR.
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=100453
If journalists are looking for something to get outraged about, they should read how Tom Shales (Wash. Post) has been let go because his paper is going down the toilet. Now if he had been canned because of what he said about Christiane Amanpour, it would be a different story & media types would be coming out of the woodwork to defend him, thus ensuring Mr. Shales of a future gig based on notoriety.
Is anyone surprised that not many women seem to be coming to Juan's defense?
YOU CAN BE VERY ACCEPTING OF SOME RACES/GROUPS/RELIGIONS AND STILL BIGOTED TOWARD OTHERS!
Of course Juan Williams isn't bigoted toward his own race! Neither is Louis Farrakhan, but that didn't keep him from being openly antisemitic, and it apparently hasn't kept Williams from expressing openly anti-muslim views to his own disgrace.
Want to know the easiest way to identify a genuinely bigoted statement on television? It starts with the phrase "You know I'm not bigoted but ..." and ends with the phrase "I'm just being honest."
I'm no fan of "gotcha" firings for a single controversial or poorly thought-out statement, but in a world where we've been deprived of Helen Thomas, and dedicated public servants like Van Jones are fired for trumped up views they don't even hold, I won't shed a single tear for Juan.
and since their are 5 billion mulims in the world, probably best for Juan to jus6t stay at home.
(1) Mr. Heilbrunn dismisses Juan Williams' comment as "silly" and "foolish." It was more than that--it was prejudiced and I believe that Mr. Williams would not have accepted it if it was said about African-americans,
(2) Mr. Williams never staed he was wrong to have such feelings. He simply criticized O'Reilly's even deeper Islamohobia, as if to say "I am not prejudiced because I am not as xenophobic as you are."
(3)I applauded NPR for being the first network to make a stand against Islamophobia. And asked if the critics of NPR are as angry at the firing of Rick Sanchez for his statements. And I pointed out that O'Reilly is still on the air with Fox with no critic of his Islamophobia.
(4) I bemoaned that the author of Eyes on the Prize has so fallen in professionalism that he winds up going to work for Fox for 2 million dollars.
So please point out to me why I should be scrubbed?
Peace/Salaams/Shalom
Should NOT have been fired. It will rile the right, make tea partiers more resolute in their idiotic views, and does nothing to help the country get past these feelings.
It was not Williams who told the story about the public bath in Japan.
It was Geoffrey Nunberg, a long-time linguist/commentator on NPR.
But regarding what happened to Mr. Williams, no one should tolerate such intolerant behavior on the part of NPR. This broadcast network is paid for by the American taxpayers, and as such we all have a stake in its decisions. Anyone who cares about freedom of speech should protest what has been done to this decent and fair man. And even if that were not the case, even if Mr. Williams' views made him a detestable ogre to most, he still has the right to voice them. For many Americans, NPR's consistent tilt to the left has caused them to reject it as a viable source of news.
NPR often embodies the very things it claims to stand against: unfairness, narrow-mindedness and reactionary policies.
I ask all Americans of conscience, most particularly those of Arab and/or Muslim descent, to protest the firing of Juan Williams and to demand that public funding to NPR cease until Mr. Williams's good name has been cleared.......We deserve better from a public radio network funded by taxpayer money."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304023804575566363119493650.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_opinion
Also tired of hearing about all of the "public funding" talk about NPR. With the exception of more rural areas, very little of their funding comes from the government. They could easily exist without it.
When people in the public eye broadcast their prejudices, they are in effect influencing the public to accept those prejudices as the norm. A civil and pluralistic society has to resist that.