I’ve been thinking about this whole Goforth thing and about what I want out of situations like that. Now, I’m a white person, so take that as a huge caveat. But I don’t want someone like Goforth to lose her job. I want her to get why what she did was wrong and for her to change.
I don’t think Black is a “worst person in the world” candidate because she didn’t fire Goforth, either.
I don’t know. This is hard for me to talk about because I feel like I’m not getting out exactly what I mean. I just know that when I saw the tidal wave that came after Brittney and how there wasn’t any way to stop it and there wasn’t any way to speak against it and make your voice heard, it made me very wary of that kind of liberal landsliding, where a few tiny stones start moving at the top and before you know it, the whole side of the mountain is coming down on someone.
And you wonder–if a person just needed a rock upside the head (metaphorically), is the whole mountain necessary? Or even appropriate?
I don’t know. And I say that as a person just as likely as the next person to wonder if the media is going to pick up on something.
And I’d like to think that there’s a useful distinction between pointing out a problem & getting it dealt with and everyone piling on in order to prove… what? I don’t know exactly.
I just feel like, though, that there’s got to be a difference between yelling “fire” in order to get everyone to come running to help put it out and yelling “monster” and handing everyone pitchforks and torches.
But I don’t know that I’m always clear about what that difference is.
Filed under: America how can I write a holy litany in your silly moo, Politics and Other Nonsense
I agree with you. I’ve gone a bit silent on this because I see this as a social issue like Steve wrote and it’s turned into a political one where the point has been lost to a degree.
And, at this point, anything I say doesn’t have weight about the issue because anytime I have said some things this week, it’s automatically been turned into something else. As someone who just lost their job due to the economy, I hate to see anyone lose their job.
I’ve been hesitant to say much about the Goforth thing because I respect newscoma and I’m friends with–and have much love in my heart for–many people who happen to be left-wing.
But I have to be honest, and I figure your comments are less strident a place for my honesty than my own blog.
My first thought about all of this was Brittney. And my second thought is that it seems like there is a segment of the left-wing population which becomes not unlike a pack of wild dogs when something like this comes up.
If they get the scent of blood they’ll tear everything to shreds and not stop until
actual blood has been shed. They must have the job of the offending person as some sort of penance for that person’s crime of wrongthink.
I think what Sherri Goforth did was tacky. It should a real lack of class and judgement. But it also was a good ‘teachable moment’ as they say in the world of schools and parenting. It was a chance for everyone who thought the email was wrong and tacky to explain what exactly was wrong and tacky and cruel about it.
A few did say “this was perhaps not wise and here are the reasons why” but most turned it into a self-aggrandizing chance to say “we are better people than you because we would never do this horrible thing you did. Now, since we are so much better than you we demand that you appease us by becoming unemployed.”
That had the odd wring of old-style Catholicism or even Viking Wergild about it. There was no sense of forgiveness, of moving past or coming to understanding. There was only the demand that a price be paid–that a sacrifice honouring rightthink be performed. And oddly, it had the opposite of the desired effect.
Instead of those of opposing viewpoints seeing a reasonable protestation it allowed folks to take to the defensive. To continue to characterise the blood-thirsty in the left-wing as tonedeaf monsters who don’t live in the real world.
It makes no sense. Unless the goal is for a number of people to feel better about themselves. To feel superior about the rightness of their beliefs and the wrongness of everyone else’s.
In that way, those on the left who cry for Goforth’s blood are not at all unlike Pat Robertson decrying homosexuals.
It’s both funny and sad when you think about it.
Oh screw it. I’m putting those comments on my own blog, too.
I need to be on record.
Also, I need to work on my book and writing a blog entry cuts into that.
Maybe an acceptable penance would be to reduce Goforth’s pay to a market rate for her job description, as opposed to almost twice what rural schoolteachers make.
Ha, I was thinking of it as kind of the same impulse that requires anti-abortion people to demand that they be able to control my body because their god demands it. If you want to make human sacrifices, fine, but leave me out of it.
