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Glenn Beck is an Idiot
But he’s a useful idiot in showing off the infirmity of “color-blind” thinking.
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25 Responses to “Glenn Beck is an Idiot”
I had no idea who Beck was until I was channel surfing not quite a year ago and stumbled across his show. About 4 sentences into his rant about global warming I figured out what kind of nut he was and haven’t watched or listened to him since.
While I almost never agree with Beck’s positions he is an entertaining talkshow host. Atleast he has a sense of humor compared to a Hannity or Levin. On rare ocassions he will give the ‘enemy’ some respect. He also is more humble than the Liberal star Olberman.
Maybe becasue Glenn Beck is middle aged, he has seen many instances where whites have accidently gotten into trouble based upon race and many young idealist just have not seen.
I would guest that most blacks living in Prince Georges County have no white friends. Does that make them racist like you are claiming that Beck is? Or are you going to apply the double standard that would get whites into trouble but excuses the bigotry of blacks which is something that Beck is trying to avoid?
I think SD makes a good point, and honestly I don’t understand yours at all, David (well, I understand about Beck being an idiot, and the few times I’ve heard him I’d agree with that part.)
But the way I interpret his remarks is similar to SD’s interpretation. He’s expressing what a lot of white Americans feel, that they are unfairly blamed for racial bigotry and that attitude on the part of some blacks, is itself a form of bigotry. You could certainly say that there is some justification for blacks to feel that way, but generalizing blame to all whites (or behaving in ways that make whites feel that this is what they are doing) is a “two wrongs don’t make a right” situation. Yet you question why those of us who advocate a color blind mentality think this would help? Well, how about because a white individual needs to feel that he/she is not going to be held accountable for the transgressions of all other white individuals, in order to feel safe from recieving recriminations from blacks that he/she associates with? How about because a white individual simply wants to be seen as an individual, not as a representative of a race which has behaved badly?
It seems to me that while Beck is being overly sensitive, color blind behavior would HELP, not make this situation worse. He feels that blacks sometimes blame all whites for white on black racism, and your solution to that is for blacks to continue to point out every percieved instance of white on black racism and ask whites collectively to take more responsibility for these transgressions? Where’s the logic??
I share the same sentiments as Rudi.
CS Where do you draw the line, what if Beck says he can’t have Jewish or senior citizens as friends? At least he somewhat admits to his hidden racism, it is a start, is he now the “Denier
Decider.Rudi,
First off, I didn’t mean to come across as though I was defending what Beck said. Even if he feels uncomfortable, that’s no reason to avoid interactions (though I’d say too, that’s probably an exaggerated interpretation of what he said- he might have a lot of acquaintances that are black but finds himself unable to overcome his discomfort enough to bring these relationships to the level of real friendships, or whatever)
I was just pointing out, that he admits to feeling this way and I’d wager that there are lots of other whites who feel that way as well. So I’m questioning why David seems to think that we should just say that the whites should just get over it? Why would the prescription of bringing more judgment to the surface not make this even worse?
Yeah, maybe Beck and others like him SHOULD just get over it, but they won’t. So, wouldn’t it help if blacks didn’t ask for whites as a group to be subjected to criticism for the actions of those who are bigoted? And isn’t that an example of “color blinded policy”? Or should we just keep telling Beck he should deal with his discomfort because racism by whites against blacks still exists? Which course of action would actually help heal racist attitudes?
And yes, Rudi, I would feel the same way if the comments related to a feeling of discomfort with other people who identified with a victim mentality. I would place some responsibility on the person who felt that way and some responsibility on the members of the group who perpetuate that feeling. People who are victimized should be able to speak out against the injustice, of course, but they should place the blame on the individuals who commit the injustice and not generalize it to the racial/ethnic/religious/age/gender/sexual orientation group of the offenders.
Maybe Mr. Beck just does not want to be caught up in another “niggardly” incident. I have personnal worked at places where we could not use the term “picnic” because several black employee believed in an urban legend about the origin of the word. Instead of educating the black employees , management decided to appease them instead. Why would someone want to put themselves in the same situation in their personal life?
I guess there’s a fine line between real racism, imagined racism and the totally ridiculous incidents which seem to stem from the need to play the race card. I am sympathetic to the first, sometimes with the second, but never with the third. BTW, Beck is just Bill-O with a sense of humor- a gasbag, but a funnier gasbag. At least he admits to his own human foibles, unlike Fox’s arrogant culture warrior!
Kim, But who gets to define which of the three categories is the appropriate one? I think there’s considerable gray area with that middle category of imagined racism. Sure, some examples are obviously # 3 like the one SD mentioned (which is actually pretty funny if it wasn’t so sad!), but what about things like Biden’s use of the word “clean”? I know that as a prominent politician, he’s held to a very high standard but still, can you blame some white Americans for feeling like they’re better off avoiding relationships with black Americans if the consequence might be getting blamed for making a coded remark when they don’t even know the code?? I see this as one reason that we shouldn’t err on the side of seeing racism where it probably doesn’t exist.
