Juan Williams' Firing: W.T.F.

galfordo

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This was some seriously chickenshit nonsense from NPR, political correctness at its worst.

I don't agree with a lot of what Juan says, and very often we're on the opposite side of the fence. But I have always appreciated and respected his perspective as an honest and reasonable journalist. Furthermore, he carries himself very well, and respects the opinions of people on both sides of the isle.
 

bokmeow

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You know what?

NPR can do whatever it wants.

People have been fired for lesser offenses at my job.
 
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It's been bugging me. I can't believe the reference their CEO made to him and his psychiatrist. She apologized and all that but dang.. Also love how she said he can't offer his opinions. First off, he's an analyst. By definition he has to offer his opinions. Second, he was being honest about a feeling that many people share, whether it's politically correct or not. Feelings and opinions are vastly different things. You don't have to be a bigot to feel fear in certain circumstances.

It's ironic as hell though, that he was having a discussion about how it's not safe to speak about things that aren't politically correct.. and about how that's a dangerous part of our society.

I read their "Contact Us" on the NPR website has crashed.

I often listen to NPR, though I don't appreciate their political slant. They still have some good programming that I like. Science Friday in particular is generally good stuff.

I've made financial contributions here and there over the years, but likely won't do so again. I tend to listen to a bit of everything, and will probably still tune in for things that interest me. It'll be good to see their Federal funding go away. Seems like an obvious place to trim a couple million about now.
 
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fake

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Don't give us a link or anything.

He was on O'Reily and said that he gets nervous when he sees Muslims at the airport.

I know I'm going to seem like a PC ultra liberal here, but I'm glad he got fired. An example needs to be set. There is now an omnipresent racism against Muslims in the USA. People get nervous when they see Muslims at the airport, so why not a dude with aviator sunglasses, a big beard, and knit cap? Not just Muslims are capable of killing people. No one seems to remember the Crusades or the fact that the US military is killing way too many (one is too many) Mid East civilians. I fear ignorance and dogma, not Muslims.

Edit: Oh and don't feel bad for Williams - Fox offered him a multi-million dollar contract. His NPR contract was expiring in a matter of months anyway. If anything, he made a fortune out of this.
 
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SML

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Helen Thomas's forced retirement: W.T.F.
 

fake

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It'll be good to see their Federal funding go away. Seems like an obvious place to trim a couple million about now.

You know why the media is so incredibly debased in the West? Capitalism. Media should be used to inform and enlighten rather than just entertain. Compare PBS to any broadcast network. What's on? Cops chasing criminals, courtroom melodramas, and news that's more likely to tell you what's going on in Paris Hilton's pants rather than what's going on in the other parts of the world. Not to mention broadcast news (as well as melodrama) tends to instill unjustifiable fear in viewers. They'll have you believe walking outside your front door is dangerous business whereas in reality, almost all violent crimes are committed by someone the victim personally knows.

/ end rant
 

LoneSage

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Yeah, pretty silly. It's one thing to fire a real journalist for saying that, it's another thing to fire an analyst who's supposed to be biased. Whatever. Dude will find another job and now people like me who had no idea who he was a week ago is getting annoyed at all the attention he's receiving.
 
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Yeah, pretty silly. It's one thing to fire a real journalist for saying that, it's another thing to fire an analyst who's supposed to be biased. Whatever. Dude will find another job and now people like me who had no idea who he was a week ago is getting annoyed at all the attention he's receiving.

Yeah he already picked up an approximately $2M deal.
 
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There is now an omnipresent racism against Muslims in the USA. People get nervous when they see Muslims at the airport, so why not a dude with aviator sunglasses, a big beard, and knit cap? Not just Muslims are capable of killing people. No one seems to remember the Crusades or the fact that the US military is killing way too many (one is too many) Mid East civilians. I fear ignorance and dogma, not Muslims.

So tell me this.. How do you propose that we as a society work through the Muslim fear that you believe is unfounded? Obviously the message we have to take away from his firing is that it's not ok to talk about it. So in the absence of dialog, we can all continue to feel a certain way and enact no change, because it's not a safe thing to acknowledge.

It's obvious from your comments that you didn't actually listen to the entire exchange. He made the statement about feeling fear when someone who's gone out of their way to identify themselves publicly as Muslim sits down with him on an airplane. He then went on to take the position that we MUST be able to differentiate between ordinary Muslims and the extremists that wish us harm, so as not to paint all of Islam with a broad brush.

