Bonddad just e-mailed this Fox News shocker to me. Do you also — like Bonddad — find Hume’s putdown of Juan Williams to be “racist and insensitive”?
Via Crooks & Liars, which has the video:
Juan Williams should know better than to go after the Bush administration on Brit Hume’s watch.
Think Progress has the story:
JUAN WILLIAMS : “You can try to minimize it, but the fact that you have Scooter Libby, so involved in justifying going to war, and in the posture of trying to smear a critic of that justification. I think is pretty revealing and pretty damaging to the Bush White House….”
BRIT HUME: Juan, somebody needs to hose you down.
Skiddlybop diaried this exchange at Daily Kos, drawing on a good discussion at Democratic Underground: “Of course, this house slave might just say, ‘Thank you Sir, may I have another’… or maybe he will say that this kind of neo-con racism proves that he all along has been unworthy of being called a journalist or an American.”
I saw that exchange this morning and I am sorry to admit that I missed the racist overtones. I just saw it as yet another example of Hume telling Williams to “shut up” as he usually does whenever Williams veers away from the “Bush is Lord” script. This was just the most offensive way he has done that. You’ve got to wonder why Williams continues to let himself be so disrespected week after week. Maybe he’ll do something about it this time.
‘Thank you Sir, may I have another’
That’s rather telling, Susan. ;~)
That was a quote from the DKos diary.
the thinking is a reference to the firehoses of civil rights marching times. I’ve usually heard the expression used as an image for “cool down,” implying that someone was using overheated language, raving wildly. I’ve almost never heard it used towards African-Americans or in any context between whites that suggests a racial overtone, like many truly racist expressions I’ve known over the years.
I think is pretty revealing and pretty damaging to the Bush White House….”
By any measure, this kind of language Williams applied to Kremlin West constitutes wild raving on Faux News. Brit’s role is the stern father and he’s simply scolding one of his children here just as he does to raving white children.
I’m with you … I don’t find it racist, just rude and dismissive.
But that others like Bonddad do find it racist is also important to consider.
The biggest loser is Juan Williams, for selling his soul to be on that network. He abets the rightwing message by being willing to engage in what passes for rational dialogue with those nutjobs.
I didn’t find it racist either but we must be sensitive to those who took it in that context, as you say.
The biggest loser is Juan Williams, for selling his soul to be on that network. He abets the rightwing message by being willing to engage in what passes for rational dialogue with those nutjobs.
Quite so. Once (on NPR) I heard Juam Williams describe his empolyment at Fox as the most intellectually stimulating job he had ever had. I’ve as much respect for him as I have for Alan Colmes or anyone else who has their paycheck signed by Rupert Murdoch.
Sure… there are plenty of ways to say things to say things that are, in another context, clearly not racist… and then we get to have a great time arguing over intent.
People need to understand that many, many things have racist, sexist, or whatever-ist levels of meaning whether they’re intended that way by the individual speaker or not.
It would be undeniably stupid and at very least ignorant to, for example, call a black man “boy”, too, even if you personally refer to all men that way. History is bigger than individuals’ intentions.
I’m not particularly arguing with you, just adding to the discussion.
I admit that I didn’t catch the racial overtones until I saw that picture Atrios posted. But, even without that it is an offensive and nasty thing to say. If he had said “cool down” or even “go take a cold shower” it might have meant calm down. But who do you hose down? Not your adult peers. It’s nasty and dismissive.
Uncalled for but does anyone go on Faux news really expecting a serious give and take discussion of the day’s events?
I think it definitely falls into the category of things you don’t say to an African American man who is expressing a political opinion.
This script has been nauseating me for a long time. It’s one of the reasons I gave up cable. I couldn’t understand how Williams could be so obsequious. How could they pay him enough to eat crow so regularly? Hume’s putdowns to Williams are always personal, too.
I have to listen to Britt Hume once a week for ten minutes on news radio. He was blowing off Katrina as a “failure of local government”. He’s one of the many reasons fox is such a joke. Hes a soulless shill for the neocon evil doers.
seemed to find it outrageous. Look closely at the video and you see his eyes widen in horror, or at least shock. I’ll bet he was greatly put off by it. That is what counts to me. Given the racist past of this country I think it is important for everyone to avoid any sort of language that carries even unintended meanings like this.