I saw Newscoma as saying “Look, here’s a problem and we need to get it fixed and taken care of.” And, to me, again as a white person just to be clear, when Goforth’s boss said she took care of it, fine. I will be watching to make sure that this really was just a one-time mistake and not a pattern, but fine.
But when it becomes “Bring me her head, and maybe the head of Kleinheider, too, just for kicks” I’m not sure that we’re actually talking about fixing things and not about whose team is better.
And I’m not saying that to knock anyone. I’m talking through this out-loud because I want to understand it in myself, especially.
a, I was thinking of it as kind of the same impulse that requires anti-abortion people to demand that they be able to control my body because their god demands it.
Either way. It’s the same sense of legalism and lack of human understanding that drives the feelings. Zealotry is zealotry–whether anti-gay, anti-abortion/woman, or anti-’rightwing’. Not that being on the left is automatically bad. (Or right. They do the same things, i.e. Sarah Palin/David Letterman). But it’s when it takes over is when I get scared.
Yes, I saw newscoma’s thing in exactly the same way. It was “here’s a societal ill that needs a cure.” But reading thru the comments it quickly turned into “Here’s a way we can gore their ox!!!!”
I feel almost as bad for Trace as I do Sherri Goforth.
I don’t think calling for Goforth to be fired is necessary, but it is good for this to be public in the sense that it brings about more discourse on the issue.
The email thing itself… well, I know I’ve sent out inappropriate stuff before. I’m as open minded as they get, but there is some stuff out there that I think is funny. I don’t even mind if someone thought Goforth’s thing was funny. That doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is that they dislike the president because he’s black – or at least that’s the way I interpret this. So for me, t begs the question, if a white man were doing the same job as president, how would they feel? Would they hate him as much as they do now?
I’m just deeply saddened at how racism still exists around here. I know I live in the south so I’m not surprised, really, but it is awfully sad because it permeates this area.
So if this mess gets more people talking about it, then let it live on in the news forever.
As for Diane Black, she is still, in my mind, one of the worst persons in the world, not because of Goforth, but because of all her other lies and hate and other crap and for the love of god HOW does she get elected????
[...] Cat Pants » The Liberal LandslidePosted 3 hours [...]
Boy, is this a timely post or what.
Katherine, I espeically appreciate your points, and I wholly agree with you except on one point: that this kind of demagoguery and head-hunting is limited to the left (e.g. Malkin, Michelle; O’Reilly, Bill).
The difference, I think, between yelling fire and yelling monster is that in one case, you’re calling attention to a problem. In the other case, you’re calling attention to a person and saying that that person is the problem.
Sometimes I try to imagine what would happen if my racist grandfather got caught up in one of these witch hunts. Yes, he’s racist, yes, he’s old fashioned, but God damn it, he’s my Paw. He’s the closest thing I have to a father, I love him, and I would vigorously defend him personally even as I condemned his views.
What I’ve come to believe is that we’re all too quick to slap down the label of racist, as if this is a permanent stain on someone’s soul, never to be forgiven or redeemed. I’ve talked a neo-Nazi out of racism before, and I did not accomplish that by demonizing him. Likewise, I’ve done quite a bit to soften my grandfather’s views on blacks over the years, and none of that would have been possible with an angry confrontation.
These days, when I come across someone with with racist views, I’m more inclined to attack what they said or did, rather than exiling them to the outer darkness.
I must not have made myself clear because I in no way limit this type of action to the left.
Then I stand corrected.
With all due respect to all here, especially Coble, who has always eschewed nastiness even in disagreement, I beg to differ.
Since 1981, I have listened to the attacks on liberals and liberalism escalate to the point where liberal has become a word not mentioned in polite company.
I have watched this country move frighteningly to the right at a pace that sickens me. And, to my knowledge, I really don’t know what the hell we’ve done to deserve it.
I’m sorry the Goforths have a child with problems, I know it is a struggle of which I have no comprehension.
