Reposted from Horse Head Soup:
At the risk of arousing a firestorm, I am going to defend Juan Williams. Kind of.
Williams appeared on the O'Reilly Factor Monday. In response to Bill O'Reilly's recent appearance on The View, during which Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg famously walked off the set in response to O'Reilly's statement that Muslims were to blame for 9/11, Williams said the following:
"Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. 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."
Ehh...
OK, it was not a wise thing to say. Bill O'Reilly is in the opinion business -- he is free to say whatever he wants. But Juan Williams is a journalist. He has a professional responsibility to maintain objectivity. Even the suggestion of bias destroys not only his credibility, but that of NPR. So I understand why they fired him. Frankly, I don't think they had much choice.
And there are other issues in play here too. Williams' conciliatory tone gave tacit support to support to O'Reilly's inflammatory rhetoric. And Williams has made a habit of appearing on Fox and acting as the liberal foil to their right-wing demagoguery. NPR rightly objected to this. They did so not necessarily because it is demeaning (although it undoubtedly is -- even Alan Colmes eventually decided that the paycheck wasn't worth the humiliation), but because expressing an opinion -- any opinion -- compromised Williams' impartiality as a journalist. If you are going to report the news, you have a duty to keep your opinions to yourself. It is not a free speech issue, but a professional credibility issue. We don't know what Walter Cronkite or Peter Jennings thought about the stories they reported, and that's the way it should be.
Now here comes the BUT:
Although I agree with the firing for the reasons I have stated, I actually don't think what Williams said was racist. In fact, I think he was just being honest, and echoing feelings that many Americans have had.
I know all Muslims aren't terrorists. The very notion is not only preposterous but offensive. The overwhelming majority of Muslims have never committed, nor considered committing, an act of terror. I lived for a short time in Saudi Arabia, and made many Muslim friends there. I never had any concern that any of them was plotting to do me harm.
But emotions aren't rational. They aren't logical. We feel what we feel. Most Americans have not had the benefit of having spent time in the Middle East. In fact, most Americans probably have never met a Muslim. All they know is what they have seen in the media and what they have heard from the mouths of rabble-rousers like O'Reilly. Can you blame them for being scared?
Now, in fairness, Juan Williams is not your average American. He is a highly educated, worldly news reporter who should know better. But even sophisticated people are not immune to the insidious effects of fear-mongering.
Several years ago I was in my car at a stop light. A young black man approached dressed in what I guess would be called "hip-hop" clothes -- baggy pants, sideways hat, etc. Without even realizing I was doing it, I reached over and hit the door lock button.
Why did I do that? I don't know. The guy wasn't a threat. He was just passing by. That incident troubled me for some time. It shook my faith in my self-identification as an "enlightened" liberal. Was I really a closet racist?
I don't think so. I think it's just that fear and ignorance are frighteningly easy to internalize, even for those of us on guard against them. Like I said, I know that the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists. But nevertheless I will admit that when I have been on planes with young Muslim men I have had "what if?" thoughts. I have quickly scolded myself and dismissed them, of course. But although I'm not proud of it, I can't deny that I have had them.
The only effective weapon against ignorance is education. Contemptuously dismissing people's fears not only does nothing to address the underlying problem, but feeds right into the "liberals think they're better than us" rhetoric of the Tea Party and their ilk. Progressives should lead by example.