And too, I see plenty of room for exploitation in the use of the race card by calling incidents in category #2 to be actually category #1 (to put the focus on how they might be perceived rather than what the actual intent was).
I still think you’re putting the impetus on the wrong people, C. First, you seem to be assuming that if Beck says something that would offend a Black acquiantance, that’s their fault for being offended, rather than Beck’s fault for…saying something offensive. It’s of course possible that they’re just being over sensitive, but I think it is significantly (by a WIDE margin) more probable that Beck really said something offensive. Which means that Beck’s argument gets distilled to “because I suspect my latent racism will come to the surface when talking to Black people, I’m not going to interact with them, because I’m afraid they’ll be offended at my racism.” Now, however we solve that problem, it’s still very clear to me the problem is Beck’s end, not his offended would-be friends.
Second, assuming that’s the case, why shouldn’t we tag Beck with an obligation to become more educated about race and racism–even if it would be uncomfortable for him–so he doesn’t make such mistakes in the future? If fear of being racist is a primary barrier to integrating society, then I think that’s powerful evidence that White people have an obligation to learn how to avoid being racist by interacting with Black people and hearing their stories. Some social awkwardness seems like a small price to pay in this regard, and while I think we should minimize it to the degree possible, ultimately it is not an excuse for White people to remain in ignorance on the issue and then use it as an excuse for self-segregation.
Well there are areas of gray. Biden’s gaffe was unintentional, and typical of the way a lot of his generation think. I could see where some would find it insensitive—especially the use of the word articulate-even if he didn’t mean it that way. I think most of the black community ended up giving him a pass since his record on civil rights is so good, which was intellectually honest on their part.
I agree that we shouldn’t be jumping on every single thoughtless word that white people say, but am sympathetic to how insensitive it sometimes comes across to many blacks. I really don’t have a good answer. Probably some of this disconnect will continue to plague us. I do try to look at the feelings that blacks have and not just look at how a white person intended a comment, because I think their feelings are important. Actually, I sort of understand Beck’s discomfort.
We just all have to keep trying to communicate, I guess. I do condemn someone who is playing up an incident just to try to get an advantage.
I’m feeling awfully lazy so I’m just going to say “what C. Stanley says” and be done with it
LOL, thanks for the support, Lynx, lazy as it was!
David said:
Oh really? From what evidence do you make that judgment?? If you’d said that he should bear responsiblility for making any obviously offensive remarks I’d agree with you, but I know of no evidence one way or the other of whether or not he’d do that. But you seem to have predetermined that he’s a bigot. Why?
Kim, I think your response is a fair one, and I think that you and I (and presumably Lynx but she’s being too lazy to clarify LOL) are putting the onus on BOTH sides, while David says it’s all on white America.
CS- It must be a new dawn in America, when we agree three times in one day! Are you feeling ok? LOL. Seriously, its nice to get out of the knee-jerk conservative-liberal postitions isn’t it?
David, re “If fear of being racist is a primary barrier to integrating society, then I think that’s powerful evidence that White people have an obligation to learn how to avoid being racist by interacting with Black people and hearing their stories.”, I think your use of the term obligation is completely off-base.
Americans’ only obligation to each other is to obey the laws to the land. Anything more than that is charity.
We should be generous in extending the hand of fellowship to people who are “other” when compared to ourselves. But saying it’s compulsory is completely against the notion of individual liberty that this country was founded on.
LOL, yes, I agree. OMG, I did it again!
Well I’ve recovered just enough from my laziness to add a little something. I believe that people like David actually HURT the process of bringing the races closer together in a sense, albeit involuntarily. I don’t know Beck, but he seems to come off as an idiot to many an ideologically diverse commentator, so I’ll accept it for now. However, the discomfort he expresses is one felt by many people, and the insistence that David makes that whites MUST relate to blacks and LEARN from them and IGNORE any worries carries a very implicit “Because it’s YOUR responsibility, because you’re the white one” which only serves to reinforce the feeling that you are going to be held as responsible for any crap handed by whites out to blacks. This is not conducive to free conversation.
Sure everyone has to take a step forward. Whites must be willing to converse in the knowledge that subjects may come up that force them into the situation of having to choose between self-censorship or offense BUT blacks must be willing to converse in the knowledge that the person in front of them may have opinions that they are afraid to express, and that reinforcing that fear by being quick to offend (despite knowing that the vast majority of whites have no bad intentions) isn’t going to make the opinion go away. Only by openly expressing those feelings can understanding come.
Whites would be a hell of a lot more willing to take a step up if they knew that the same was being asked of the blacks.
A little related story. Education is San Francisco involved a lot of discussions of race and racism (I know, shocking, huh?). Many were absurd and steeped in the same thinking of Davids or worse, whereby ANY doubts from a white person were taken as resistance to racial harmony and therefore lingering racism. This did not help matters. One exercise that did was one I did at around 13 years of age. The class was split into Latino and Blacks (little bug: No one knew where to put the two white kids and the Chinese boy) and put in different rooms. There they were asked about the “problems” they saw with the other groups. What they didn’t like about how the others acted and how they thought the others viewed them. It was all written down and then shared with the class as a whole. It was very instructive and showed that many of the problems were based on misunderstandings that never went away because of fear of confronting them.