Dammit, she’s a state employee for 20 years, could she not have figured that out on her own? In this economy, I won’t call for her head, either, but I refuse to call for mercy. We allow this to get in public that we would NEVER have allowed when I was a child in Northern Illinois, and why? Because we’re afraid of being called politically correct.
Too freaking bad. Sherri Goforth screwed up big time, and if she’s a little more nervous and careful today that she was a month ago, so much the better.
Flame away.
Things, not this, in line 3 of paragraph 5.
You’re taking her at face value (or at least assuming) that she didn’t know what she did was wrong. Okay. Then why didn’t she Email a copy to Lois DeBerry? She had at least some clue that she could possibly get the AW HELL NAW response from someone.
There’s a thing about the legislature where there’s a certain adversarial relationship between black and white that has developed since the LBC (that’s not Long Beach City) came into being. Not that there wasn’t anything like that before (there just weren’t enough Black legislators). It’s against that backdrop that Goforth works, that was buried in my snark on my comments about the situation yesterday.
I know people wish to give her the benefit of the doubt, that she could be corrected if given a guiding light. I don’t know that she couldn’t but evidence suggests that she could not.
Would I fire her? Probably not, were I Sen. Black. This doesn’t blow back on her at election time. If I’m myself and I’m representing Nashville and my assistant was caught w/ some anti-Semitic Email, I wouldn’t have a choice, if I wanted to stay in office.
I’m trying to decide who it would be worse to be this week: the “don’t call me Liz” staffer in Washington or Sherri Goforth.
Cracker, I don’t think we disagree. I am all for riding her ass over this. But you cross a line when you start going after someone’s job. I’ve never felt good about that, unless it’s clear that it is the only remedy.
I’m not too clear on what was actually said that was so offensive, but my thinking is on the larger left vs. right thing anyway. I’m not suggesting that anyone here is intentionally suggesting such a thing, but let’s not forget that there isn’t exactly a balance of power, numbers, or even motivation between the left-wingers who would call for someone’s firing over a perceived social insult and the right-wingers who would do so over a roughly analogous act.
While I understand that there are a few lefties who get their knickers in a twist over little nothings, it is usually the right wingers who go apeshit over insults that are often little more than Straw Men of their own making. In fact, the whole backlash against ‘political correctness’ was one such situation. The suggestion that black people no longer wish to be called nigger and that women should not be called cunts was offensive to certain individuals who took comfort in being able to brandish such epithets with abandon, and thus the largely imaginary oppression of P.C. was born.
I know I’m going far afield, but I think it bears mentioning that if a staffer for an elected representative circulates an openly racist e-mail in a manner that suggests she expected to do so with impunity, I can understand why some left-wingers might get salty (what with the recent upswing in right-wing rhetoric and violence against liberals, minorities, etc.). On the other hand, watching people call for the firing of David Letterman for being a ‘pedophile’– a charge based on a deliberate misrepresentation of Letterman’s awful Bristol Palin joke– it’s difficult not to point and sneer.
There’s a huge contextual difference there, even if we can agree that the remedy sought by some on either side is wrong.
The picture is so much bigger than one staffer. When the TNCOP was putting out the “blackbirds” ad, an “Barack the magic negro, ” I didn’t hear Sen. Black, or any of the rest of them, for that matter, call for a rebuke of the promulgators. She (and they) were silent. So is it any surprise a GOP staffer would think this was ok? That’s why Black’s response, which was pretty much “I’m sorry you got caught and I know you won’t get caught like this again and you’re a really great staffer and I’ve always loved you” doesn’t rise to the level of pitiful.
When the climate permits that, with a constant stream of attacks on those who dare to notice, and the apologies are for the bad behaviour of those who dared to be offended rather than demonstrating any understanding of the substance of the offense, something is horribly askew.
