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.

Stop Name Dropping!!!

Why are all of these people talking about the indignity suffered by Dr. Henry Louis Gates but they keep calling him Skip??? We know that these commentators personally know the man but what happened to Doctor Gates?

Fractured English gone Mainstream

English is making a comeback in the news!!! Sportswriters are debating journalistic rules for using direct quotes. Sounds sexy doesn’t it? The problem is with interviewing black athletes. Uh Oh! One of Black America’s dirty secrets has reared its ugly head again. Some sportswriters are having to clean up the athletes words.

Phrases like “we was”, “ain’t just cause”, “we got to play”, and “they just like us” are peppering the newspapers and magazines.

Some writers are letting the words go to print verbatim. Apparently they feel that altering the quotes tampers with the athletes’ intent. Somewhere Clarence Thomas is yelling for the writers to doctor up the quotes!!!!! I’m sure he doesn’t want white folks knowing about our verbal challenges. But is it the writers’ responsibility to cover up the dirt? It’s not their fault that Tyrone can hit 3’s but splits verbs.

It all starts from home……………
1. The athlete’s Momma and (maybe Daddy) probably didn’t speak proper english.

It all starts in the community……….
2. The neighborhood that the athlete lived in was full of people that didn’t speak proper english.

It’s all about the books………..
3. The athlete was talented from an early age so people overlooked his academics.

It’s about having people concerned about your well being………….

4. The school that recruited the athlete wasn’t concerned about his grades.

But the problem is bigger than Tyrone’s college days. What happens when he retires from the Pro’s? You hear those former sports athletes on ESPN giving analysis - sounding like a jail house philosopher. One night Jalen Rose was talking and I almost spit out my drink. What in the whoseit? That’s what I would have said but I had liquids in my mouth. Emmitt Smith didn’t have his contract renewed by ESPN. He was labeled by many in the sports reporting industry as inarticulate. Watching him was difficult at times. It seemed as if the words were coming out faster than what he was actually thinking.

The Kings English is being slaughtered on bball courts and football fields all over America. Hopefully someone in this crib to pro system will step up and see the need to help these kids. But in the end, this is about something bigger than sports. It’s about a broken system that is supported by enablers. Eventually no one wins in this system. The athletes might win on the field but they lose in life.