It was Oberlin all over again…another Black history Month racist hate speech hoax. As Professor Jacobson reports, the racist message written on a whiteboard in front of a black Grand Valley State University (in Michigan) student’s door last month at was written by the student himself. This was not discovered, however, until the incident was used to justify the usual condemnations of American society as a hotbed of racial hate and prejudice against non-whites.
1. As we now know, Governor Brewer vetoed AZ SB1062, the so-called “religious freedom” bill that was widely (and accurately) interpreted as support for discrimination against gays. In the previous post, I suggested that her delay in doing so sent a message that was as hostile to gays as the law itself: if she felt the law was ethically wrong, then she should have and would have announced that she would not sign the bill long ago. Instead, she waited to see how much economic damage the law would do to the state, and then vetoed it, not because this was the right ting to do, but because it was the pragmatic thing to do. (As the satiric Borowitz Report put it, “The state of Arizona found itself in the middle of a conundrum today as it awoke to the awkward realization that gay people have money and buy stuff.”) USA Today noted that, to the contrary,”Some political insiders believe Brewer has allowed furor over the legislation to build to thwart social conservatives’ attempts to push a similar bill later.” I doubt it, but if so, Brewer allowed her state and her fellow Republicans to be represented nationally as homophobic for as long as possible to spare herself the inconvenience of vetoing a second bill.
2. Despite the extravagant debate over the bill, almost no commentators actually published the bill’s text in the commentary. The reason appears to be that since the bill is really an amendment of an existing law, it takes a modicum of intelligence to figure out what’s going on. Here it is (the original law is in black; the new text is in blue; what has been removed in the amended version is struck through): Continue reading
Message received.
I don’t know what Arizona Republican legislators are running from now: they have accomplished their mission. They’ve made it abundantly clear that they don’t like or respect the rights of gays, bi-sexuals and transsexuals, and want to leave no question in the minds of anti-gay bigots (or good and gentle religious people across the state who want to discriminate against gays because they thing doing so is “moral”) that the nationwide cultural shift to approval of gay marriage, a.k.a, equal rights under law, hasn’t changed this: Arizona Republicans back your dislike of these perverts’ sinful, corrupting lifestyle, whatever the law is.
The disingenuous and offensive argument being made by Republican supporters of the modifications of an 1999 Arizona law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) is, in essence, that Arizona businesses can already discriminate against gays, and so can those of lots of other states. This isn’t an anti-gay law! It’s a religious freedom law! Yes, and the Civil War was about States rights. The new bill’s clear motivation—Timing! Timing!— is to strengthen the hand of businesses, organizations, corporation and non-profits that object, allegedly or actually on genuine religious grounds, to serving, employing, or dealing with gays. More than that, however, the goal is to line up the legal, moral and ethical authority of the state behind those who want to treat gays in this fashion, whatever the reason, rather than behind the rights of the LBGT community to be treated like all other citizens. Continue reading
This isn’t the real title of Alec Baldwin’s epic orgy of narcissism and self-pity in the latest New York Magazine; that would be “Good-bye, Public Life!” It is, however, the more accurate and descriptive title, and although it is annoying and occasionally colon-disturbing to be trapped in Baldwin’s mind for the ten minutes or so it might take to wade through this opus, I think it is well worth it. For Baldwin provides us all with a frightening case study of how self-absorption and arrogance precludes an ethical world view, and with it responsibility, accountability, fairness, empathy, respect, perspective, honesty...the works.
The essay is obviously intended to make Baldwin look as good as possible; its whole thesis is that he is maligned, misunderstood, the constant target of knaves and fools, and a victim of circumstance. Yet with every statement, he makes it brilliantly clear that it isn’t everyone else, but him. He is a juvenile, egomaniacal jerk. The evidence is right in front of his face, but he just can’t see it; he teems with hate for everyone else. Alec’s hit list includes former employers, colleagues, companies and the United States of America. Here’s a partial list (I must have missed someone) of those Baldwin, while protesting what a great guy and how misunderstood he is, spits on in his farewell: Andrew Sullivan, Anderson Cooper, Harvey Levin, stage director Dan Sullivan, Shia LaBeouf , Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski., Rachel Maddow, MSNBC producer Jonathan Larsen, MSNBC chief Phil Griffin , Capital One, AT&T, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York, Broadway, the Huffington Post, Kim Kardashian, Roger Ailes, Fox News, MSNBC, Breitbart, and both the liberal and conservative media.