Well, racism is wrong, and it’s pernicious, and if it’s not rebuked in the little cases it will fester and bloom into larger more blatant instances. We should never be afraid to step up and say No, this was wrong. And I also think Diane Black’s contention that she sent a “very strongly worded reprimand” was revealed to be BS when you read the actual letter she sent. The fact Sen. Black inflated her rebuke tells me she knew better and was hoping to skate by with a little media spin, but in this day and age it won’t work.
I was one of the ones calling for Goforth to be fired and when I remember that we live in an age where two kids, one from Tennessee and both white supremacists with weapons, had plotted to shoot up a school of African American kids, I still think it’s the right call.
I’m with Blue Sumner Daze on this – if it was just one person, or one email … if Sherri Goforth was the first one to do something like this … THEN this would be a “teachable moment”. But we’ve had a coordinated campaign strategy by the TNGOP to use race-baiting and gender-baiting as a way to create division and dissension among Democrats. They did it with the “Anti-Semites for Obama” press release designed to cause division between Steve Cohen and Memphis African-Americans. They did it with the “Obama Waffles” nonsense (remember that?) at the Family Research Council’s “Values Forum”… I’m sorry, but what “family value” is it to have Obama dressed up like Aunt Jemimah? They did it with the “Barack the Magic Negro” nonsense.
And Clinton’s campaign piled on at a time when they should have sought healing. I’m not saying it was just the GOP in this … there were plenty of people with “‘D’s” behind their name who were saying (publicly and privately) that “A black man can never win Tennessee.” We had Gov. Bredesen telling the Obama campaign that they shouldn’t bother trying to campaign in TN. We had all kinds of nonsense from the PUMAs in Knoxville and elsewhere across the state.
And so I’m sorry if Sherri Goforth’s life has been reduced to a single error in judgment, but Jeremiah Wright’s 30+ years of exemplary pastoral ministry was reduced to a soundbite of him saying “God damn America”, so I wonder if maybe Sherri understands now that we shouldn’t engage in prejudice against others?
Yes, I think Newscoma was right to point out a social problem, and one that I do think is bigger than one staffer. Absolutely. I think there are elements of the issue-oriented blogosphere in general (not just TN, not just politics-specific) in which if people *don’t* write about a certain topic, they’re perceived as deliberately ignoring it, ignoring it due to their own privilege, etc. And I think this sometimes influences people to continue piling on after it’s useful because they don’t want to be ostracized (silently or publicly) from those communities. I also think it’s difficult to know where that point beyond usefulness lies – sometimes we want to add our voices, just to make sure we’re one more saying, “No, this is not acceptable.” And sometimes it’s seen as just piling on. I’m not sure how any single person can accurately find that balance every time.
I second your sentiment, common sense, and I like your example. It says everything about the context involved here. I’m hard-pressed to think of a positive or even harmless motive behind the Goforth e-mail, but anyone with half a brain and an honest disposition who listens to that entire Wright sermon (or even a decent portion of it) understands the context within which the “God damn America” was spoken.
There’s a huge difference between inadvertently sticking your foot in your mouth (or being deliberately misquoted or taken out of context by someone else) and intentionally saying something vile.
Well, I don’t think I’m getting myself across well, then, because my point is more along the lines of what Rachel is saying. And maybe she’s right about it not being something you can really be mindful of before it happens.
But it seems to me that there really is a difference between “I, personally, am moved to respond to this bullshit because I’m tired of it and I want it to stop and I will do all in my power to” (which is the camp I think most of us are in) and “I, too, must jump on the bandwagon and prove that I am outraged enough and in the right ways so that everyone knows my politics are pure.”
Maybe it doesn’t matter, if the end result is that this shit stops.
But I feel like it does, that it matters that people stop doing this stuff either because they get that it’s wrong or because it becomes too politically embarrassing and not because we can motivate more loud people on our side.
Because, even if there were only five people who were like “Holy shit, I can’t believe that racist crap” and everyone else were “Eh, what do you expect from Tennessee?” I’d still want it to stop.
So, I don’t know. Y’all have given me a lot to think about, though, and I appreciate it.
