The Reverend Al Sharpton, whatever his other gifts may be, is not a particularly adept television host. His cadence grates. To this Midwesterner he usually sounds as if he's about to punch someone in the mouth. Sharpton mispronounces words and misses cues to open or close segments. He yells all the time. Sharpton's only two emotions are surprise or outrage. He seems to be in a perennial search for the teleprompter. We posted about all this before but Sharpton's shortcomings are obvious to anyone that watches his show for longer than five minutes. For these reasons and many others, Sharpton's ratings on MSNBC have mostly been bad. I can't blame him too much for this. If someone offered to pay me many multiples of my current salary to do something for which I was poorly qualified I might well take the money and cry all the way to the bank. Sharpton has to this point survived the latest reshuffling of talent at MSNBC which saw Joy Reid and Ronan Farrow lose their even less popular shows. This ability to survive purges and even the ability to get hired in the first place had some people shaking their heads and muttering about conspiracy theories. Others laughed at the sheer audacity and tenacity of Sharpton. It takes a lot to survive as a public figure in this world and Sharpton has it. Although his television show is an ongoing dumpster fire I appreciate that Sharpton brings attention to some situations that would otherwise go unnoticed. However someone just recently revealed his belief that Sharpton's hiring and survival at MSNBC was more about corporate payoffs and hiring a spook to sit by the door than it was about Sharpton's hosting talents. So this man filed a $20 billion dollar federal lawsuit.
Of the approximately $10 billion in content fees that Comcast pays to license channels and advertise each year, less than $3 million is paid to 100% African American–owned media. Even the token payments Comcast makes to 100% African American–owned media companies are a charade. Comcast pays minimal amounts to license and distribute the Africa Channel, which is owned and operated by a former Comcast/NBC-Universal executive/insider and one of the architects of the MOUs Comcast uses to perpetuate its racial discrimination in contracting.
In connection with its 2010 bid to acquire NBC-Universal, Comcast was criticized for its refusal to do business with 100% African American–owned media. In response, Comcast entered into what it termed “voluntary diversity agreements,” i.e., memoranda of understanding (“MOUs”), with non-media civil rights groups, including the other Defendants herein: NAACP; National Urban League; Al Sharpton; and Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.
Defendants NAACP, National Urban League, Al Sharpton and National Action Network entered into the MOUs in order to facilitate Comcast’s racist practices and policies in contracting—or, more accurately, refusing to contract—with 100% African American–owned media companies. The MOUs are a sham, undertaken to whitewash Comcast’s discriminatory business practices.
To obtain support for the NBC-Universal acquisition and for its continued racist policies and practices, Comcast made large cash “donations” to the non-media groups that signed the MOUs. For example, Comcast has paid Reverend Al Sharpton and Sharpton’s National Action Network over $3.8 million in “donations” and as salary for the on-screen television hosting position on MSNBC that Comcast awarded Sharpton in exchange for his signature on the MOUs, another blatant example of conflict of interest.
Read the (lengthy) full complaint hereI have no idea if the allegations which Allen and others are making in this complaint are accurate. This may be something utterly frivolous which will be tossed from the court system. I do know however that it's often important not just to look at the people in front of a camera or the individual people at the lower levels of the organization to see if Black people are getting a fair shake. It's just as important to look at the higher ups, at the decision makers. It's important to see who's making the contracting decisions and if black companies are getting a piece of the pie. Are business decisions about hiring, grooming, and contracting made so that everyone has a fair chance to compete? There are some corporations which are happy to hire a few black executives here or there over the years but which consistently avoid business to business relations with black companies. Although Allen has a few zingers listed in the complaint (a white executive saying that they didn't want to create another Bob Johnson) for the most part the allegations (if true) are examples of how bloodless racism can work in the corporate world. Few people are going to run around screaming racial slurs or putting up signs. Well, few people compared to forty years ago do those sorts of things. It's just that business decisions that are made which always seem to leave the same people holding the dirty end of the stick. Again, this could all be nonsense. Allen's own company has come under serious attack for hostility to unions and low pay to performers and creators. Allen's said that in a previous interview that he sees his company as "the Wal-mart of television". FWIW, Allen has also stated that nobody ever gave him anything.
Giving a tour of Entertainment Studios’ newly leased 75,000-square-foot production space in Culver City, Allen says he built his empire from scratch, in part because, as a black man, he had to. “Over the 20 years, I’ve seen my white counterparts have access to enormous amounts of capital, and in 20 years nobody’s ever offered me a nickel,” he says. “It made me stronger, it made me work with different disciplines.”
