Imagine this...thousands of people are on "The Oasis of the Seas", which is currently the largest cruise ship. On board there are eight men wearing traditional clerical garb, so the passengers assume there must be a Catholic meeting taking place. However, these eight men ultimately blow up the ship and kill most of the passengers on board. Wow...what a depressing way to initiate a post. Now ponder this, if you were getting on a cruise ship after this event and saw men who appeared to be priests, would you be apprehensive?
The reason posed this example is because a political commentator, Juan Williams, was fired by NPR because he stated that he still feels uneasy when he gets on a plane and sees people wearing the traditional muslim clothing. The rationale behind his firing is that his comments were offensive. Thus, this got me thinking. Is it irrational to be nervous or apprehensive because something or someone reminds you of an extremely traumatic event? Juan did not state that muslim made him apprehensive or that he had any problem with muslims, just merely that he felt uneasy in the abovementioned situation. Now, I am not sure if many/any of my 2 readers know who Juan Williams is, but he is a left leaning commentator who also appears on Foxnews, primarily on the O'Reilly Factor. If you have any history of watching him, you would realize that he is about as open-minded as a person could be. So, my question to you, was NPR justified in firing Juan? Were his comments hateful and inappropriate? Or, was he putting forth an opinion that millions of people share, but are not willing to admit?
2 comments:
I think it was wrong for Juan to be fired. I can understand his opinion and I feel many americans would/do have the same feelings
I think the problem is not that he stated his concerns, I think the problem is the position he holds is where he chose to express his views. This goes back to the article I posted about. It is one thing to hold that opinion personally, but when you sit in a position open to the public eye, I think what and how things are said needed to be monitored. For the reason that it can offend every single person who can relate to the area being targetted, when it is a VERY small population of that group who is actually matching the point trying to be made. I don't think it was wrong for him to feel that way, but I don't know if I agree that he should have said it over the air waves. As far as the firing...I don't know, I see both views.
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