rick sanchez, jon stewart, jews and the media

As you may know already, Rick Sanchez was fired from CNN, apparently because of a conversation he had on Sirius XM radio with Pete Dominick which included a passing implied mention of the role of Jews in the media.

This whole controversy is a bit surreal to me. The issue seems to have started off as just a personal conflict between Stewart and Sanchez. Over a period of time Jon Stewart repeatedly mocked Sanchez on various episodes of the Daily Show. (The Colbert Report has done similar things but to a lesser extent) For example, at one point Stewart calls Sanchez an over-caffeinated control freak (among other things) and Sanchez was featured several times on the Daily Show's "moment of zen" segment (for example in the wake of Sotomayor's nomination Stewart even did a bit including Sanchez' own mother.)

Then, this past Thursday, on the show with Pete Dominick, Rick Sanchez talked about a number of topics, his new book, his family, his faith, and his experiences of feeling marginalized in the news industry (including the mocking he's been getting from Stewart and Colbert).

Rightly or wrongly, Sanchez frames this marginalization in terms of race and class. He is Latino with a working-class upbringing in an industry where many of his colleagues are white and raised middle-to-upper-class. And if you listen to the entire interview Sanchez isn't fixated on Stewart or Jews but also mentions prejudice coming from Stephen Colbert, Glenn Beck, O'Reilly and some unnamed "top brass" at CNN as well:

Sanchez: I had a guy who works here at CNN who's a top brass come to me and say, ‘You know what, I don't want you to --

Dominick: ‘Will you wash this dish for me, Sanchez?’

Sanchez: No no, see that’s the thing; it’s more subtle. White folks usually don't see it. But we do - those of us who are minorities and women see it sometimes too from men in authority. Here, I’ll give you my example its this 'You know what, I don't want you anchoring anymore, I really don't see you as an anchor, I see you more as a reporter, I see you more as a John Quinones - you know the guy on ABC. That’s what he told me. He told me he saw me as John Quinones. Now, did he not realize that he was telling me, ‘When I see you I think of Hispanic reporters’? Cause in his mind I can’t be an anchor. An anchor is what you give the high-profile white guys, you know. So he knocks me down to that and compares me to that and it happens all the time i think. To a certain extent Jon Stewart and Colbert are the same way.

(I have to wonder if the same "top brass" Sanchez alludes to is still an executive at CNN.)

As a counter-balance, Dominick brings up Stewart's Jewishness to suggest that he is also a minority and has some understanding of Rick Sanchez's position. But based on Sanchez's childhood in Miami, Jews were just another flavor of white Anglo.

I grew up not speaking English, dealing with real prejudice every day as a kid; watching my dad work in a factory, wash dishes, drive a truck, get spit on. I’ve been told that I can’t do certain things in life simply because I was a Hispanic. My friends who are black, I’ve seen that with them; I’ve seen that with a lot of minorities. I can’t really think — although I understand the plight of Jews, and all the experiences, and the things that have happened historically for them — but I can’t say that my buddy Glen or my buddy Izzy who I grew up with in South Florida ever were prejudiced against directly simply because they were Jewish. There may have been jokes around them or about other things, but it’s kinda — you know what I’m saying, it’s kind of a different thing.

This is all context to the essential gaffe. When Dominick suggests that Stewart has minority status which should help him understand where Sanchez is coming from, Sanchez comes back with:

He’s such a minority, I mean, you know [sarcastically]… Please, what are you kidding? … I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they — the people in this country who are Jewish — are an oppressed minority? Yeah.

Sanchez doesn't hold Jews in the media to any special scrutiny or suspicion. He just views them as part of the dominant establishment with all other white people. If anything, he is actually indifferent about the distinction. As he says to Dominick:

You brought the whole Jewish conversation into this. I don't think Jewish has anything to do with this. I don't think you are are less apt to be prejudiced or more apt to be prejudiced because you are or aren't Jewish.

Here is a partial Transcript of the Sanchez/Dominick interview but I would definitely recommend that you go to the very first link above and listen to the whole conversation. Sanchez does not go on a rant. He does not have a meltdown. He does not say "Jews are in control of all media". (Contrary to how some of the coverage is parsing the incident).

Some other thoughts:
If CNN is so racially sensitive then how was Lou Dobbs able to stay on CNN for such a long period of time before leaving? It's pretty clear that Mexicans don't run CNN. For that matter, even Dr. Laura is still on the air after her N-word rant. She announced her retirement after the incident, but she's still basically leaving on her own terms. Helen Thomas unceremoniously lost her job within a day or so.

At the same time, how is Patrick Buchanan able to stay on the air, on MSNBC no less? I would argue that comments about Jews are much more of a third rail than comments about other groups, but the whole picture is more complex than a question of who gets offended. To be honest, I suspect that Rick Sanchez's real mistake wasn't what he said about Jon Stewart, and implied about Jews, as much as what he said about "top brass" at CNN. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, regardless of ethnicity.

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Phoenix New Times: CNN Fires Rick Sanchez, Hires Eliot Spitzer, World's Most Famous "John"

man bites dog: buddhist fundamentalists and muslim prisoners of conscience

I totally missed this story when it happened but it seems worth noting as an example.

