'Miracle Water' Sheehan: lessons in stupidityI know I make a point of generally avoiding the opinion columns, but I couldn't help myself when I saw the byline for Paul Sheehan's column this week. Titled 'Stupidity foils the Black Prince', it begins "this column is about stupid black men". Following my usual practice, I won't give that moron a link.
611 out of a total of 951 words are quotes from black American 'commentators' and 'intellectuals', leaving a total of 340 words of original writing from Sheehan to glue together those quotes and pretend he's made a point. How much does he get paid to write these things again? 340 words, for chrissakes, with the rest pinched from elsewhere. Sure it's not plagiarism, but it's fucking lazy.
Sheehan writes:
Given the delicate nature of this discussion, I will rely on the voices of prominent African-Americans who have articulated outrage at the role of Wright and the implications this has for Obama.
Translation: "The overtones of this entire piece could well be labelled racist, so I have managed to find a handful of Uncle Toms, the colour of whose skin I will be able to point to in reply to anyone who attempts to point out the obvious racist overtones in my column. For example: 'how can it be racist if even a single black person agrees with me? Answer me that, you shifty liberal, you!'".
The African Americans Sheehan quotes from are all conservative commentators, something which Sheehan fails to mention other than in the instance that one of them was published in a conservative journal, I suppose by default suggesting that the person who wrote it was always likely to be ideologically anti-Obama. Not because of any particular intellectually-based argument against his tilt at the presidency, but because that's just what conservatives do.
Sheehan begins the article by pretending he's on Obama's side, man. He describes Obama's bid for the Whitehouse as 'realistic and galvanising', and castigates "stupid black men", who he describes as "a sub-group now in the process of undermining the first ever realistic and galvanising tilt for the White House by an African-American."
I was curious as to who this 'sub-group' might be made up of. Sheehan gets stuck into the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose politically unsavoury and 'anti-patriotic' yet factually fairly sound comments have been used by Hillary Clinton and the Republican Party alike in an attempt to bring Obama down before he gains the Democratic presidential nomination. But who else is there in this 'sub-group' Sheehan refers to? Well, no-one. The rest of his column is spent stringing together quotes from 'conservative' African American commentators such as Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell who all seem to speak with one voice with a message that can be summed up in a single sentence "Barack Obama is a phony and he benefits from racial politics". Whether Obama is a phony is something that can't really be determined unless he actually makes the presidency, but to suggest he benefits from racial politics is just patently untrue; the fear a large proportion of Americans have that black people are somehow so fundamentally different that one couldn't possibly be trusted to run the country has been his opponents' biggest weapon against him.
But none of this bears any relevance to the ostensible point of Sheehan's column, which tapers off into nothing at all once he runs out of quotes from black 'intellectuals'. You might even get the impression that all Sheehan wanted to achieve this week apart from an easy paycheque was to put 'black' and 'stupid' in the same sentence and get away without being called a racist.
What a waste of space that man is.
The highlighted sections are the bits Sheehan didn't write. Is the SMH getting value for money out of old 'Miracle Water'?UPDATE: Commenter Chris provided a link to this video on YouTube featuring Bill Moyers' take on the Obama/Wright issue. It's about the most insightful, common-sense piece I've seen. It runs for roughly 6 minutes and is worth watching all the way through.
9 comments:
Hey - I'm a regular reader of your prose, but never comment :)
However - checkout Bill Moyer on this topic for some quality commentary over this whole "issue".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfqCyMU3mfo
Yeah I started to read it then remembered he is a fuckwit and stopped.
Boo for Obama eh? What about the Republican Right that sought out agents of intolerance and aided and abetted them in spreading their bigotry and hate and diving America by their highlighting issues of no substance while the free market right sold the country from under them.
BTW Agents of Intolerance - McCain's term for Falwell et al back when he wasn't sucking on the fundy teat.
Sheehan is a shit stain of a journalist. Actually that's demeaning to include the word journalist anywhere near him. He's not. He's a bigot with air time.
Send your feedback to SMH. Because they do pay attention to it. Alan Jones got arsed from nine because people complained about him. Do the same here.
Hmm, ok I will... But I still reckons the SMH keeps people like Sheehan and Devine on because they're 'controversial' and prompt lots of letters to the editor... so I suspect I will be feeding the beast rather than helping my cause.
I agree that it is a lazy opinion piece by Sheehan, but there are a couple of point that I feel need to be made. The 'stupid black men' line just a rehash on Larry Elder’s play on Michael Moore’s book. Remember, Elder has been trying for a while (albeit unsuccessfully) to be a conservative version of Moore. I wouldn’t put too much focus on that, as it seems more a symptom of his laziness rather than any obvious racist bent.