If the point of the rant is to make us feel sorry for Baldwin, it works, at least for me. I feel sorry for anyone so socially inept and self-deluded that he can write what reads like a candid confession of a pathologically hostile and inconsiderate attitude toward the rest of mankind and think it is a persuasive defense of his actions and character. This is a man who called a male reporter a “toxic little queen” in a hateful twitter attack and says now that he didn’t realize that phrase might be considered offensive by gays. This is man who has had ugly public confrontations with reporters, photographers and flight attendants, and just can’t understand why people are giving him the cold shoulder, except that he is positive he doesn’t deserve it. They are throwing mud on him, he says:
“In the New Media culture, anything good you do is tossed in a pit, and you are measured by who you are on your worst day. What’s the Boy Scout code? Trustworthy. Loyal. Helpful. Friendly. Courteous. Kind. Obedient. Cheerful. Thrifty. Brave. Clean. Reverent. I might be all of those things, at certain moments. But people suspect that whatever good you do, you are faking. You’re that guy. You’re that guy that says this.”
And to prove how unfair this is, Baldwin pour out his heart in this essay, which insults everyone he can think of.
You really owe it to yourself to read it all. It will take some tolerance and determination, but “Good-bye, Public Life!”might constitute the most valuable public service Alec Baldwin has ever performed, until he actually keeps his promise for once (he has previously sworn that he was going to leave the country) and exits public life. I am certain that once finished, you will, as I did, say a little prayer that if your ethics alarms ever show signs of becoming this dysfunctional, someone will be kind enough to slap you silly, sit you down, and confront you with the harsh reality that you are becoming an insufferable asshole, and need to shape up quickly, lest you end up like poor Alec Baldwin, a deluded, incurable, Ethics Dunce.
When 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
For your first Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the New Year:
Ethics Failures:
Competence, Responsibility, Diligence
Explaining his proposed legislation SB808, dealing with “ghost guns” (that is, home-made weapons) at the California Capitol in Sacramento last week, de Leon held up such a firearm and said, “This right here has the ability with a .30-caliber clip to disperse with 30 bullets within half a second. Thirty magazine clip in half a second.”
This is genuine anti-gun gibberish that could not possibly be uttered with a straight face by anyone even slightly familiar with guns. There is no such thing as a “30-caliber clip;” he is referring to a 30-round magazine. (There is also no such thing as a “30 magazine clip.) “Caliber” refers the measurement of the width of a bullet or the internal diameter of a gun barrel, not what the magazine will hold. And the average rate of fire for a semi-automatic rifle, which is what he was holding, is about 120 rounds per minute, not 3,600 rounds per minute.
Why are legislators who don’t care enough about guns to educate themselves about what they are, how they work and what they are capable of doing, submitting legislation about guns? Because they just know guns are dangerous, and in their infantile, knee-jerk reasoning, that’s all they have to know. The rest is fakery: the legislator is pretending that he has sufficient expertise to be credible on the issue, when he is too lazy and arrogant to do the minimum study necessary to render him qualified to vote on gun regulations, much less author them. This is the equivalent of a legislator who thinks babies are delivered by storks proposing abortion laws. Continue reading
Melissa finally realized that this photo isn’t funny.
