Is the Juan Williams incident a good reason to think twice about giving to Colorado Public Radio?
Perhaps I am just looking for an excuse not to fulfill my pledge after living through 10 straight days of pledge week. However, deep down inside, I also wonder if there might be an inner racist just waiting to get out.
Williams, author of “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965” and a terrific biography on Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, told FOX News host Bill O’Reilly, “When I get on a 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.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations was all over National Public Radio, where Williams was a senior national correspondent, to punish him for making that remark on FOX. So NPR fired him.
I guess they had the right to do that. But Williams should know that the terrorists who hijacked planes on 9/11 didn’t dress in “Muslim garb,” so I’m not sure why he is so concerned about people who dress in such attire.
I get nervous hearing some of the diatribe on FOX News. It makes me nervous that Sarah Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee have a following. It makes me nervous that the Tea Party candidates are doing so well in Delaware and Nevada. Glenn Beck makes me nervous. Some Latinos and people of color make me nervous. And I’m not so sure that I might not react like Williams if someone dressed in “Muslim garb” or with an Indian turban sat next to me on an airplane.
But what good would it do to withhold my support to my local public radio station? Sen. Jim DeMint and House Minority Leader John A. Boehner have called for withholding money from the NPR budget. (Only 1.5 percent of NPR’s revenues come directly from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.) They claim NPR has a liberal bias and that Williams was a victim of expressing his opinions on the conservative network, FOX.
Many people who listen to NPR probably may not remember Williams and his commentary. He was not somebody who appeared everyday. Probably more important to ask is what is going to happen to others at NPR who express their opinions in other venues? Are they going to muzzle Cokie Roberts on ABC Sunday mornings? Will Mara Liasson have to watch what she says on FOX News?
Does Colorado Public Radio have a liberal bias? Their coverage of local politics appears to be slanted rather liberal. The Colorado Matters interviews with the Senate and gubernatorial candidates appeared to center more on the issues with the Democrats and personalities of the Republicans (and the American Constitution Party candidate). But without CPR, we have no alternative except for the newspapers. We would miss the in-depth radio coverage of the Colorado politics.
I am going to honor my pledge to Colorado Public Radio because I know how to sort through the issues, just like Juan Williams does. It is a complicated world today, but not so challenging that I think it is right to vote with my checkbook against public radio.
Public radio is an important voice in the clutter of all the political advertising of the season. I think NPR learned an important lesson from the firing of Juan Williams. Their switchboards lit up and their news coverage will become a little bit softer.
David A. Becker (evadgorf@comcast.net) of Pueblo is a reviewer of religion books who runs an Internet bookstore.
