When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong – Juan Williams makes the case for Honesty.

“But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.” ~ Juan Williams

The unemployment rate increased!!! That wasn’t the headline on the National Public Radio website yesterday morning but it should have been. After Journalist Juan Williams voiced his view of “brown skinned” Muslims in America, he was promptly let go by NPR. He had a gig with them as a news analyst but that ended with him running his fat mouth.


Side Note: Remember America, we can’t mix up the different colors of Islam. If you put the brown ones in with the white ones, Americans get confused.


See what fooling around with Bill O’ Reilly will get you – THE AXE!!! Now NPR is
facing blistering online (is there any other way to do it now) attacks from the Far Right, The Right, The Middle, and some on The Left. Now we will be subjected to Freedom of Speech talk from every person with a keyboard and a microphone. People are already pulling out old videos from the Ghost’s of NPR’ s past.


I think the first part of what Williams said was extremely dumb. But I don’t think
he should have been fired. And it’s not because the dumb excuse of “he was only
saying what everyone else thinks.” I don’t think that way! I’m not afraid/suspicious of Muslims because some rouge Muslims terrorized us. The Klu Klux Klan has been terrorizing black folks since the 1800’s and I don’t start crying when I see white people. His views show the narrow-mindedness of my fellow Americans. Now if he was a hiring manager, I would be more concerned. His job was to provided opinion and insight (sort of like crotchety Pat “It’s obvious that I don’t have experience dealing with people that are non-white” Buchanan over at MSNBC). Buchanan says things that should have him jumped in a dark alley but he is still cashing a paycheck. If NPR was bothered by his relationship with Fox News, they should have stopped it awhile back. They apparently decided to let the relationship stand and now we see dislike on both sides. Also NPR opened themselves up to the ridiculous criticism of them being a speaker box for the liberal elite. It’s obvious that they see themselves in a different class from Fox News (as most news outlets do). But I always imagined it would be Fox News firing an employee they didn’t agree with. I knew eventually they would fire someone before another media organization would (oh yeah, they already did!).


In the end, Williams was correct when he said we shouldn’t lump all Muslims in the same category. But because he started off the way he did, the whole statement sounded like a contradictory mess. I get it!! He was being honest! But what was said still was a prejudice statement. Like so many television pundits that are talking every week. They make prejudice statements and then hide under the veil of honesty. You can be honest all day long but if you are prejudice that’s what you are. Your employer has the right to fire you based on what you do and say. NPR just happened to exercise that option. And Fox News will no doubt take care of him. They want to look like the good guys in all this. Unfortunately Williams will not be able to count on some black folks to rally behind him. He has burned many a bridges with his commentary on black life and politics.


Some of his greatest hits misses have perplexed some black folks to no end.