Juan Williams' Unpardonable Sin: It's Not What You Think

On Friday, during his weekly stint on "Inside Washington", noted columnist Charles Krauthammer asked, while discussing the firing by National Public Radio of news analyst Juan Williams, "But where did Juan go over the line?"

Joining Mr. Krauthammer was Nina Totenberg, an NPR correspondent who has publicly expressed very strong opinions outside her role as a news correspondent. Mr. Krauthammer observed that Ms. Totenberg has not been fired for essentially committing the same sort of allegedly egregious sins that cost Mr. Williams his job. Mr. Krauthammer was seemingly so perplexed by the incongruous behavior of NPR administrators that he asked his question again: "Where did Juan go over the line?" 

It seems to me Mr. Krauthammer's question was not answered during his appearance on "Inside Washington." So I offer an answer here: NPR fired Juan Williams because he committed the unpardonable sin of forgetting the creed of identity politics.

Juan Williams would not have been fired if he had chosen his words only slightly more carefully; he would still be working at NPR if he had said the following on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor" with Bill O'Reilly: 

"Look, Bill, let me be honest. Sometimes when I get on a plane and I see some passengers in traditional Muslim garb, I can't help but be a little nervous. I am not proud of this; I admit it is a visceral and even irrational reaction I've had since 9/11. I mean the horror of that day is still with me powerfully; and when I notice folks wearing traditional Muslim garb on a plane, I immediately return to the fears of that day."

Readers may snicker at my revision of what Mr. Williams said, noting that what I've written is virtually identical with what he really did say. And readers may snicker at me for believing such words would have kept Mr. Williams safely in the employ of NPR. Is it because my revision makes his tone sound more conciliatory, even self-deprecating? Is it because he admits his anxiety is irrational? 

The answer to these questions is no. It is all more subtle than that, and very much more political. And it all has to do with seven words I omitted. 

What Mr. Williams did is suggest that self-identification as a member of a certain group, race, sex or other category consistent with identity politics is problematic. Here are his exact words, and please observe what I've highlighted:

"I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the 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. Now, I remember also that when the Times Square bomber was at court, I think this was just last week. He said the war with Muslims, America's war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts."

Note what Mr. Williams has implied, that there is some other option to self-identification than that done "first and foremost." He seems to think there is an alternative to identifying oneself as X, a softer, subtler, less offensive alternative. One can be a Muslim, or anything else really. But to identify as a Muslim "first and foremost" leaves Mr. Williams, and others like him, feeling anxious, and maybe even a little impatient.

Perhaps you've heard this sort of thing before. Maybe you've heard something like this: "I am not against gays. I just don't understand why they have to identify themselves first and foremost as gay. I mean, I don't go around identifying myself first and foremost as straight."

Or maybe you've heard this variation:

"I am not a bigot, but I just don't get why so many black players in the NBA have to identify themselves first and foremost as bling-wearing, gang-banging, hip-hop blacks." 

To the truly politically correct who hold identity politics as sacrosanct, Juan Williams' words are an assault on those sacred cows the political left adores. Choosing one's identity for oneself is an existential necessity, or so it goes, and to flaunt that choice is well within the circle of rights contingent on that necessity. If you especially identify with a minority group prone to seemingly right-wing neglect or criticism -- groups like gays, illegal immigrants or apparently harassed and persecuted Muslims -- then by all means identify yourself FIRST AND FOREMOST as a member of that honored group. 

Moreover, Mr. Williams' comment raises the whole issue of multiculturalism, primarily the issue of assimilation. Mr. Williams does not (apparently) "first and foremost" identify himself as a black man; he does not constantly remind his listeners or viewers that he's a member of a black minority. He has, or so it appears, assimilated himself, finding equal footing with the apparently dominant white culture embodied by the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Fox News. He does not wear race on his sleeve; he keeps no obvious racial chip on his shoulder. But for him to suggest that others need not present their minority status first and foremost in everything they do is simply anathema to the left-wing of American politics. In this Mr. Williams stands in stark contrast to men like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. (Williams, if memory serves me well, was quite offended by the likes of Rev. Jeremiah Wright; I believe Williams has even spoken in embarrassed and apologetic terms regarding figures that stand in the Wright/Sharpton tradition.)

Oddly, I am not of the opinion that Mr. Williams' firing has much to do with his position at Fox News; his status as a Fox contributor is not what got him in trouble at NPR. While various Muslim groups no doubt brought pressure on NPR to at least rebuke Mr. Williams, my sense is that the NPR ideologues took note of Williams' far-too-casual stance on identity politics, and they grew impatient with his failure to conform to the expectations of those politics. If, as NPR says, Mr. Williams had something of a record of offenses, I believe it was not his opinions per se that offended NPR. Rather it was Mr. Williams' expressions of impatience with minorities who fall prey to stereotypes, stereotypes that limit the liberation of those groups. Specifically Mr. Williams had strayed too close to being, as some have noted, a "Bill Cosby liberal," a black man who encourages other blacks to stop playing victim politics. Obviously, being a victim is a category of identity politics, and Mr. Williams' criticism of such, subtle as it was, was more than NPR could countenance. 

Lastly, let us not forget that Barack Obama wrote about his personal decision to self-identify as a black man, and this despite his largely and relatively privileged white upbringing and background. In many ways, Mr. Obama has chosen to present himself as "first and foremost" a black man, though his efforts to do so in public often seem rather forced (though I admit that here I may be judging him from my own prejudices about how an authentically black man would present himself). And let us not forget that some black liberals have dismissed the president as not being an "authentically" black man; and more than a few folks have noted that the president's handling of racial issues has often been more awkward than deft. But the sanctity of the president's personal choice of self-identifying as a black man is not to be questioned (and in the case of bi-racial children, I don't question it, as I can't imagine the difficulty).

