Lifted from Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. Download the poster, sign the petition.
I feel like the reign of Glenn Beck just might be coming to a close. Even Bill O’Reilly, the granddaddy of FOX News characters, is shaking his head. More people are making fun of him, which might be a good or a bad sign (good for ratings, bad for his ego and credibility, perhaps?). Maybe I’m being too hopeful…or NAIVE!
Personal story: after much inward struggle, I decided to open a Twitter account. For my first twit (I refuse to call it tweet), I innocently posted a link, “Glenn Beck refuses to define white culture.” I wandered off to wash my dishes. Like two minutes later, I get responses from quick-witted lurkers, informing me that white culture is “the opposite of black culture” and “what ISN’T on the congressional BLACK agenda.”
Not gonna lie, I was a little scared (how did they find me?! Should I respond? Should I immediately delete my Twitter and hide under a table? What can I say that is clever, constructive, equally bitchy but not so racist– all under 140 characters?)
I learned an obvious, yet valuable lesson: there are a lot of hateful people out there (duh). And while people like Glenn Beck didn’t start it and it certainly won’t go away when they (finally) do, they make it a whole lot worse– preying upon people’s fears and effectively creating a dialogue that’s built on suspicion, one in which no one is listening and everyone is yelling. Shrilly. So that kinda-trivial-but-not-really things like this happen, and not-so-trivial things like this and this happen too.
I don’t think Glenn Beck and the radical right are the only ones responsible. Left-wing elitists (such as not-funny Bill Maher) take their toll on society too. These commentators leech upon the bad things in life: feeding off of insecurities, legitimizing our stereotypes about one another, trivializing people’s lives, and overall perpetuating hatred and misunderstanding rather than helping us to overcome it– all for laughs, ratings and profits. Not to be a fucking sap, but if you have a powerful platform and a national audience, can you at least try to help us understand one another and work together? What else are you there for?
