Posts Tagged ‘racism’
I hope some day this won’t be worth reporting
One way we’ll know that we’ve conquered intolerance and racism is when groups of different races gathering together is no longer newsworthy.
One of the most hateful thoughts in human history is the notion that one group of people has more inherent worth than another. Centuries have been wasted perpetuating that thought. If we’re going to face all of the differences that divide us, we need to start spending time together with people who are different from us, even people with whom we disagree. That’s the only way we’ll ever learn that we’re not that different after all.
Tags: civil rights, Corinthian Baptist Church, First Unitarian Universalist Church, intolerance, martin luther king, mlk, nashville, politics, racism, tennessee, wsmv-tv
Kleinheider: Wrong, but not racist
The question to me isn’t could Adam Kleinheider take his words from yesterday back. It’s would he? Adam is right that the main opportunity he has to make aggregation of local political content more interesting is through headlines and brief commentary.
Adam was wrong to use a pejorative and emotionally charged term as part of his ongoing efforts to provoke interest in and discussion about local politics, but was he being racist? No, I don’t think he was, and nor do I think he is racist. He should have picked a better way to say it, but the resulting controversy makes one point clear: Race continues to be a sensitive and awfully tough topic to discuss for pretty much everyone.
Others have covered this subject in more detail and much better than me. For a laundry list of opinions, note the bottom of this post from Adam. In the meantime, Adam has apologized, and let’s move on. We don’t need to lose another talented local blogger by blowing the situation further out of proportion.
Tags: adam kleinheider, britney gilbert, media, nashville, politics, post politics, race, racism, tennessee
Is English Only the new black?
The LPGA is getting into the intolerance act by requiring its golfers to communicate only in English. It may or may not have the intended effect:
Effectively what the LPGA is doing by implementing this policy is buying a lawsuit. Because it will be challenged and it will take forever to wind through the court system. The players who are challenging the ruling will probably receive an injunction which allows them to continue on tour until the policy runs the course in the legal system. After every court ruling the same headlines will recur, the same issues will be discussed, and the same bad publicity will ensue. Eventually, after six or seven years, the LPGA’s policy will be deemed legal or illegal. (See Martin, Casey). Is this contentious path really worth it to the LPGA?
Predictably, the LPGA is already backpedaling from their public relations mess. Noting that their attorney’s vetted the proposal before it was announced. Which is always the refuge of the idiots. Because the LPGA’s policy may very well be legal. The LPGA’s true issue isn’t with the legality of the proposed policy, but with the public reaction to that policy. Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s smart.
I originally picked the headline for this post as a parody of the tired fashion expression, “pink is the new black.” The idea had nothing to do with race, but then I realized the unintended pun I had created by using the word “black.” (All of my funniest puns are unplanned.) Maybe there’s truth in that play on words, though: Is racism being replaced by cultural discrimination? It’s starting to seem that way.
Tags: discrimination, english only, immigration, intolerance, LPGA, nashville, politics, racism
