Oh, ye of little faith!
Some of you Doubting Thomases out there scoffed (scoffed, I say!) when I suggested last August that Shirley Sherrod had a bona fide libel case against Andrew Breitbart. Well, scoff no more, you doubters! Last week, Sherrod filed a defamation lawsuit against Breitbart, and damned if she didn't have the claws to have him served right in the middle of the ultra-right's mental mass-turbation frenzy, aka the Conservative Political Action Conference in WashDC.
For those who don't remember, or choose to forget, Breitbart is the frat boy punk who deliberately re-spliced a videotape of Sherrod addressing an NAACP conference in March 2010 in which Sherrod told a story on herself as a cautionary tale about how anyone can be susceptible to bigotry. The purpose of her comments was to reaffirm her dedication to equal rights of all Americans, regardless of color, and to admonish her audience that reverse discrimination is as bad as the original bigotry that it seeks to avenge. Being the calculating character assassin he is, Breitbart deliberately edited the video to make it appear that Sherrod was boasting that she'd denied a white tobacco farmer assistance from the federal agency she represented -- just the opposite of Sherrod's real message. I opined at the time that Sherrod had a great case for libel, and now it appears that she's going to file that case.
Of course, Sherrod has no easy task ahead of her. It would take the extensive labors of some very sharp defamation lawyers to make Sherrod's claim stick. It makes sense that, six months having passed since the original slander, Sherrod and her lawyers have been busy pouring foundations for their case. They're no doubt prepared for the dirtiest of legal tricks Breitbart's lawyers can pull -- and with a client like Breitbart, dirty tricks is about all they have. I hope Sherrod's counsel has rented a warehouse for the trainloads of documents they're going to be given during the discovery process.
Sherrod's task, while monumental, is not hopeless. Salon.com's Teresa Cotsirilos interviewed none other than Floyd Abrams, perhaps the foremost First Amendment lawyer in the country. Now, bear in mind that Abrams earns his meat and potatoes by representing the top media outlets in the country in their quest to hang onto their First Amendment rights. He represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case, and that alone places him prominently in the pantheon of free press gods. In the Salon interview Abrams affirmed, as I wrote back in August, that if Sherrod can prove "actual malice," she may have a proveable case. "She has to demonstrate not just that he did it, but that he knew what he was doing was false [or] would leave a false impression about what she had said," Abrams said. "If ... she can show that for his political reasons, his ideological reasons, his desire to make a name for himself, or whatever, that he purposely distorted what she said in a way that damaged her, then she might have a serious claim." Abrram's comment begs the question: How could Breitbart possibly edit the video the way he did and not know it was wrong? Of course he knew it. To plead otherwise is to admit that he lacks the critical thinking skills of a sixth-grader.
Breitbart did what he did because he thought he was "bullet-proof" and that he could do whatever he wanted to do in the name of right-wingnut ideology and get away with it. He was trying to out-Beck Glen Beck and, like an irresponsible frat boy tyring to make a name for himself, he ended up actually hurting an innocent person. He deserves the lawsuit Sherrod has filed.
Of course, it's a long way from filing an action against Breitbart and getting anything remotely resembling justice for Shirley Sherrod. Probably the best Sherrod can hope for is that a jury will find in her favor with a pentalty so onerous that Breitbart's media keepers will turn him out, cutting him off from any traditional print forum. But that probably won't happen. What will probably happen is that Breitbart's lawyers will talk him into settling a monetary claim while admitting no wrongdoing, Sherrod will contribute the funds to some dot-org she thinks will work to make bloggers more responsible for what they post (good luck with that!) and the whole episode will fade away.
Whatever happens, don't expect any punditry from the mainstream media. Although they should be publicly and forcefully proclaiming their disdain for and abhorrence of Breitbart, those who rely on the First Amendment for their profits aren't about to damn him for what he's done. This is Shirley Sherrod's fight, and hers alone. I am just grateful that she has more courage than all of my erstwhile colleagues put together.