An expatriate Sri Lankan woman who wrote two books about her conversion from Buddhism to Islam has been arrested while on holiday in Sri Lanka, apparently for causing offence to Buddhists.

Sarah Malini Perera, who was born in Sri Lanka but has lived in Bahrain since 1985 and converted to Islam in 1999, was arrested last week under the country’s strict emergency laws, according to the police.

They declined to give precise details of the 38-year-old writer’s offence, but suggested that her books were deemed to have caused offence to ethnic Sinhalese Buddhists, who account for about 70 per cent of Sri Lanka’s 20 million people.

For the whole story, see: Author Sarah Malini Perera held ‘for offending Buddhists’ in Sri Lanka

The same piece mentions that the Sri Lankan government denied a visa to Muslim (yes Muslim) singer Akon because the video for his song Sexy Chick included images of video "vixens" dancing with a statue of the Buddha in the background. Part of the backlash included a crowd of over 200 angry rock-throwing Buddhists attacking the offices of Akon's concert promoters, damaging property and injuring a few individuals. You can find more details on that story here.

Both these stories, especially taken together, totally invert the usual narratives we are spoon-fed about religion and the tolerance/ sensitivity and peacefulness/ violence of Buddhism / Islam respectively. I'm a little surprised (but not really) that they didn't get more attention. A few more accounts like these and the dominant narrative would begin to crack. If members of a "good" religion like Buddhism can be pushed to violence when their sensitivities are threatened and if even Muslims can be victims of censorship and exclusion for acting on their conscience then who are the heroes and who are the villains?

south park, censorship and depictions of muhammad (saaws)

1. First, to put the issue in perspective: over the run of the series there have been 5 South Park episodes to deal with images of Muhammad (saaws). The first came out before the Danish cartoon controversy and was irreverent but still basically positive. (Muhammad along with other major religious figures were part of a superhero team called the Super Best Friends which fought against the suicide cult of Blainetology.)

2. The other 4 episodes (two 2-part stories) were written after the Danish cartoon controversy. And even though controversies around depicting the prophet Muhammad formed a central element of both plots, neither story actually showed Muhammad on-screen.

3. Let me emphasize: The recent South Park episode (both as originally intended by the South Park creators and after Comedy Central chose to modify the episode) never included images of Muhammad in the first place. If Comedy Central was purely concerned for the safety of their employees they could have emphasized this fact in some kind of disclaimer and pointed out that they actually didn't break the taboo regarding images of the prophet. Instead they decided to draw attention to the episode by bleeping out every mention of the name of Muhammad and then extensively censoring an entire speech (on free speech no less) which didn't even include Muhammad's name.

4. The New York-based Revolution Muslim (the "radical" Islamic group serving as catalyst for the current controversy) never actually threatened the creators of South Park or the staff at Comedy Central.

Their actual message reads:

We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.

5. Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR has apparently suggested that Revolution Muslim is part of a conspiracy to make Muslims look bad. I wouldn't necessarily go that far but I have noticed that the only members/spokespeople from the group which I've seen on tv or online have been young white converts (mostly Jewish) and I can imagine how they might feel extra pressure to prove their Islam by adopting radical positions.

6. It is also important to view this issue in a larger context. There is not a simple dichotomy between a "free" Western world and a non-free Muslim world. We should note the "sacred cows" which exist in the West and the constraints on speech.

7. In previous posts I've already mentioned how Comcast quietly censors some of the content it provides to subscribers or how the corporate media in general doesn't always give important stories the attention they deserve.

8. And in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, Chomsky actually argues that in the US full freedom of speech isn't really achieved until the late 1960s or the early 1970s. Before then, laws like the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Smith Act put limits on even peaceful speech. For example, Eugene V. Debs spent 10 years in jail for speaking out against the Wilson administration.

Even the famous "clear and present danger" test was really more a matter of the glass being half-empty. The test comes from the case Schenck v. United States. The ruling from this case is also the origin of the statement "the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." But what most people (myself included) don't always realize about this case is that in it, the Supreme Court actually upholds the conviction of Charles Schenck for distributing leaflets against the draft. In other words, merely expressing the political opinion "Hey, maybe the government shouldn't draft its citizens" was viewed as the clear and present danger.

It wasn't until 1964 that the Alien and Sedition Acts were explicitly ruled as unconstitutional. And it wasn't until 1969 in Brandenburg v. Ohio that the Supreme Court rules that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless it is directed to inciting and likely to incite imminent lawless action. (btw, this is a line that Revolution Muslim is careful not to cross.)

9. In Europe, of course, one of the sacred cows is the Holocaust and so many European countries make compromises with freedom of speech through laws against Holocaust denial.

10. My point with the last few items is just that every society (including the West) is struggling with free speech and its limits and in no society is the right to free speech pure and absolute. Even in the West, we are moving along a continuum and the most we can say is "this is where we are".

Alt.Muslim: South Park and the freedom to blaspheme By Aziz Poonawalla
TAM: South Park Cartoon and the Muslim Lunatic Fringe by Sheila Musaji
No freak-out over South Park by Zahed Amanullah
On the Danish cartoons from a while back: the dirty dozen