LINKTo conclude, again this could be a pure shakedown initiated by Allen using Sharpton's name for publicity. Sharpton certainly thinks so. He said that the lawsuit was frivolous at best. He also claims that his organization did not receive $4 million in donations from Comcast but instead less than $1 million. Well. Detractors and even supporters of various advocacy organizations concerned with issues of race, gender, sexuality, animal rights etc. have stated that when an advocacy group accepts "donations" from the same organizations it is supposed to be monitoring, it can sometimes find itself politically neutered. Did this happen to Sharpton? Hmm. Is Allen just being a whiner?
What are your thoughts?
We've talked previously about how politeness and chivalry are wasted on some people. Case in point, recently I went to a doctor's appointment. The admitting nurse took notes and asked me questions as nurses are wont to do. Now it's important to point out for reasons that become important later in the paragraph that this nurse was obviously significantly older than I am. She might not have been of an age with my mother's or father's generation but she wasn't that far from it either. As most people who know me offline would tell you I am normally nothing if not polite. When I was raised I was trained and expected to ALWAYS say sir and ma'am to my parents. Not doing so was a sign of grave disrespect. And if you were a child in their house you did not want to disrespect my parents. Outside the house I might occasionally throw in a sir or ma'am to an older person with whom I was interacting but unlike with my parents THAT honorific was optional. It depended on if I was in a good mood or the older person was being polite or if I knew their last name and could instead call them Mr. or Mrs. so-n-so or a million other reasons or no reason at all. Spending time down south with my maternal relatives made me even more polite because my grandfather usually said sir or ma'am to everyone, old or young. So being the polite man that I am I answered one of the nurse's questions with "no ma'am".Well.Judging by the nostril flaring firestorm that ensued that was a mistake."Why are you calling me ma'am?""Huh?!!!""I'm not THAT old.""That's offensive!"And blah blah blickety blah. Rinse wash repeat. Alrighty then.
Now I won't say what I was thinking that I SHOULD have called this woman after this little display but I did think that this was a humorous example of exactly why politesse and chivalry may be on the decline if they are. There are simply too many people who have made it crystal clear that they value and desire neither. If I call someone sir or ma'am it's not a negative value judgment on their age but merely a signal of respect. But if strangers don't appreciate that then that is fine. I just think it's a shame when people look for offense in everything or can't appreciate good manners. But whatever. It's the world in which we live.
Quarry's Choiceby Max Allan Collins
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| Who's your Daddy? |
Once a year I have to take and pass an online course that covers inappropriate personal behavior in a corporate environment. A big part of this is just reading how not to harass, intimidate, insult or discriminate against your fellow workers. It's mostly pretty insanely freaking obvious stuff that can basically be boiled down to "Don't tell me no lies and keep your hands to yourself". The Company probably wants to make sure that no would be player can do anything stupid, get caught and try to blame the company by claiming that no one ever told them that their actions were wrong. Because that could end up costing the Company money and bad publicity. Sadly it looks like Vice-President Joe Biden could do well to take a similar course that shows him the right way and wrong way to act. Over the years I've seen more than a few people retire, get promoted or be otherwise honored in the workplace. Sometimes they even bring their spouse or significant other along for the announcement or celebration. Generally though, unless specifically invited to do so, it's usually a good idea for the boss of the person being honored to refrain from pawing, grabbing, kissing, stroking, fondling, hugging, patting or otherwise engaging in intimate touching with someone else's spouse. Such things are reserved for (obviously) the spouse or in some cases relatives or in-laws. Not bosses. Bosses get a lot of perks but pawing other people's spouses shouldn't be one of them. I learned that in a 45 minute online course. Biden hasn't learned that in 45 years of political service. Interesting.
There are always people who are more touchy-feely than others of course. I happen to be a person who believes that physical contact has little if any place in the workplace. Not everyone feels that way. I doubt that Biden meant anything but the optics just aren't good. The risks of giving offense are too high. If Biden were anyone else and/or if the lady got upset Biden might be looking for a new job next week. If Biden really just had to touch Mrs. Stephanie Carter, wife of the new Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, perhaps a firm vigorous handshake would have sufficed. Because in some circles I frequent, Vice-President or not, putting your hands like that on someone else's wife can initiate some negative feelings or even start a fight. I'm just saying.
What do you think?
Last September when the expectant mothers first met Dr. Vesna Roi at Eastlake Pediatrics in Roseville. She was recommended by their midwife.