I agree, Lynx. White guilt doesn’t form the basis of an open, healthy relationship. But neither does the attitude that blacks should just “get over” their own history in this country. Both need to try to get over the hurdles that separate them. I do believe we’ve made a lot of progress, we just aren’t there yet.
Lynx, Thanks for waking up to add your excellent comments! The comment above is the point I’ve tried to make to David in several threads that he’s written about racism. The current post proves that he doesn’t get that point, so I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees it.
And thanks again for the agreement and civil discussion today, Kim (though you did get all snarky on me again in the thread about the Edwards’ bloggers!) So, back to our roles of sniping at each other tomorrow? LOL
Why do I feel it is significantly more likely that any given “offensive” quote by a White person to a Black acquitance really is a function of its offensiveness rather than oversensitivity? A few reasons:
1) Historically, that’s been the way it works–I think the impetus is on people who think we’ve radically changed from the first 200 years of our nation’s existence to make the case, not on me to show why a spade really is a spade.
2) White people tend to be less informed about Black people, their perspectives, experiences, beliefs, et al, then vice versa. This is because for American Blacks, knowing about Whiteness is a survival skill in a White-dominated country, while Whites have no similarly pressing incentive to learn about African-Americans. Hence, it will be more common for White people to misstep then Blacks to misunderstand. Not that it’s impossible for the latter case to happen–only that it’s less likely.
I also find it amusing that this conversation has derailed into holding White people responsible for the collective sins of the race. The subject of the post, quite obviously, was holding White people (in this case Mr. Beck) responsible for their own statements, rather than letting them duck behind the “race card card.” Strawmanning me by changing the subject to “all Whities are the devil” is another reason to suspect that the issues being raised here are not being given serious consideration.
I also want to clarify that I don’t feel like Beck is a bad person because he has those worries about how he’ll come off. The prospect of being labeled as a racist is deeply scary to many White people (myself included), and it is better to speak forthwrightly about that in these conversations than it is to hide it from view (an openness which is impossible in a strict color-blind sense). I do not want to stifle that conversation–I believe honest dialogue on the subject is crucial to racial reform, and I agree that White people should be entitled to fair consideration of their opinions. But if that fear is used not as a basis for beginning a conversation, but as an excuse to not talk in the first place, that’s where my critique comes in.
So, I say if you’re a White person who is fearful about the racism label, be open about it, be ready to speak, but be prepared that the answers you’ll hear may not make you happy. Good conversations rarely begin when parties have already committed to saying what the other wants to hear.
David,
I just can’t even follow your logic at all. You accuse us of strawmanning because you can’t see that our arguments are against your own statements, not ones that we’re putting in your mouth. Here’s an example from the last comment you made, of how you ARE saying, “all Whities are the devil” or at least, “all Whities are the devil until proven otherwise” (you used a slightly less inflammatory term, “spade”, instead of “devil”):
(Beck and other whites are spades until proven otherwise, because in the past, many or most whites have been spades). The problem, David, is that there is no such thing as proving innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. I think you understand that from a legal perspective; why not try applying that to this context?
A lot of assumptions there. For one thing, you assume that blacks learn about whiteness for survival purposes, but in inner cities there is often an isolationist culture that does not seek to understand whiteness at all, it simply rails against it. Will you hold those people responsible, at all, for the racial divide? And another point is (which gets back to what Beck was saying) that to the degree that it’s true that white people have inadequate understanding of black experiences, it’s not necessarily due to a lack of caring. It is, quite often, due to fear, and that is a fear that blacks could alleviate if they chose to do so by treating each white person as an individual and receiving comments from that person without the filter of guilt by association or guilt until proven innocent.
I agree, but the irony is jawdropping. You are the one advocating that whites should only say what blacks want to hear in that we should bend over backward to censor our comments in order to avoid offending, and they are the ones who decide what’s offensive even in cases where there is none intended. I think what Beck was trying to say is that he doesn’t feel that the intimacy required of a friendship is possible if the other party is unable to view his comments in the view of his intent instead of with hypersensitivity that ignores his intent. Read your sentence again and then consider that Beck is saying that friendships are not possible when both parties have commmitted to saying only what the other party wants to hear.
David,
I have had several black employees who I could not retain because they could not control their profanity. They had grown up in a totally black world of all black neighbhorhoods, black churches, all black schools, and some had even attended HBCU’s. Yet, when they were around client and especially arond patients, they just could not control their profanity. They had grown up in a black world where correcting someone’s English was considered racist and where profanity was completely permissible.
Would you say that someone like me was racist because I expected a minimum level of decorum from all of my employees or where the black employees not adapting to the “whiteness” of the business world?
I can tell you that virtually all of the patients that we dealt with were not about to tolerate incessant profanity just because it was coming from an African-American.