I posted earlier about the sub-par apologies offered by the infamous MSNBC Three, who decided to indulge their hate for Mitt Romney and Republicans by ridiculing the fact that Romney’s family now includes an adopted African American infant. Either Melissa Harris-Perry got a Martin Bashir memo, or she sincerely decided that she had not adequately communicated regret for the ethically indefensible segment. What she delivered, on the air this time rather than through Twitter, arguable qualifies as a Level #1 apology [“An apology motivated by the realization that one’s past conduct was unjust, unfair, and wrong, constituting an unequivocal admission of wrongdoing as well as regret, remorse and contrition, as part of a sincere effort to make amends and seek forgiveness.”]:
“Without reservation or qualification, I apologize to the Romney family. Adults who enter into public life implicitly consent to having less privacy. But their families, and especially their children, should not be treated callously or thoughtlessly. My intention was not malicious, but I broke the ground-rule that families are off-limits. And for that I am sorry. Also, allow me to apologize to other families formed through trans-racial adoption, because I am deeply sorry that we suggested that interracial families are in any way funny or deserving of ridicule. On this program, we are dedicated to advocating for a wide diversity of families. It is one of our core principles. And I am reminded that when we are doing so, it must always be with the utmost respect. We’re genuinely appreciative of everyone who offered serious criticisms of last Sunday’s program, and I am reminded that our fiercest critics can sometimes be our best teachers.”
Harris-Perry deserves special credit for the last sentence. She didn’t have to say that, and it is an excellent point for her to make, especially on her network, where some critics have been told that someone needs to shit in their mouths. Continue reading
Several readers have asked for the Ethics Alarms Apology Scale scores for the three MSNBC creeps who decided to use a loving, non-political family photo featuring Mitt Romney’s newly adopted grandchild as an opportunity to sneer at the family, Mitt and the GOP, and engage in some unprovoked race-baiting. It was such an ugly display that decent human beings a) would never have engaged in it at all and b) wouldn’t have required a wave of criticism to wash over them to realize apologies were in order, but they did. Why? Because they are hateful people, unsavory and loathsome. As such, I really had decided that mucking around in MSNBC swill wasn’t worth a second post, but since you asked, here are the scores. The best apologies are in category #1…no danger of that with this sorry trio.
Apology 1: Dean Obeidallah Continue reading
From Mediaite:
“On Sunday’s Melissa Harris-Perry (MSMBC) show, the eponymous host led a panel of entertainers in a rundown of the “photos of the year,” which somehow included a Romney family picture that “a lot of people had emotions about,” according to MHP….“Everybody loves a baby picture,” Harris-Perry said, “and this was one that really, a lot of people had emotions about this baby picture this year. This is the Romney family. And, of course, there on Governor Romney’s knee is his adopted grandson, who is an African-American, adopted African-American child, Kieran Romney.” As Harris-Perry made the introduction, panelist Pia Glenn sang “One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just isn’t the same,” a tune whose original lyrics read “one of these things doesn’t belong.” “And that little baby, front and center, would be the one,” she added. …Comedian Dean Obeidallah chimed in by reducing the baby to a token. “I think this picture is great,” he said. “It really sums up the diversity of the Republican party, the RNC. At the convention, they find the one black person.”
Then the host, without missing a beat and without sensing any irony, said that the next segment would be devoted to answering the question, “Hey..is that racist?” Continue reading
Justine Sacco, victim.
Media executive Justine Sacco tweeted an impulsive, racially provocative joke on the social media site Twitter that a lot of people found offensive, didn’t like, or felt they could justify participating in cyber-bullying as if they found it offensive. As a result, she has lost her job, is being portrayed as a virulent racist across the web, receiving threats and hate messages from strangers, and has become an international pariah.
It doesn’t matter what the tweet said. It was a tweet–140 characters directed at nobody in particular, that harmed nobody in any way, unlike, say, the tweets by various celebrities trying to direct mobs to where George Zimmerman could be found and beaten. Nobody attacking her knows this woman, what’s in her mind and heart, what she has done in her life or the good works and deeds she may be responsible for. And yet thousands of strangers, many of whom are almost certainly, on balance, less admirable people than Justine Sacco in many ways, have chosen to use her 140 ill-chosen characters as provocation to throw a huge, greasy monkey wrench into the gears of her life. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 