The other point is one that I have found jarring right throughout commentary on the campaign, and that is the easy recourse people have to calling black critics of Obama ‘Uncle Toms’. The term is actually offensive in itself. You think there aren’t African Americans who aren’t interested in sucking up to the establishment who think that Wright is a dill? Wright has said some pretty stupid things that have made it more difficult for Obama.
Also, Steele, Sowell and Elder are obviously conservatives, and probably Republicans, but it is a bit harsh to lump Juan Williams in with that crowd. I think that he has made some positive and intelligent contributions to the broader debate around public policy failures and African American communities and in no way could be considered a ‘house n*****r’ (which, let’s be honest, is just the impolite way of saying ‘Uncle Tom’).
Hmm 'stupid black men' might be a rehash of a line and another symptom of laziness, but let's face it, there was not even a flimsy excuse for its use in this instance.
I also don't believe that all black critics of Obama are Uncle Toms, and I don't believe that there are no valid criticisms to be made of Obama- just that the ones Sheehan has chosen to quote from are peons of the conservative establishment and their quotes have nothing valuable whatosever to add to any debate- calling Obama 'anti-American' because he sat in the pew of a church whose pastor said that 9/11 occurred because of the US' fucked up foreign policy constitutes genuine criticism? More like it's exactly the barrel that both the Republican establishment and Hillary Clinton want them to be pushing. Not to mention the fact that some of the quotes from different commentators are contradictory- Steele describes Obama as being essentially no different from Hillary Clinton, while Sowell labels him 'radical', 'anti-Western' and 'far left'. A whiff away from 'terrorist' and 'Osama... whoops, I mean Obama'. There's absolutely nothing of substance in what they're saying.
I'll grant it was a bit harsh to lump Juan Williams in with the rest, but you get my drift.
My comment about the use of ‘uncle tom’ was not specifically aimed at you, sorry if it came across that way. I say it more out of frustration with the general low standard of online ‘debate’ that seems to be prevalent in this long hard slog of a campaign! Whether it is race baiting, rampart sexism or even some of the ‘ageist’ insults McCain is wearing, it isn’t conducive to good discourse and it seems many (but not all) are happy to get down and roll in the mud. Unfortunately, this seems to include most 'pundits' too!
I think that Steele, Sowell and Elder could have all chosen their words better, but it seems to me that the question as to Obama’s judgement in sticking by Wright then dumping him when he refused to stop saying what he has essentially been saying for 30 years is valid. Similarly, while you are right about the nonsensical condemnation of his September 11 remarks (essentially, he is arguing Chalmers Johnson’s ‘blowback’ thesis, an eminently sensible one), some of the other stuff – primarily HIV as a means of genocide against people of colour; crack cocaine as a CIA plot – is just whacko stuff. On that, I am with David Gergan, who called Wright’s speaking tour "the dumbest, most selfish, most narcissistic thing I've seen in forty years of covering politics."
It's on this point that I think Williams makes a telling point on Obama's judgement.
(Of course, that isn't to say that the other two in the race have not shown similar 'lapses' in judgement around who they choose to associate with!)
My comment about the use of ‘uncle tom’ was not specifically aimed at you...I say it more out of frustration with the general low standard of online ‘debate’ that seems to be prevalent
Hey no worries, a friend of ours had something similar to say about the China/Tibet coverage the other day...
And fair enough for Williams to question Obama's judgement in sticking by someone who appears to lack any political sensibilities whatsoever (i.e. knowing when to shut up or backpedal!), but I suppose there was always the consideration as to what it would have looked like to drop the pastor of 20 years like a hot potato instead of saying a few patronising things and attempting to diminish his importance/influence.
As for McCain and ageism- he isn't doing his cause any good by pulling in a ~$60 000 annual disability pension!
i have friends i don't agree with who would make me look bad if i was running for pm. hillary has lots of friends who would make her look bad, so does mccain. it's only because wright fits the 'scary negro' stereotype that the media are droning on and on about him. mccain is suddenly joined at the hip to people who have said that america deserved sept 11 in ways 100 times more offensive than wright and the media have let that slide.
the fact that obama didn't run away from wright at the first opportunity isn't a reason to criticise him. he should be criticised for doing that now because it legtimises the view by the media that when it comes to race the only acceptable choices for a black man are to either be jeremiah wright or to be the bland, inoffensive, safe, 'well spoken negro' that obama so desperately wants to be.
the fact that clinton has so enthusiastically embraced republican attacks on him, including the wright race baiting, is the surest sign that should she win the nomination, she will be flattened by mccain. she'll send black voters home, as well as the new voters obama brought out. meanwhile freshly buried republicans will crawl out of their graves and shuffle to polling stations to vote against her. she will be absolutely smashed.
sheehan's behaviour on the other hand is just a very old tactic. find a tame member of the race you want to vilify, take the things you want to say and say them through that person, inoculating yourself from racism. he's done it to muslims before, this is no different.
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