The dude was basically making the point that you're trying to make in the post, and he was fired for it. And you're glad that it happened. It makes no sense.
 

fake

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So tell me this.. How do you propose that we as a society work through the Muslim fear that you believe is unfounded? Obviously the message we have to take away from his firing is that it's not ok to talk about it. So in the absence of dialog, we can all continue to feel a certain way and enact no change, because it's not a safe thing to acknowledge.

It's obvious from your comments that you didn't actually listen to the entire exchange. He made the statement about feeling fear when someone who's gone out of their way to identify themselves publicly as Muslim sits down with him on an airplane. He then went on to take the position that we MUST be able to differentiate between ordinary Muslims and the extremists that wish us harm, so as not to paint all of Islam with a broad brush.

The dude was basically making the point that you're trying to make in the post, and he was fired for it. And you're glad that it happened. It makes no sense.

I didn't see the original airing. From what I saw, he said he gets nervous when someone who identifies himself as a Muslim - in other words wears traditional Muslim clothes, etc - is in an airport. So if he did say that we need to differentiate normal people from extremist, then I agree with him and he shouldn't have been fired. However, this wasn't in the multiple news segments I saw, even the ones of Fox News.

If he's saying that we need to differentiate between Muslims and extremists, isn't he contradicting himself right then and there? "I'm scared of people in Muslim garb, but you shouldn't be."

How do we work through the anti-Muslim sentiments? Not by saying "oohh Muslisms! Scary!" or "Building a mosque on ground zero? That's anti-American!" I'm not saying Williams did this, but from the segments I watched, that's what it was made out to be.
 
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SouthtownKid

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"Building a mosque on ground zero? That's anti-American!"
Here's me going on a tangent again. I don't think that's anti-American, but I do think it is needlessly inflammatory and confrontational. Too many people from both the anti-West extreme and the quaking-in-fear knee-jerk xenophobes here would see it as a flag of victory being planted. Here's an idea: let's not build anything religious of any kind on ground zero.

And if there's anything religious already in the area -- like say a Roman Catholic church -- let's tear that down while we're at it.
 

SML

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My view falls pretty much in line with Glenn Greenwald's. It's bullshit he was fired, but he's joining a huge club along with Octavia Nasr, Helen Thomas, Rick Sanchez, Eason Jordan, Peter Arnett, Phil Donahue, Ashleigh Banfield, Bill Maher, Ward Churchill, Chas Freeman, and Van Jones. The only only remarkable thing about this case is that Williams was fired for saying something about Muslims.
 

galfordo

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Here's me going on a tangent again. I don't think that's anti-American, but I do think it is needlessly inflammatory and confrontational. Too many people from both the anti-West extreme and the quaking-in-fear knee-jerk xenophobes here would see it as a flag of victory being planted. Here's an idea: let's not build anything religious of any kind on ground zero.

And if there's anything religious already in the area -- like say a Roman Catholic church -- let's tear that down while we're at it.

amen to that, the fewer sacred cows the better



bokmeow said:
You know what?

NPR can do whatever it wants.

People have been fired for lesser offenses at my job.

true, they can do whatever they want. they can also crank up their fund raising machine once their their funding gets cut, since their supporters can also do whatever they want.
 

Nesagwa

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Also, nobody is building anything on the giant hole in the ground.

Here's me going on a tangent again. I don't think that's anti-American, but I do think it is needlessly inflammatory and confrontational. Too many people from both the anti-West extreme and the quaking-in-fear knee-jerk xenophobes here would see it as a flag of victory being planted. Here's an idea: let's not build anything religious of any kind on ground zero.

And if there's anything religious already in the area -- like say a Roman Catholic church -- let's tear that down while we're at it.

1st Amendment.
 

starscream615

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRwok2Ffoys

Hope this helps, it's the full interview. I personally think the man said nothing wrong as it's his opinion and if folks can't honestly talk about the fear they have, there is never going to be a conversation in the US that stops this kind of thing.

EDIT: Sorry, I can't get the embed to work.
 
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abasuto

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He was on O'Reily and said that he gets nervous when he sees Muslims at the airport.

I wonder how many people outraged at his comment get scared themselves when they realize a Muslim (or several) are boarding their plane.

It's like one of my friend's younger brothers. The guy (he's 22) is always on the lookout for racism. Ready to accuse people of being racist at the drop of a dime.

I was with the guy once seeing a movie. We had stepped outside during it for a quick smoke. While out there a group of 3 black teens started walking across the parking lot. Guess what...that guy was hawk eying them and when it looked like they might be walking in the general direction he got fucking nervous.

He started backing up slowly towards the door we came out of, suggesting "lets head back in" even though we had just lit up.

The same behavior he'll accuse others of being racist, doing it himself.
 