In the end, Juan Williams, as a public figure and even a role model, committed the unpardonable sin of suggesting that identity politics is not a healthy game, that civilized people need not identify "first and foremost" as anything other than human.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

"Turn It Up"

From Georgia's Democratic congressman John Lewis:

"Senator McCain and Governor Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.

"There was a Governor of the state of Alabama, George Wallace. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who only desired to exercise their constitutional rights." [emphasis mine]

When I heard Charles Krauthammer discussing these remarks -- and others like them -- I hit the RECORD button:

"When John McCain runs an ad with a white woman -- Paris Hilton -- in it, he is accused of racism. He runs an ad with Franklin Raines, the former head of Fannie Mae in it, who is African-American, and that’s racist. And then he runs an ad with William Ayers, who is a white male in it, and that’s racist.

"If it weren’t so comical, these promiscuous accusations of racism, it would be tragic.

"The Obama campaign has been playing the race card over and over again. Look, this is a campaign that in the primaries succeeded in painting Bill Clinton as a racist.

"Now, Clinton, with all of his flaws, this is a man who throughout his career from governor of Arkansas to president of the United States and beyond, has been a great and sincere friend of African-Americans who shared and tried to advance their aspirations. So if you can pull off a trick like that on Bill Clinton, you can pull it off on Republicans.

"And look what Obama has said. He’s the one who raised the 'Barack Hussein Obama' a year or two ago in which he said the 'Hussein' is actually an asset and would be an asset in dealing with Muslims abroad. He’s the one who openly said that the Republicans will say I’m black, they will say he’s scary. They will say he’s different. They will say he doesn’t look like the guy on the dollar bill.

"That is Obama preemptively accusing McCain of racism, which is a scurrilous charge. Racism is a serious charge in our country, and a false accusation is doubly serious. As we saw in the Duke lacrosse case, it can destroy lives. Given our history, it ought to be used with great care. And to accuse preemptively McCain of racism even before there is any evidence of it, and there has not been any evidence of it before or since, is scurrilous.

"They say patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Accusations of racism is the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel, and it has been used again and again on the part of the Obama campaign." [emphasis mine]

The only part Mr. Krauthammer gets wrong is that this is not funny at all.

(Guess the reference: From whence the title of today's post?)

Obama's "Plagiarism": Shouldn't This Matter?

[This post first appeared at RedState.com on 2.20.08, with slight differences.]

Barack Obama's alleged plagiarism of Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick's 2006 campaign speech has been rather easily dismissed by many pundits, which surprises me. On Monday night's "The Special Report with Brit Hume", for example, The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer snickered at the notion that Mr. Obama's failure to make due attribution was at all significant. Others I've listened to have also been rather dismissive.

Thankfully yesterday, James Taranto, the master of the brilliant "Best Of The Web Today" at the Wall Street Journal's website, at least treated Mr. Obama's deed -- or misdeed -- with more than a cupful of glee. Mr. Taranto said that what some folks failed to notice was that Mr. Obama (and Mr. Patrick) defended himself against the charge that he was all wind and no sail by giving us more wind. That the Clinton campaign failed to properly jump on this Mr. Taranto also notes; he avers that Mr. Obama's critics failed to quickly and effectively make the case that Mr. Obama's reliance on someone else's words proves that he is -- as the Clinton campaign has charged -- something of a breeze (a "fresh, clean" one, no doubt, in Joe Biden's mind).

(ALERT: Response from the Obama campaign: "The wind bloweth wheresoever it willeth. So it is every one who is born of the spirit ...")

But why would I bother here with this story? Surely it has nothing to do with me; surely we are outside this discussion, no?

First, I believe it is important because of what smacks of a double standard. Call me paranoid, or simply call me annoyed; but my sense is that if Mr. Obama was a conservative, we'd never hear the end of this story. If Mr. McCain lifted words from anyone, there would be countless discussions about his competency, trustworthiness, or moral authority.

Second, I believe it is important because of what is quite clearly overlooked, namely, that the Clinton campaign has again injected the race card into the presidential race. Surely you've heard of that other plagiarist, Martin Luther King Jr., no? You know, the one who apparently fudged most of his doctoral thesis at Boston University or lifted major portions of others' speeches for use in his own? No doubt the Clintons are disparaging Mr. Obama's penchant for borrowing phrases when they throw out the key word "plagiarist"; but they are also suggesting, are they not, that "black" leaders have a history of doing this?

Imagine if a conservative opponent to Mr. Obama had made a similar sort of accusation against him. "Racist" would be somewhere in every (related) headline in every major paper in the country ... for days. But since the accusation comes from a Democratic campaign, well, the issue can be largely ignored.

Finally, what also concerns me is that this sort of thing reveals the man behind the curtain: who we often elect is really the speech writer we never see. I recently read former George W. Bush speech writer Michael Gerson's book, Heroic Conservatism; the book made clear to me that Mr. Gerson was at times far more presidential than any president. This aspect of politics is troubling for what it suggests, namely, that who we see is more often a front man (or woman); more phantom than fact. (It is noted that among Mr. Obama's chief advisors is Deval Patrick's former campaign manager, indicating that Mr. Obama is perhaps not his own man.)

I am quick to accept Mr. Obama's explanation of what transpired: that he and Mr. Patrick are friends (they are) and that they exchange and share ideas all the time. I also accept that Mr. Obama admits that he should have given Mr. Patrick credit (though in a speech like Mr. Obama's, that can be somewhat awkward). What I fail to accept without some struggle is that this whole thing is rather insignificant.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.