In tragedy’s wake, reason prevails
When confronted with tragic events, the challenge is not emotional intensity, but bringing stern reason to a situation that could be lost in the muddle of hysteria and opportunism.
Those who want to be seen as unbending fighters for progress can say very murky things in public that sound like threats.
And opportunists willing to stand among angry conservatives can be equally irrational, trying to prove that they are not frightened by “political correctness.”
Thus the old Harlem claim to integrity, “I ain’t scared of you,” becomes a rhetorical sword that cuts both ways, used by the far left or the far right. Neither will give the other slack as victims become secondary to ideology.
At the same time, for all of the shortcomings in cable television, where such clashes are so common, one can see moments in which commentators step up to challenges.
On “Morning Joe,” “The Last Word with Lawrence O’donnell” and even Fox News, competing visions of the Trayvon Martin killing came forward with wellthought-out positions that had much more light than murk.
Joe Scarborough took a lickin’ stick to those on the far right he considered irresponsible, while praising conservatives who had not sunk down into blind partisanship.
He branded as “beneath contempt” those who were willing to distort things about young Trayvon in order to fight the supposed power of the liberal media.
Lawrence O’donnell had on his show four people whose thinking showed itself to be far above the predictable fray.
Farai Chideya, a radio show host and an academic, started things off with a serious interest in the human complexity demanded of “justice,” which is beyond a rabble-rousing slogan or wearing a
Trayvon Martin’s death has caused much sound and fury — but some have tried to see past old divisions
hoodie in solidarity with Trayvon.
Charles M. Blow of The New York Times brought more attention to the specifics claimed by the killer, George Zimmerman, and his defenders. Blow’s questions raised troubling but reasonable doubts about their claims.
Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post saw an inspiring example in the actions of a Sanford, Fla., homicide detective determined to find out what had actually happened to Trayvon. Capehart made it clear how much he admired this investigator’s refusal to back down.
Last but far from least was Fox News, which broke away from its expected superficiality by bringing to light the thoroughly inexcusable actions of Roseanne Barr and Spike Lee.
Neither Barr’s contrived vulgarity nor Lee’s willingness to so often vaporize a substantial cinematic talent with propaganda has ever been as contemptible as what they recently did to Zimmerman’s parents: Lee tweeted out the wrong address, where another couple lived, while Barr tweeted out the right address but then deleted the tweet, though not without her characteristic grousing.
Lee apologized and compensated the family in question; Barr never apologized. In the end, both deserved all the tomatoes thrown at them by the right.
The democratic freedom laid out by our Constitution asks plenty of each of us. The essentials of a free society are best held in place by the mortar of integrity. Whenever we see integrity brought to the Trayvon Martin tragedy by our cable news media, we are no closer to heaven, but some very important steps beyond hell.