Sep 29 2007

Juan Williams’ Pathetic Attempt To Curb Criticism of O’Reilly

Time magazine gives space to Juan Williams to attempt to shut down criticism of Bill O'Reilly. Jaun Williams, like O'Reilly, is an employee of Fox News. Williams writes two things that struck me as pathetic and ridiculous. The first:

That twisted assumption led me to say publicly that the attacks on O'Reilly amounted to an effort to take what he said totally out of context in an attempt to brand him a racist by a liberal group that disagrees with much of his politics.

Um, so Juan, you feel comfortable smearing poeple while at the same time taking umbrage that you were smeared by ONE commentator on CNN?

But the out-of-context attacks on O'Reilly picked up speed and ended up on CNN, where one commentator branded me a “Happy Negro” for allowing O'Reilly to get by with making racist comments without objection.

Well, shame on that commenter Juan, but shame on you for smearing people yourself. For smearing people like Eugene Robinson:

ROBINSON: Well, you know I'm not going to go inside of Bill O'Reilly's head — you know, is he racist, what does he know? You know, all I know is that it was, at best, a casually racist remark. But you know, what really ticks me off is that when you say that, when you point that out, you know, immediately you get charged by O'Reilly and cohorts with, you know, you're the thought police, you're the thought Gestapo, you're the word Nazis, you're interfering with free speech, and somehow cutting off an honest debate about race. . . .

And for the record Juan, Eugene Robinson is  a black man too. I wonder if Time will give him a chance to respond to your smears.

15 comments

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  1. a radio drop I made….

    • Armando on September 29, 2007 at 22:58
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    that Juan Williams neglects to deal with the actual words that were actually said by Bill O’Reilly.

    He has to ignore them.

    • Pluto on September 29, 2007 at 23:08
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    …Is dead to me.

    (Oh gawd, I used to love him in the NPR days.)

  4. I saw that this morning and just had to have it for TMN.

  5. It was a really normal, peaceful dinner with polite conversation…

    On a further curious note, Brit Hume simply brims with interpersonal disgust for Juan Williams.  I often think Brit’s going to puke before he chastises Juan for his “uppity” views.  It amazes me Williams does not see this.  Having no insight on Williams, I can only hazard a guess that Juan’s salary is simply blinding him to his complicity in the normalization of evil.

  6. here’s the transcript, via Media Matters.  Just to pick a bit at random:

    — snip —

    WILLIAMS: I think too many of the black kids take it as, “Oh, that’s what it means to be authentically black. That’s how you make money. That’s how you become rich and famous and get on TV and get music videos.” And you either get the boys or the girls. The girls think they have to, you know, be half-naked and spinning around like they’re on meth in order to get any attention. It really corrupts people, and I think it adds, Bill, to some serious sociological problems, like the high out-of-wedlock birth rate because of this hypersexual imagery that then the kids adapt to some kind of reality. I mean, it’s inauthentic. It’s not in keeping with great black traditions of struggle and excellence, from Willie Mays to Aretha Franklin, but even in terms of academics, you know, going back to people like Charles Drew or Ben Carson here, the neurosurgeon at [Johns] Hopkins [University]. That stuff, all of a sudden, is pushed aside. That’s treated as, “You’re a nerd, you’re acting white,” if you try to be excellent and black.

    O’REILLY: You know, and I went to the concert by Anita Baker at Radio City Music Hall, and the crowd was 50/50, black/white, and the blacks were well-dressed. And she came out — Anita Baker came out on the stage and said, “Look, this is a show for the family. We’re not gonna have any profanity here. We’re not gonna do any rapping here.” The band was excellent, but they were dressed in tuxedoes, and this is what white America doesn’t know, particularly people who don’t have a lot of interaction with black Americans. They think that the culture is dominated by Twista, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg.

    WILLIAMS: Oh, and it’s just so awful. It’s just so awful because, I mean, it’s literally the sewer come to the surface, and now people take it that the sewer is the whole story —

    O’REILLY: That’s right. That’s right. There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, “M-Fer, I want more iced tea.”

    WILLIAMS: Please —

    O’REILLY: You know, I mean, everybody was — it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all.

  7. … reminds me of some of the conversations I’ve read in rock-and-roll books about how folks were so terrified of that awful race music, how it would corrupt the children, the sexuality of it, always about morality … as lynchings were going on, as Jim Crow was ascendant, as civil rights were nonexistent — and of course as white publishing companies were stealing those musicians of their work and recording it with Pat Boone.

    Funny how that works.  Yep, it’s all about the music.  It’s all concern for the children.

    And you’re right — it’s all about lying about what someone said, smearing them, and mostly it’s about why in the fuck would Time Magazine publish this crap?  If I were Robinson I’d demand they publish my response to this drivel.

    I feel as though I have gone back in time.

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