"We were really happy with her," Krista said. "The kind of care she offered, we liked her personality, she seemed pretty friendly. She seemed pretty straight up with us."
The Contrerasas were told to make an appointment with Roi once Bay arrived. The baby was born at home and when she was six days old - they went in.
But instead of seeing Dr. Roi, another doctor greeted them.
"The first thing Dr. Karam said was 'I'll be your doctor, I'll be seeing you today because Dr. Roi decided this morning that she prayed on it and she won't be able to care for Bay," Jami said. "Dr. Karam told us she didn't even come to the office that morning because she didn't want to see us."
The new mothers were shocked, hurt and angry. Bay's parents proceeded with the appointment with the other doctor then found another pediatric group for their baby.
As we discussed previously there is a certain type of person, often but by no means always, non-black, who feels qualified to circumscribe and negatively judge what blackness is. This is an ongoing theme in American society. It arises from slavery, Jim Crow and the resulting American tradition of policing what is "white" and what is "black". Some people once criticized Spike Lee movies because they felt he wasn't focusing enough on black drug addiction. Others blasted The Cosby Show for showing two upper-middle class black people happily married to each other and presiding over achieving children. Occasionally people criticize out of ignorance or even well-meaning condescension. However some other people question or insult someone's blackness from pure malevolence, racism and fear. Such men or women are threatened, confused and ultimately angered by any Black person who doesn't fit their stereotypes. For them Blackness means always and only to be the permanent outsider, to be less than, to be impoverished, to be criminal, to be unworthy of respect, to speak incoherently and act ridiculously, to dress in a loud fashion, to be the grinning, shucking, jiving, spear chucking, incompetent, sex obsessed, perpetually late, lazy, dumb, Mandingo/Mammy/Jezebel/Uncle Ben/Nat Turner/Sapphire who haunts their worst nightmares or fevered fantasies.
Dinesh D'Souza is such a racist. It's ironic that an immigrant from Mumbai, India somehow thinks himself eminently qualified to engage in discourse on President Obama's "blackness". But I shouldn't be too surprised. From virtually the unfortunate moment he slithered onto our shores D'Souza has taken heed of the cynical saw that the quickest way to become truly American is to ensure that everyone knows you hate Black people just as much as they presumably do. Not content with having previously suggested that President Obama's mother was a sex crazed fat tramp with a dislike for her own race, the felon D'Souza recently claimed that President Obama didn't have the black experience and referred to him as a "boy". If the Klan or Nazi party ever opened up membership to South Asians look for D'Souza to be first in line to lynch himself. There are PLENTY of valid reasons to criticize President Obama and his actions as President from various political perspectives. That's fair. We should not aspire to behave like some partisans (cough *Al Sharpton* cough) who check to see if President Obama agrees that the sun actually rose today before they talk about the beautiful sunrise they're watching. But there are people like D'Souza who find that President Obama's original unforgivable mortal sin is his race. Most of these people fall on the conservative side of the political spectrum. It is what is is.
Most black voters will never vote for conservatives as long as conservative public figures and intellectuals such as D'Souza remain happily wed to ugly anti-black animus. Life doesn't work like that. Who knows how much of D'Souza's racism was imported from his mother country and how much he picked up in the USA. The United States is far from the only country to have issues with racism. But a slug like D'Souza provides an example that the much ballyhooed "browning of America" won't necessarily engender a lessening of anti-black attitudes. It's almost humorous that an adulterous felon like D'Souza can fix his mouth to say anything about the President of the United States. How are you going to call someone ghetto and you're in a halfway house waiting for your next urine test? If I were a president of a religious school who got caught practicing Kama Sutra positions with a woman not my wife I would slink away and deal with my moral failings instead of spewing bigoted bile at President Obama. Not D'Souza. His slimy racism just oozes out of him everywhere he crawls.
By the way, whatever you may think of affirmative action MLK vociferously supported it. Lying conservatives like D'Souza want to pretend otherwise. But MLK made his feelings clear on many different occasions. You can actually go look this stuff up for yourself if you're so inclined. D'Souza shows the utter incoherence of his racism. From one side of his mouth he claims that President Obama hasn't had the black experience and thus can't really identify with Black Americans. From the other side he calls the President a "boy" and links him to THE GHETTO (insert scary music). There are many adult black men who have had to deal with racists calling them "boys" or making cracks about "ghettos". So I guess the President really has had the black experience after all.
THOUGHTS?
