The Sherrod case is a landmark example of how, ever more frequently, overzealous political agitators can count on the general public and bureaucratic officials alike not to do their homework and to rely on gut instinct and knee-jerk reactions.
The controversy began when Breitbart posted the two-and-a-half minute clip to his website, BigGovernment.com, on the morning of July 19. No more than two hours later, TheFoxNation.com linked this tape to a post titled, “Caught on Tape: Obama Official Discriminates Against White Farmer.” As the liberal and conservative blogospheres lit up that afternoon, Sherrod received numerous demands to submit her resignation, which she finally did after a call from USDA undersecretary Cheryl Cook. White House officials were eager for Sherrod to make haste in submitting her resignation, effective immediately, because the story “was going to be on Glenn Beck tonight,” Sherrod said.
Assuming that Breitbart’s clip told the whole story, this was an apt move. That night, Sean Hannity of Fox News approved: “Firing her after that kind of viciously racist attitude was exactly the right thing to do.” It was becoming obvious that conservatives were eager to fire back at the liberal establishment, which had recently accused Tea Party activists of racism. The conservatives’ message: Your people are racist too. If only their prized Sherrod video clip matched the narrative they were trying to convey.
Yet NAACP officials, who apparently hadn’t watched the entire speech either, clamored to distance the organization from the now-disgraced federal employee. Minutes after Hannity’s report, the NAACP released a statement (which has since been deleted) on its website: “Racism is about the abuse of power ... We are appalled by her actions, just as we are with abuses of power against farmers of color and female farmers.”
From beginning to end, these events occurred in a 12-hour period.
Many people argue that the phenomenon of sound-bite politics has existed as long as the 24-hour news cycle. But I believe that this has been especially prevalent since the 2008 presidential election, as personalities like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck have come to the fore. The amount of attention the media has given these people has shaken our political system in a bizarre and extremely damaging way. We have more demagogues than ever before who willingly capitalize on the hardships of those in the most dire straits — those who are too ill informed to know that they are ill informed.
But the issue is more complicated than that. Beck, for example, is more often than not referred to as a negative influence on American politics, yet his ratings continue to skyrocket. It seems that media attention itself has become the primary — if not the only — source of legitimization in American politics. Whether the attention is good or bad barely seems to matter, and may in fact be an irrelevant dichotomy. What matters is whether or not an individual receives media attention at all, regardless of content.
What can be done to resolve such an amorphous, slippery issue? We can’t point a finger at any one particular individual, unless we are prepared to blame everyone. Though the media vultures are the obvious villains, they would be nothing without those who give them credence. And yes, I do find it ironic that this article, too, appears in the media and advises the reader on what to do.
What is our role as students, or even as members of this generation? Perhaps the best route is to do nothing. Perhaps Beck and the Tea Party extremists will yell themselves into laughable oblivion without any explicit action from us.
Or maybe they won’t. Have we reached a point where dialogue and the illusion of dialogue are no longer distinguishable from one another? If so, I feel that we should pay attention to cases like the Sherrod debacle. We can’t sustain a culture in which world leaders kowtow to any ideologue with a microphone. In short, I hope that when my peers take over the world, they will show a little bit more spine than did the Obama administration in July.
Jon Stewart is hosting a “Rally to Restore Sanity” in Washington later this month, which supposedly speaks for the majority without a voice in today’s sensational political environment. I am left to wonder whether it will help or hurt the political circus it is mocking. Either way, on Saturday, Oct. 30, I’ll be there.
David Mendelsohn is a psychology major from Rockville Centre, N.Y. He can be reached at dmendels@princeton.edu.
Read More
Princeton’s administration of justice is Trumpian
Frances BroganThe disparity between the University’s approach to Giberson and its approach to pro-Palestinian protestors reflects a concerning trend of appeasing an increasingly emboldened right rather than resisting the threat it poses to academic freedom and the wellbeing of Princeton students.
Secular Opening Exercises? Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water
Frank StrasburgerThe secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
The secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
Return Pete Hegseth’s educational ideologies “to sender”
Lily Halbert-AlexanderHegseth believes students are being raised to “see America as an evil place” because his confining approach to education leaves no room for admiration and criticism, hope and horror, to coexist. He treats American history, patriotic ideals and the “pillars of Western civilization” as if they were made of glass, as if “cross-cultural encounters” and critical race theory, the “cornucopia of diversity” he criticizes, could shatter them.
Hegseth believes students are being raised to “see America as an evil place” because his confining approach to education leaves no room for admiration and criticism, hope and horror, to coexist. He treats American history, patriotic ideals and the “pillars of Western civilization” as if they were made of glass, as if “cross-cultural encounters” and critical race theory, the “cornucopia of diversity” he criticizes, could shatter them.
