Best Posts in Thread: Was James Baldwin right when he called white Americans moral monsters?

  1. Winston Smith

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    First, I loved “I Am Not Your Negro” and have given copies to friends as gifts. But Brother should have avoided the interview. This isn’t the age of William F. Buckley and the old Firing Line show on PBS where a liberal would get a fair debate with an intelligent conservative (since Jones referenced Ali)


    Fox News is an infantile echo chamber. When you go on Carlson’s (or any Fox) show, their viewers (unlike Buckley’s in the day) aren’t there for nuance and dialogue and new ideas, they are tuning in to get a reinforcement of their preconceived beliefs about “uppity niggers” and MAGA. That’s why you (generally) don’t see folk like Ta’Nehisi Coates go on these programs as it’s a waste of time.

    Calling Tucker “brother” wins you no moral points with these people. If they considered the real teachings of Jesus they wouldn’t support a unashamed liar narcissist as president (“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”); or alleged pedophiles for Alabama senate seats (“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like unto whitewashed sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outwardly but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.”). In his heart of hearts, I bet even MLK knew he wasn’t converting some rabid, racist white southerners with his talk of brotherhood, so much as establishing a documented and codified record of their reactions to peaceful protest for the world and future generations to see.

    This is why Baldwin used the phrase “moral monsters”. He was a child preacher at one point and knew the white, Christian Bible well. Therefore, if one is going to use the Bible or US Constitution as moral baselines, then intentionally and with malice afore thought do the opposite of what you profess to believe (slavery, lynchings, genocide, deliberate economic and political disenfranchisement, etc.) then you are not just a hypocrite but a monster (defined by OED as “
    5. A person of repulsively unnatural character, or exhibiting such extreme cruelty or wickedness as to appear inhuman; a monstrous example of evil, a vice, etc.”). So Baldwin wasn’t name calling, he was pointing out objective facts about a population’s demonstrated behaviors and actions.

    TLDR: Blacks and White Liberals going on Fox are, in the end, no better than conservatives who get suckered by Sacha Baron Cohen. Your narcissistic need to be on camera allows the interviewer to use your time and being to craft the interviewer’s narrative, not your own.
     
  2. OckyDub

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    After Fucker Carlson interview with Fox News over his column.

    [​IMG]

    'Don't be like a Tucker Carlson,' says Ricky Jones after TV exchange

    Ricky Jones doesn't think his appearance on Tucker Carlson's show was "tumultuous."

    Carlson, the Fox News host, cut off his brief interview with Jones within several minutes Monday night, after insinuating Jones was a racist. But the move, Jones said, was in line with what he anticipated.

    It wasn't his first rodeo, he told the Courier Journal on Tuesday.

    Jones was invited onto Carlson's show to discuss a column he wrote for the Courier Journal over the weekend, in which he explored the idea from social critic and novelist James Baldwin that white Americans might be "moral monsters" for their treatment of other races.

    To Jones, it's important to go into spaces like Fox News, which he described as "hostile," to both confront the network's ideology and raise ideas that might not be otherwise discussed on the program.

    "Fox News doesn't stay on Fox News. It moves throughout the world," he said. "... Hopefully it breeds discussion outside of that, because that's a space where the discussion isn't going to happen."

    The column is an attempt, as a whole, to place modern phenomenons into historical context, Jones explained to the Courier Journal on Tuesday. Voter suppression and traumatizing children or families of color, for example, have happened for centuries.

    "Baldwin raises difficult but necessary questions with which we must wrestle. Why are so many white Americans so brutally mean and inhumane?" Jones wrote, in part. "Why do so many others feel comfortable justifying or excusing it?"

    Ignoring that context or the nation's past is "how we've gotten to where we have gotten," Jones said, adding that Carlson epitomizes the idea of not being willing to have an honest conversation.

    In the program, Carlson appeared to hone in on one line of Jones' piece rather than taking a look at its entire message. He asks Jones whether he would accept a piece that describes black people as moral monsters — to which Jones replies by encouraging viewers to read the piece.

    "When somebody raises the issue of race and you call them a racist, when they're suffering from the ills of racism, it shows that you're not really capable or willing to have an honest conversation," he said. "So that's what we're dealing with."

    To move beyond those types of conversations, Jones called for people to talk more and to truly listen more. "Don't be like a Tucker Carlson," he said Tuesday.

    And, Jones said, it's important to be honest about your views. It doesn't matter if you're at the table, if you're repeating the ideas people "at the table" have been discussing for years, which can take a "certain level" of integrity or courage.

    "At the end of the day, we're trying to build a world where all of our children can enter it with more safety, decency, dignity and humanity," Jones said. "We're not doing that? We're doing something wrong."

    So, will Jones consider appearing on Carlson's show again?

    "I'm like Ali. I feel like I'm the heavyweight champion. I take all comers anytime, anywhere," Jones said, smiling. "... You gotta ask Brother Tucker that. That's his show, man."
     
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