Race

Ethics Quiz: “12 Years A Slave” Plays The Racial Guilt Card On Oscar Voters

/ Jack Marshall / 106 Comments

12_years_ad_2.jpeg

“It’s time.”

This is the  tag line in the post-Oscar nomination ads being prominently run in New York and California for  “12 Years A Slave,” a strong Academy Award contender (nine nominations, including best film).

Although there is room for disagreement, and the ad has the virtue of all clever advertising that it conveys different messages to different markets—Haven’t seen the film yet? “It’s time!”  Desperate to see the best movie you saw in 2013 finally get its due? “It’s time!”  When will the question of whether the most honored film of the last 12 months will win the biggest honor of them all be answered? “It’s time!”…or almost time, as the Oscar ceremonies are coming up on March 2—the consensus is that “It’s time” is mainly aimed at Oscar voters, and the message it conveys is, as Slate puts it, “it’s time for a movie about slavery, and with a significantly black cast and crew, to be recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.” Film critic Phil Hammond puts it slightly differently:

“The ad not only can be interpreted as shining a light on a very dark period in American history, it also shines a light on the Academy’s fairly dismal record of awarding its top honor to any movie about the black experience. In fact there has been only one Best Picture winner in the 85 years the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been handing out Oscars that even remotely qualifies in this regard. In 1968, In The Heat Of The Night, a murder mystery set against the racial divide in a small Southern town, won Best Picture and four other Oscars just a few days after the assassination of Martin Luther King (the ceremony was even postponed two days out of respect). The votes were in before the King assassination, but it seemed then that “It’s Time” would have been an appropriate way to describe that victory. However, outside of lead actor Sidney Poitier — who also co-starred in another racially themed Best Pic nominee that year, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner —  this movie  featured a largely white cast, white producer, screenwriter and director (Norman Jewison).”

If so many in the industry are interpreting the ad this way, it is fair to assume that this was at least one of the ad’s objectives, and on the assumption that it was an objective, your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz today is this:

“Is appealing to Oscar voters on this basis fair and ethical?”

I can see strong arguments for each position. Continue reading →

And The Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck Rolls On…Apparently Forever

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments
It may be a train wreck, but if you're a liberal race-baiter, it's such a darned comfy one...

It may be a train wreck, but if you’re a liberal race-baiter, it’s such a darned comfy one…

The Michael Dunn trial ended without a verdict on the first degree murder charge, and the news media just couldn’t help themselves. Although the facts of two cases have virtually nothing in common, various prominent media figures could not resist connecting it to the Trayvon Martin killing and George Zimmerman’s trial, thus compounding the damage they have already inflicted on the public’s understanding of law, race, and ethics.

Other events spurred them on as well. There was the George Zimmerman interview in which he described himself as a victim, and this set some people off. Zimmerman is a victim—a victim of being made the race-conflict advocate’s poster boy for profiling villainy and bigotry when there are absolutely no facts that support such a characterization. He’s just not the dead victim in his tragic episode. Nor is the status of irresponsible, gun-toting fool necessarily incompatable with the status of victim in his case, but such nuances are beyond the comprehension of many among us, especially the many with press credentials.

Then the Providence College Black Studies Program announced that it would continue to give out an annual award called the Trayvon Martin Award for Social Justice, intended to honor those who have shown leadership and commitment to ”challenging and eliminating racism” and “empowering others to seek social justice.” The inexcusable implication of the award is that Trayvon Martin was the victim of racism, and that Zimmerman’s acquittal was social injustice, when in fact it was the epitome of the justice system working well. The program established the award in 2012, before Zimmerman had been tried or permitted to mount a defense in court, so this was no surprise. In fairness, the award needs to be renamed the Trayvon Martin “Our Minds Are Made Up So Don’t Confuse Us With Facts” Award. But then, fairness is not what the enshriners of this false but convenient narrative care about.

This morning,  CNN’s  over-opinionated morning news co-anchor Chris Cuomo (I’ll bet you he runs for office as a Democrat within five years or less) was showing part of his taped interview with Dunn prosecutor Angela Corey. I admit that it was fun watching Corey squirm under Cuomo’s biased and misleading questioning regarding the Martin and Dunn trials; she contributed greatly, after all, to the rush to judgment and trial-by-publicity in the Zimmerman case. Still, Corey tried to make a valid point to Cuomo (whose partner, Kate Bolduan, increasingly sits compliantly and submissively in silence while Cuomo takes over the broadcast and crosses lines of journalistic objectivity left and right): by focusing on a few high-profile cases, media coverage distorts the public’s perception of Florida’s stand-your-ground law as well as the justice African-Americans, victims as well as those accused of crimes, receive in the courts.