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If he's saying that we need to differentiate between Muslims and extremists, isn't he contradicting himself right then and there? "I'm scared of people in Muslim garb, but you shouldn't be."

How do we work through the anti-Muslim sentiments? Not by saying "oohh Muslisms! Scary!" or "Building a mosque on ground zero? That's anti-American!" I'm not saying Williams did this, but from the segments I watched, that's what it was made out to be.

You just need to hear the whole thing. He was both arguing a point that we need to be conscious of the difference between radical and non Muslims and which ones are a threat... also he was discussing the overarching problem of "politically correct" speech.

How is it a contradiction? Fears are emotional reactions to various situations. It's perfectly normal to have fears and nervousness, yet at the same time know rationally that they are largely unfounded when you think it through. Think about people that are afraid to leave the house. They know that it doesn't make any sense, but that doesn't stop them from freaking out anyways. That's the whole basis for a lot of the therapies for these things. You try to retrain your emotional response via cognitive thought and coaching.
 

bokmeow

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This isn't the first time Juan Williams's said stupid shit, and the upshot of the whole situation is, his spouting personal opinion as analysis did journalism significant damage. Unlike Helen Thomas, who is a columnist, Juan Williams has the responsibility not to let news analysis become tinged with personal feelings. NPR could have given Juan Williams a week and work through some kind of arbitration, but they chose to fire him, so what's done is done. I don't write this off as a total loss, 'cos discussions and debates have been generated from this little maelstrom, regarding what is all too often an accepted form of discriminatory profiling after 9/11, not to mention exploited as a means to stir up anti-hispanic sentiment (and the outcome has been to build a wall between US and Mexico, for example). I doubt Juan is crying into his beer either, I mean, 2 million dollars.
 
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This isn't the first time Juan Williams's said stupid shit, and the upshot of the whole situation is, his spouting personal opinion as analysis did journalism significant damage.

I think NPR's reaction did more damage to journalism than anything Juan said.
 

bokmeow

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I think NPR's reaction did more damage to journalism than anything Juan said.

If that were the case then no one would ever get fired.

Fox News only recently fired Rick Sanchez for saying Jews control the media. I don't see that Fox News dealt irreparable damage to journalism.

... Oh wait, nevermind.
 

galfordo

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I wonder how many people outraged at his comment get scared themselves when they realize a Muslim (or several) are boarding their plane.

It's like one of my friend's younger brothers. The guy (he's 22) is always on the lookout for racism. Ready to accuse people of being racist at the drop of a dime.

I was with the guy once seeing a movie. We had stepped outside during it for a quick smoke. While out there a group of 3 black teens started walking across the parking lot. Guess what...that guy was hawk eying them and when it looked like they might be walking in the general direction he got fucking nervous.

He started backing up slowly towards the door we came out of, suggesting "lets head back in" even though we had just lit up.

The same behavior he'll accuse others of being racist, doing it himself.

i generally agree with your sentiment, but does what this guy did really constitute racism?

you imply that it does, but it's predicated on the assumption that he got nervous because they were black.

maybe he thought they looked like thugs? some people are so brainwashed by the PC bullshit that they'd rather risk their ass and not walk away from people who are obvious scumbags than to risk appearing racist.
 

abasuto

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i generally agree with your sentiment, but does what this guy did really constitute racism?

I don't think so, but it stuck out to me because had someone else done it this guy would have accused them of being racist. I was just giving an example of people who'll accuse others of being bigots, but they do the same exact shit themselves.

Closer to topic. I'd actually be less worried about a Muslim who's done up in full Muslim garb. I'm going to assume that if they were a terrorist about to pull some shit then they're not going to want to bring extra attention to themselves. They'd wear jeans and a polo shirt. Just try to fit in with least attention possible.
 

galfordo

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I don't think so, but it stuck out to me because had someone else done it this guy would have accused them of being racist. I was just giving an example of people who'll accuse others of being bigots, but they do the same exact shit themselves.

yeah, gotta love the 'do as i say, not as i do' crowd



Abasuto said:
Closer to topic. I'd actually be less worried about a Muslim who's done up in full Muslim garb. I'm going to assume that if they were a terrorist about to pull some shit then they're not going to want to bring extra attention to themselves. They'd wear jeans and a polo shirt. Just try to fit in with least attention possible.

yeah, i'd guess the guys would just be wearing regular clothes

muslim terrorist chicks, although not unheard of, seem relatively rare

of course, the chicks would have to get on the plane with only their eyeballs showing, lest mohamed look upon their disgusting whore faces and send them straight to muslim hell for exposing their slutty unclean eyelids
 
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