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Trent Lott: Apology? |
Current rating: 2 |
by Sam Smith
(No verified email address) |
12 Dec 2002
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The sincerity (or not) of his apology is not really the issue. The issue is Lott's real views on race, which the press refuses to effectively confront. |
TRENT LOTT'S WORDS were bad enough; what is more disturbing and telling is how calmly Washington's politicians and press took them - until they could no longer ignore the uproar. And when they finally woke up, the matter was treated, as so often in this fair city, as an issue of - as Nightline's Chris Bury put it, "a careless choice of words."
Among America's elite the line between words and reality have become hopelessly fused - not only intentionally, in order to fool others, but in its own mind. Words are, on the one hand, supposed to express one's true feelings but, on the other hand, are totally fungible - retractable, replaceable, and retroactively reinterpretable.
The other day, the president of Southern Utah University exhibited the problem magnificently. Attacking an article in the student newspaper, he described freedom as a "word" we cherish. Not a concept or a value, but merely a word. Such men do cherish words; they have a whole bunch of them they use repeatedly in order to raise money, win support, or calm a restless questioner. And when they use the wrong ones in the wrong place, they just - like Trent Lott - stand in front of a mike and try again.
It is the self-assumed business of the Washington media to treat such deceit and chicanery as if it were reality. And when someone corrects their carelessly chosen words, they are permitted, as they say here, to "put it behind them."
Thus, the fact that Trent Lott is still actually nostalgic for the good old days of segregation and still thinks Strom Thurmond would have made a good president gets lost in the shuffle.
The media's willingness to let politicians cynically talk their way out of things is not partisan; it rather reflects the media's deep respect for, and desire to remain close to, power. Here, for example, is a case cited by the National Review:
"On Tuesday, October 22, 2002, Bill Clinton traveled to Fayetteville, Arkansas to honor the life of the late Arkansas senator, J. William Fulbright by dedicating a seven-foot-tall bronze statue of the man. . . Among other things, Clinton said, 'If [Fulbright] were here today, I'm sure he would caution us not to be too utopian in our expectations, but rather utopian in our values and vision.'
"And back on May 5, 1993, in what the Washington Post characterized as a '... moving 88th birthday ceremony for former senator William Fulbright, President Clinton last night bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the man he described as a visionary humanitarian, a steadfast supporter of the values of education, and 'my mentor.'' Clinton added, 'It doesn't take long to live a life. He made the best of his, and helped us to have a better chance to make the best of ours. The American political system produced this remarkable man, and my state did, and I'm real proud of it.'
"Of course, the man Clinton was praising, who he called his "mentor," who supposedly embraced utopian values and made the world a better place for everyone, was also a rabid segregationist. In 1956, Fulbright was one of 19 senators who issued a statement entitled the 'Southern Manifesto.' This document condemned the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Its signers stated, among other things, that 'We commend the motives of those States which have declared the intention to resist forced integration by any lawful means.' . . . Fulbright later voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He voted against the 1965 Voting Rights Act. And he did so because he believed in separating the races in schools and other public places. He was a segregationist, heart and soul."
How Trent Lott or William Fulbright feel about segregation is of little importance to the Washington media, however, because it is in the business of covering perceptions rather than reality. Thus if nobody in power notices the similarity between the NASDAQ decline and the crash of 1929, if nobody in power wants to talk about the unwillingness of the recession to go away, or Bush's unprecedented assault on the Constitution, then why bring it up?
It's not that the media is anti-black, it's just that blacks largely belong to the unpowerful who are, by current definition, not newsworthy. Others, for example, include labor - which unlike business doesn't even rate a beat reporter at most outlets - and consumers whom the media reduces from being the better part of America to being a minor group of, god forbid, 'activists.'
Here's how a network web column - ABC Note (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/TheNote.html) - flippantly tackled the problem of having a profoundly prejudiced Republican leading the U.S. Senate:
"Six days and three written statements after his remarks at Strom Thurmond's birthday party, Senator Lott's PR problem has escalated from a slow burn to a modest forest fire. Still, apart from the Congressional Black Caucus, Al Gore, and the Democratic party leadership - by which we mean Gephardt, Pelosi, Daschle (after an apparent change of heart) and, as of this morning, DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe - we don't hear a widespread drumbeat.
"The clubby Senate, including the Democratic wannabes, has been mostly quiet and accepting of Lott's apologies; there hasn't been a critical right-leaning website piece in what seems like a full news cycle; the party's (outgoing) sole African-American member has some good pro-Lott spin going; and this thing might just be lapsing into the more familiar 'Democrats (and the media) vs. Republicans' dynamic that will serve to rally core support to Mr. Lott's side, just as Democrats hope it will rally African-Americans to theirs. . .
"Beyond the growing Democratic din, here are the real problems/outstanding issues we see for Lott in all of this:
- First, this is a TV Nation, and while he has offered three written statements, he has yet to apologize or seek to explain his comments on the air. Until he does that, despite his wagon-circling press strategy and strategizers, we aren't sure he has put things to rest. . .
- Second, and related to that, Lott still hasn't really explained what he meant by his remarks - only vaguely explained what he did not mean.
"Live by the Drudge, die by the Drudge, as they say in your finer Pascagoula billiard halls."
In short, it is all - as everything in Washington seems to be these days - just a PR problem. There are no racists anymore, just insensitive and careless spinners. |
See also:
http://prorev.com/indexa.htm
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/8538/index.php
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Comments
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Apologies Are Meaningless In The Age Of Make-Believe |
by Rev. T-Monk-E
jmierek (nospam) msn.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
12 Dec 2002
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My father once explained to me that an apology means nothing if that for which you are apologizing does not change.
We live, however, in what author Derrick Jensen calls "the culture of make-believe" wherein all that matter are appearances. Surface and style are all-important; depth and substance are dead. From families who equate hushing up problems ("keeping up appearances" while anxiously wondering "what will the neighbors think?") with solving them, to phoney Disney towns designed to recall an America that never was, to billion dollar PR campaigns calculated to convince John Q. Public that shit equals Shinola, we are up to our eyeballs in meaningless platitudes, bogus information, and fraudulent apologies.
Trent Lott avowed his pride at having voted for Strom Thurmond and his segregationist Dixiecrat confederates in 1948. He also asserted that, "if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." Asking for an apology from Lott buys into the whole culture of make-believe and is inconsequential. For what would Lott be apologizing? Would he apologize for being a racist, who supported segregation in 1948 and who would openly support it now if he could? Or would he merely apologize for the embarassing misstep of making such a "politically incorrect" statement? I think the latter is the case, for when surface is king, all you need apologize for are problems with your image.
Instead of asking for Lott's apology, people who are still concerned with issues of substance should be asking for his resignation. |
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