Crying Wolf

I won't begin to excuse the state of political discourse in the country today.  We take too many of our opinions from the talking heads floating around Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, et al. to have any meaningful discussion on the issues that matter.  So when I hear someone complain about almost anything to do with politics I usually just walk away.  The intelligent observers still exists, but it can get frustrating wading through all the chaff.

This is the fundamental problem with the 24 hour cable news cycle:  24 hours of news doesn't exist, and frankly, even if it did it doesn't sell.  We tune into cop shows to see action, soap operas to see quarrels, and reality TV to see humiliation.  Today's viewers aren't of the same breed as those who watched the evening news through televisions golden years of network dominance.  Substance can only take us so far, and the best news is almost all substance.  So instead, to fill the airwaves and the corporate coffers we get Glen Beck, Keith Olbermann, and everybody's favorite curmudgeon, Bill O'Reilly.

Is it any wonder that we are where we are?  When O'Reilly exists for a large portion of the population as the heir apparent to Cronkite, Brokaw, and Jennings? (A statement that I have no doubt would tickle Bill pink if he ever heard it).  We now live in a time where outrage passes for genuine interest and sound bytes pass for legitimate discourse.  For a country that is staring down some dire straits this is not the place to start.  It seems now we can't begin to confront issues because we don't even know what we are looking at.

Two weeks ago, LeBron James made a hasty   to say nothing of ill-advised   exit from Cleveland, drawing the ire of fans, journalists (with the exception of the few who were so star struck that they lent their names and credibility to the slimey proceedings.  I'm looking at you Wilbon), and a somewhat rightfully betrayed owner.  And when that owner made the mistake of sending out the first draft of his statement (and there is a lesson in this for everyone:  write your angry email, but wait twelve hours before you hit send) most of the sports world divided into the two reasonable camps, "Dan Gilbert is right to be outraged," and, "Dan Gilbert is crazy if he thinks the Cavs will even win 30 games before LeBron wins a title."  The letter read like something you write after being dumped, with insults and disappointments thrown together in a barrage of caps-locked statements and chest pounding.  Regrettable, yes, but for a city that hitched its collective hopes and dreams squarely on the shoulders of a 25 year old man-child surrounded by a posse of sycophants and yes men, it was an understandable response.

But it wasn't enough.  Soon, Jesse Jackson got into the game for no other reason than someone turned on a  microphone within a three block radius.  Now the conversation was shifting, was this letter just that of an angry and betrayed owner, or the embodiment of a slave-owner mentality that pervades professional sports   hockey excepted.  People talked, talking heads argued, and some awoke to this unforeseen outrage that had been "going on" under their noses for years.  Eventually things cooled off when the Heat began to sign players at an alarming rate and everyone began what might be the only pastime more beloved that arguing over hot-button issues, wild speculation over the future.

Was Jesse right?  No, and I cant say it any better than Jason Whitlock.  Jesse was just looking for a way to steer the conversation to attack what he saw as an unfair attack against a black man by a white owner and a large portion of the white media.  For all the bad things that can be   rightfully   said about Jesse Jackson, he has good intentions, but we all know what they say about those.  Jackson misread a complex situation in a way that is becoming all too common.  He saw black vs. white, and figured "where there is smoke, there must be fire."

Our society has too long and rough a history with black vs. white narratives to allow many to step back and view those issues in the proper context.  We become mixed up in first impressions.  Some want to punish guys like Don Imus for being racist, when they should really just punish him for being an idiot.  Others cry about affirmative action as "reverse racism" without paying attention to the hundreds of years of mistreatment and segregation (be it overt or de facto) that have built the society we live in.  We as a country have a knack for injecting racial outrage into issues that  have little basis in actual racism.  We see smoke, and we believe there is fire.

Racism still exists.  Discrimination still exists.  But the steps taken since the days of MLK and Malcolm X have driven those problems underground.  Today's racism is subtle, and todays discrimination is based in deeply rooted inequalities that have been shaped over hundreds of years.  African Americans still overwhelmingly populate the poorest sections of our inner cities, and for that reason are locked into a section of the education system that struggles to keep its head above water.  When "proficient" becomes just another word for three grade levels behind, then we know we are faced with a bigger problem than some idiot using the n-word on TV or rap videos glorifying wealth and excess.

But the types of problems that face this country in it's long slow march toward true equality are the kinds that aren't easily understood and even harder to fix.  So we focus on the superficial problems and hope that the rest will sort itself out.  This gives everyone the satisfaction of "doing something about racism" without really doing anything.

This is why it doesn't surprise me when I read that Shirley Sherrod was pushed out of her job at the USDA for her remarks at an NAACP banquet.  She stated that when helping a poor white farming family she:

"was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So I didn't give him the full force of what I could do."

If all you look for is the racism that bubbles to the surface, you are going to miss the real stuff that does the most damage.  Worse yet, you are going to miss the real lessons that not everything is about race.  Some people have learned that.  Shirley Sherrod certainly has, because later in the same speech she got to the point that many missed when they railed against a black public servant withholding the full scope of her power in helping a white family.

 "I did enough so that when — so I took him to a white lawyer that we had — that had attended some of the trainings that we had provided because Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted for the family farmer."

"So I figured if I take him to one of them that his own kind would take care of him. That's when it was revealed to me that the job is about poor, versus those who have. And not so much about white — it is about white and black, but it's not — you know, it opened my eyes. Because I took him to one of his own."

This country has enough battles to fight to overcome racism.  We certainly can't afford to be fighting the wrong ones all the time.

(I implore all of you to follow the work of Jason Whitlock and John McWhorter, two of my biggest inspirations in writing this piece.  My ideas on the subject have been shaped by their thoughtful and provocative commentary on race relations in this country, and for that I thank them.)