Cuomo proceeded to prove Corey correct. First he falsely described the Martin case, describing it as an instance of a young black man, minding his own business, getting into a confrontation, who “wins a fight, essentially”–these were Cuomo’s exact words—gets killed for it, and his killer goes free. This would be unforgivable from a guy in a bar; it is outrageous from a news anchor. If Martin had been shot by Zimmerman after the fight had ended, as Cuomo’s false description suggests, then he would have been guilty of murder beyond question. The evidence presented at trial indicated that Zimmerman shot Martin while he was losing a fight, and when he had no way of knowing how victorious the man on top of him intended to be. That created sufficient evidence of self- defense to win Zimmerman an acquittal. Cuomo was spreading false information to fit a politically motivated false narrative. Continue reading →

Ethics Note To CNN’s Don Lemon: “Beyond A Reasonable Doubt” Is A Stringent Standard And The Jury Knows Best…And I’m Withdrawing My Endorsement For President

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments
Stop blaming the juries!

Stop blaming the juries!

Once again, a criminal trial with racial overtones has caused an outbreak of criticism over a jury verdict and the jury system, by those who have a professional obligation to know better.

This time, it’s the so-called “loud music case,” that just ended with the accused, Michael Dunn, convicted of four charges (three of attempted second-degree murder) with the fifth charge, first-degree murder, resulting in a jury stalemate. Dunn claimed that he acted in self-defense when he repeatedly fired a gun at an SUV containing four African-American teens in 2012, over an altercation regarding their playing music too loudly. One of those teens, unarmed 17-year-old Jordan Davis, was killed by his gunfire.

CNN news anchor Don Lemon, in a series of rants on his show and also on Twitter, announced to his audience that Dunn should be convicted of first degree murder, and that Lemon would be outraged if he was not. Continue reading →

Ethics Note To The Sports Media Regarding Their Coverage of Michael Sam: SHUT UP!

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Sam

Ever since University of Missouri All-American defensive end Michael Sam made the announcement that he is gay, sports writers, broadcasters and columnists have been hailing his courage, bashing his detractors, and pointing with derision to the portion of social media buzz that has revealed the nation’s ugly homophobic side. The irony is that it is the mostly positive media obsession with Sam’s status as a potential trailblazer, rather than the antigay hate-mongers, who diminish Sam’s chances of success with their every word. This is obvious, or should be, yet the articles and rants keep on coming. I have to believe that it is a case of sports journalists engaging in the ultimate hypocrisy, making themselves look fair, unbigoted and devoted to the cause of full gay inclusion in American life (all while making their deadlines) while simultaneously and knowingly undermining the athlete they claim to be supporting. They have to shut up, or Sam is doomed.

Which means, unfortunately, that Sam is doomed….and that means that this episode, rather than advancing the cause of gay athletes, will be a serious setback for them instead. Continue reading →

In Massachussetts, The NAACP Flunks An Integrity Test

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments
Jaywalking, domestic abuse...what's the difference?

Jaywalking, domestic abuse…what’s the difference?

What is the mission of the NAACP in 2014? Is it, as was once the case, to advance the prospects of African-Americans in the U.S. by ensuring their equal treatment under the law, respect and regard within the culture, and aggressive efforts to cure stubborn cultural handicaps within the black community? Or is it merely an advocacy group that determines right and wrong on the basis of skin color, and nothing more?

The conduct of the New England chapter of the NAACP in defending  State Rep. Carlos Henriquez strongly suggests the latter.

Henriquez is a disgrace in every respect—to his constituents, the legislature, the state, his gender, his race. Here is part of the police report of what got him convicted of two counts of assault: Continue reading →

Samuel L. Jackson Was Wrong and Behaved Like A Jerk: Why Is Sam Rubin The One Who Is Apologizing?

/ Jack Marshall / 64 Comments

Sam Rubin, entertainment reporter for KTLA in Los Angeles, is being ridiculed far and wide for “mistaking Samuel L. Jackson for Laurence Fishburne – while interviewing Jackson on live TV!”

Bulletin: That’s not what occurred.

Jackson was wrong, Rubin was correct, and Jackson’s long riff, funny as it was, about how white guys can’t tell black actors apart was both a cheap shot and viciously unfair. Rubin made no such mistake. Jackson owes him an apology. Watch this  trailer:

Did you see that black actor in two places in the video? That was Samuel L. Jackson, not Laurence Fishburne. That video di run during the Super Bowl, and was obviously what Rubin was referring to when he began his question with “You’re working for Marvel…” Marvel Comics, the creators of Captain America, in which Laurence Fishburne has no role. Continue reading →

We Are All Dan Snyder Now

/ Jack Marshall / 74 Comments

Washington-Redskins

…and isn’t that a revolting development?