Update: Andrew Breitbart had the poor taste to die March 1, 2012, thus nullifying Sherrod's lawsuit. I'm sure his family mourns his loss. I do not.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Our words matter to those who hear them
The Christian Science Monitor reported Wednesday that, as more becomes known about Jared Loughner, the desire to blame “vitriol” for Loughner’s actions has lessened. I’m disappointed in that.
The CSM says it’s too easy to blame the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on angry, violent language and imagery in the political arena. One concludes from reading the article that Loughner was determined to kill somebody that day and Giffords’ shopping center town meeting offered lots of targets of opportunity. Giffords was targeted, all right, but Loughner was driven to kill by the demons in his head, not by half-witted right-wing bombast (the notion put forth by some right wingnuts that the “left owns Loughner” is pure bullshit, and I won’t say any more about it.)
We don’t know what drove Loughner to hate as he does, and we probably never will. But to pooh-pooh the idea that the violent rhetoric of radio crackpots influenced his willingness to point a gun at a congresswoman’s head and pull the trigger is too easy, too. Those who know more than I about human behavior have long ago determined that haters don’t start out hating, they’re taught to hate. Yes, Loughner probably suffers from some mental unbalance, but no one can say for sure the he wasn’t influenced by the internet and broadcast haters. Words, read or spoken, have power, they are the signs we use to communicate ideas and emotions.
As a lifelong student of language, I learned long ago that words matter. I teach my composition and news writing students that words have connotations that are often more important than their denotations. Saying that a political party was "targeting" a congressperson is different from saying the party was "concentrating" on a particular race. A target is something that is shot at, whether by bow, gun, or spitwad. The verb "to target" means to take aim prior to shooting; that's the root and foundation of all other connotations of the word. People use the word "target" as a verb because they want to sound aggressive, they want to sound like they mean business. There is an emotional reaction to the word, and that is why it is used.
If someone strongly opposes a piece of legislation, they can say, "I will work very hard to defeat that legislation" or they can say "I will fight tooth and nail to kill the bill." Too often, politicians have been reaching for the more aggressive phrase as they try to convey their (supposed) emotional investment in getting done whatever it is they want to get done. They know emotional words evoke emotional responses in their constituents and in each other, and that is why they use them. Unfortunately, it also escalates the anger in people who actually would like to physically clobber some thick-headed liberal or kidney-punch a loudmouth tea-bagger.
Fighting actions do come from fighting words. No one is more passionate about the innate human right to express one's self than am I, but I believe it would be a wonderfully responsible thing for our elected representatives in Washington to spend the next several months deliberately toning down their warrior-talk and speaking more like the statesmen and stateswomen they were elected to be. Unfortunately, that won’t happen, and the CSM article makes it clear that politicos are already using evidence of Loughner’s mental illness as an excuse to exonerate themselves and return to their emotion-grabbing vitriol.
Violent talk by public officials has made it somehow more acceptable for ordinary folks to unleash their rage on the public. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, emails, text messages, and the hundreds of thousands of personal blogs that are released for public consumption every day are peppered with outbursts in which people express a desire that someone else die. How to deal with North Korea? Call for assassination of the country’s leaders. How to cope with a liberal black man in the White House? Express the hope that he suffers a fatal affliction. Someone breaks into your house or steals your car? Suggest that they improve the world by committing suicide.
Posters of such drivel almost always cover themselves by trying to mask the comments as humor: “It was just a joke, I didn’t mean it.” That is as nonsensical as when politicians excuse their “targeting” imagery by saying, “It’s not personal, it’s just rhetoric.” It isn’t “just” rhetoric. Words matter. Words convey ideas. It is one thing to have a private thought about someone – to imagine a human being’s head with a red dot on it, for instance – but quite another to express that thought in public. Such expressions do not advance the cause of civilization, they are not satirical, and they are not fit for public discourse in any arena.
It is time to advance beyond the use of violent speech and writing in the civic discourse of the day. If we are to survive as a civilization and not just as a country, we need to learn how to express ourselves clearly and peacefully to our fellow humans. We must take responsibility for what we write and what we say in public, and that means learning how to be a little introspective.
