I've been doing another addictive behavior I try to avoid, following a twitter feed this morning, the one that the Deputy Washington Editor of the New York Times, Jonathan Weissman set off with an incredibly stupid and ignorantly racist tweet of the kind only the most parochial of upper class NYC - DC white guys would ever make, claiming to be able to determine that
(((JonathanWeisman)))Verified account @jonathanweisman
Saying @RashidaTlaib (D-Detroit) and @IlhanMN (D-Minneapolis) are from the Midwest is like saying @RepLloydDoggett (D-Austin) is from Texas or @repjohnlewis (D-Atlanta) is from the Deep South. C’mon.
along with some other, as learned from the movies and TV stereotypes about mid-westerners.
He's getting raked over the coals over this one. I doubt he'll be forced to apologize for it by the Great Gray Drab. It's the kind of stereotyping stuff that comprises most of its editorial content and much of its alleged reportage. And they're hardly alone in that, it's typical of American so-called journalism.
Update: Sorry, I mixed his name up with my beloved dentists'. I love my dentist.
Update 2: That wasn't sarcastic, I do love my dentist, he's a really nice guy and knows his anatomy well enough so the first prick of the Novocaine needle is the only pain you'll feel no matter how much work there is to do. He's the most generous person with a medical degree I've ever known.
Update: Sorry, I mixed his name up with my beloved dentists'. I love my dentist.
Update 2: That wasn't sarcastic, I do love my dentist, he's a really nice guy and knows his anatomy well enough so the first prick of the Novocaine needle is the only pain you'll feel no matter how much work there is to do. He's the most generous person with a medical degree I've ever known.
Took me a minute to sort out what Weisman was saying. The stereotype of Texas as all rednecks and red Republicans, except for Austin, should have been buried decades ago. Why does nobody notice that Alex Jones lives in Austin, too? (Or that Austin is so gerrymandered Chip Roy represents some of that area?) Or that Harris County went blue in 2018? Or that Tarrant/Dallas counties (the other major population center in the state) is blue? That Bexar County sent Juan Castro (Julian's brother) to the House? That the Trans-Pecos sent Will Hurd, a Republican, to the House, and he's probably the most "liberal" Republican there.
ReplyDeleteTexas is not California, but it's not Mississippi, either. I don't care if Weisman did grow up in Georgia, Atlanta is still part of Georgia.
This is a stupid comment worthy more of Trump, whose stumbling idiocy continues to expose the problems of our public discussions. Trump is not so much an outlier and an interloper, he is the idiot child who talks like so many of us do, but he says the quiet parts out loud.
Trump is not the only idiot with a platform and a megaphone. But he's exposing how idiotic much of our discourse has become.
That kind of casual ignorance is especially bad when it's a guy who has an important job in a reputable news organization. Stereotyping, other forms of prejudice and bigotry in the mass media and even something like the NYT is a mental illness that is communicable through information. Forget the stupid idea of "memes" the social spread of ideas has been known from before our first ancestors uttered the first information in language. Yet our media seems to be in the business of spreading such stuff.
DeleteI'm always kind of stunned that people don't seem to understand that there are people of every ethnicity all over every region of the United States as they paint huge swaths of it white, reactionary, etc. I think the habits of the social sciences that encourage such stereotyping is to blame but, even more so in this context, the Electoral College which wipes out the votes of liberals from Texas or Georgia, the votes of Black Voters and others (more effectively than Jim Crow traditions did because it involves the whole country) and others in other places. If we elected presidents by the popular vote, all of this would disappear immediately in our presidential politics and if gerrymandering and voter suppression were abolished it would be largely diminished in other elections.