Few things infuriate me more than when unethical conduct by an individual or organization force me to side with the supporters of a position or a cause that I oppose myself. Last year, to cite the most egregious example, I found myself in the same camp with the National Rifle Association, Ted Nugent and worse when anti-gun zealots, uncritically backed by the news media, used dishonest, misleading, irrational and emotional appeals to try to pass more stringent gun ownership regulations on the wave of national horror over the Sandy Hook shooting. Indeed, the more fake statistics and shameless slippery slope arguments (“If we can save the life of only one child…”) that were aimed at guns and  law-abiding gun owners, the more I saw the wisdom of Second Amendment absolutism.

Thanks to the exorbitant and irresponsible rhetoric by the likes of Diane Feinstein, Joe Biden, Andrew Cuomo, Piers Morgan, Jim Carrey and others—Don’t tell ME what I “need” to protect my family and home; there’s a possible serial killer on the loose in my Alexandria, Virginia neighborhood at this very moment who has been randomly knocking on doors and shooting people—I no longer trust the government to make rational decisions that affect my options as a potential gun owner. Good work, guys. Before you started using kids as props, lying about the number of shootings, and sounding for all the world like a nation trying to make sure only the government could own legal weapons, I was a supporter of more stringent firearms regulations. You lost me. I am officially convinced that we may need  guns to protect ourselves against power-abusing people like you.

Now members of  Congress are trying to strong-arm Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder into changing the name of his football team, using the power of the government to pressure him, through the National Football League, into bending to their will on a matter that is absolutely none of their business. Great. Now I have to stand shoulder to shoulder with Snyder, whom we in the Washington area know as a spoiled rich kid, a bully, an egomaniac and a meddling fool who has progressively reduced the region’s beloved football team to tragic joke.

And you should stand with him too, if you think our Bill of Rights is worth preserving. Continue reading →

Now THIS Is Hypocrisy!

/ Jack Marshall / 53 Comments

NAACP Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is a close second to “ad hominem attack” in the list of misused misunderstood accusations. One is only hypocritical when you are simultaneously, willfully and shamelessly engaging in the exact same conduct that you are publicly condemning. Opposing today conduct you endorsed or engaged in the past? Not hypocritical. Changing your mind about the virtues of past conduct? Not hypocritical. Condemning conduct by others that you are not able to stop yourself from engaging in but recognize as wrong?  Again, that’s not hypocrisy.

This is hypocrisy:

A local NAACP-organized march against the supposed “vote suppression” measure of requiring the showing of photo IDs at polling places as a prerequisite to vote required, as you can see above, the possession of photo IDs as a prerequisite to protesting the required possession of photo IDs. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Jerry Seinfeld

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

One wonderful thing about extreme success combined with middle age is that you can, if you have the integrity, speak unpopular truths without caring who objects. Thus it was the Jerry Seinfeld correctly dismissed as irrelevant and misguided the suggestion that seeking racial and gender balance should be an objective in his comedy shows. In response to a question challenging his Web series, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee“as too white and male, the comedian said:

“People think it’s the census or something, it’s gotta represent the actual pie chart of America. Who cares? Funny is the world that I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested. I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that, but everyone else is, kind of with their little calculating, “Is this the exact right mix?” To me, it’s anti-comedy.  It’s more about PC nonsense than ‘are you making us laugh or not’.”

Exactly. Not that the race and gender bean counters will let Seinfeld escape with an explanation of such obvious common sense. Here’s Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher playing his full hand of gender, race, guilt and quota cards: Continue reading →

Unethical and Unjust Firing of the Week: The MSNBC Cheerios Tweeter

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

CheeriosWhen reader Scott Jacobs sent me a link to the now infamous MSNBC tweet that presumed that all “right-wingers,” which in MSNBC Universe means anyone who doesn’t want to put Barack Obama on Mount Rushmore, were horrified by the very existence of bi-racial families, I honestly didn’t understand what he was telling me.  MSNBC’s official position is that Republicans are racists, so he couldn’t have been referring to that….everybody knows that. (“But did you know Old McDonald was a really bad speller?”) And what racists approve of bi-racial families? So the tweet wasn’t illogical or dealing in rationalizations. The tweet—oh, here it is:

“Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family” Continue reading →