I don’t expect it to happen any time soon.
The CSM says it’s too easy to blame the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on angry, violent language and imagery in the political arena. One concludes from reading the article that Loughner was determined to kill somebody that day and Giffords’ shopping center town meeting offered lots of targets of opportunity. Giffords was targeted, all right, but Loughner was driven to kill by the demons in his head, not by half-witted right-wing bombast (the notion put forth by some right wingnuts that the “left owns Loughner” is pure bullshit, and I won’t say any more about it.)
We don’t know what drove Loughner to hate as he does, and we probably never will. But to pooh-pooh the idea that the violent rhetoric of radio crackpots influenced his willingness to point a gun at a congresswoman’s head and pull the trigger is too easy, too. Those who know more than I about human behavior have long ago determined that haters don’t start out hating, they’re taught to hate. Yes, Loughner probably suffers from some mental unbalance, but no one can say for sure the he wasn’t influenced by the internet and broadcast haters. Words, read or spoken, have power, they are the signs we use to communicate ideas and emotions.
As a lifelong student of language, I learned long ago that words matter. I teach my composition and news writing students that words have connotations that are often more important than their denotations. Saying that a political party was "targeting" a congressperson is different from saying the party was "concentrating" on a particular race. A target is something that is shot at, whether by bow, gun, or spitwad. The verb "to target" means to take aim prior to shooting; that's the root and foundation of all other connotations of the word. People use the word "target" as a verb because they want to sound aggressive, they want to sound like they mean business. There is an emotional reaction to the word, and that is why it is used.
If someone strongly opposes a piece of legislation, they can say, "I will work very hard to defeat that legislation" or they can say "I will fight tooth and nail to kill the bill." Too often, politicians have been reaching for the more aggressive phrase as they try to convey their (supposed) emotional investment in getting done whatever it is they want to get done. They know emotional words evoke emotional responses in their constituents and in each other, and that is why they use them. Unfortunately, it also escalates the anger in people who actually would like to physically clobber some thick-headed liberal or kidney-punch a loudmouth tea-bagger.
Fighting actions do come from fighting words. No one is more passionate about the innate human right to express one's self than am I, but I believe it would be a wonderfully responsible thing for our elected representatives in Washington to spend the next several months deliberately toning down their warrior-talk and speaking more like the statesmen and stateswomen they were elected to be. Unfortunately, that won’t happen, and the CSM article makes it clear that politicos are already using evidence of Loughner’s mental illness as an excuse to exonerate themselves and return to their emotion-grabbing vitriol.
Violent talk by public officials has made it somehow more acceptable for ordinary folks to unleash their rage on the public. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, emails, text messages, and the hundreds of thousands of personal blogs that are released for public consumption every day are peppered with outbursts in which people express a desire that someone else die. How to deal with North Korea? Call for assassination of the country’s leaders. How to cope with a liberal black man in the White House? Express the hope that he suffers a fatal affliction. Someone breaks into your house or steals your car? Suggest that they improve the world by committing suicide.
Posters of such drivel almost always cover themselves by trying to mask the comments as humor: “It was just a joke, I didn’t mean it.” That is as nonsensical as when politicians excuse their “targeting” imagery by saying, “It’s not personal, it’s just rhetoric.” It isn’t “just” rhetoric. Words matter. Words convey ideas. It is one thing to have a private thought about someone – to imagine a human being’s head with a red dot on it, for instance – but quite another to express that thought in public. Such expressions do not advance the cause of civilization, they are not satirical, and they are not fit for public discourse in any arena.
It is time to advance beyond the use of violent speech and writing in the civic discourse of the day. If we are to survive as a civilization and not just as a country, we need to learn how to express ourselves clearly and peacefully to our fellow humans. We must take responsibility for what we write and what we say in public, and that means learning how to be a little introspective.
I don’t expect it to happen any time soon.
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