I see your point, B., and I think that to some extent that’s a self-correcting mechanism sometimes. People of good conscience and even good sense can get outraged and express themselves poorly, often spitting venom at undeserving targets. I think it comes from the exasperation and frustration of being in a society where all things progressive and liberal have seemed under siege for such a long time. There’s a tendency to want to indulge in some righteous outrage, and I think it is understandable. The turning point is when I realize that I’ve done this unjustly, and I have to decide if getting my moral rocks off was enough. Or do I want to stick around and make amends for piling on, and perhaps continue the discussion in a more mature and constructive manner? Of course, I’m talking about situations where we lefties tee off on each other. The dynamic changes a bit when the target is one of the ‘enemy.’
That makes me think about the choice between trying to convince your enemies and trying to crush them. I guess it depends on the nature of the fight. How do you reason with people who cling to such irrationality as calling Obama ‘secret Muslim’ or a ‘socialist/fascist’? How many times of turning the other cheek and getting a broken jaw does it take to teach you to start planting your feet and balling your fists?
This reminds me of something I saw on Olbermann’s show way back, when Countdown was just getting started.
Olbermann was doing some bit between his stories when he had a picture of the Runaway Bride who had faked her kidnapping (remember her) from Georgia pop up and shoot lasers out of her eyes, and Olbermann made a crack that basically boiled down to, “crazy bitch.” * I was watching with dad and dad said, “Why don’t they just leave that poor woman alone,” since it had been like a couple of months since she had disappeared from the headlines.
Her fake story had her being kidnapped by a Hispanic man, tut tut tut, and thus the charge of racism.
She was no longer human… she was a racist.
I believe that moreso than conservatives, liberals –especially that quartile most to the left — see their liberalism as an essential part of who they are. Therefore, when that widely common human fraility to make fun or gang up arises, liberal are more likely to succumb to the bait when it is politically related.
Just a theory that last paragraph — take it or leave it.
* And this being a blog run by a feminist and frequented by many left leaners… while you’re watching Countdown, pay attention to how Olbermann can often degenerate to “crazy/evil bitch” when discussing a woman in the news that does something he doesn’t like. It seems to slip out more when the target is…. acceptable.
Like some cheese with that whine, sir? C’mon, now I’m no stranger to hyperbole, but that’s ridiculous. Unlike racists, who in their words and actions regard others as subhumans, those of us who choose to call out and fight racism understand that it is voluntary behavior, and not genetically predetermined instinct. As vile and deadly as racism has been and continues to be, it involves inhumane behavior that can and should be changed. Your attempt to lower criticism of the woman’s racist dissembling beneath the level of the criticized behavior is duly noted and rejected.
As much as I liked Keith Olbermann’s hearty verbal rants at the Bush administration, I don’t pay any attention to him otherwise. And since I haven’t surveyed all the left-leaning people in the U.S. on the matter, I can’t verify that he’s an official spokesman for ‘the left.’ I do know that he wasn’t elected to any office, and no elected Democrat has ever apologized to him for showing him insufficient deference.
Finally, one of the reasons the right-wing has been so successful in having its way and sabotaging so much of our republic is that they are far better at organizing– ‘ganging up with’, if you must– their followers. In fact, we wouldn’t be having this discussion otherwise. Leftists, when they organize at all, tend to do so against real issues such as illegal wars and stolen elections; you know, things that actually hurt people and take away their rights. When left-wingers get out of pocket and gang up on people unjustly, it causes other left-wingers of conscience to stand up and question their behavior. That’s because most of us consider such behavior unacceptable.
Look at this another way: I have yet to read any scathing right-wing criticism of the race-baiting “tea parties” or of the quasi-treasonous rantings of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. How often have right-wingers– bloggers, especially– criticized their own for going too far*?
(While some prominent Republicans have on occasion criticized Limbaugh, such lapses into decency are usually apologized for quickly and unequivocally.)
In short, Lee, if there’s a point you’re trying to prove, I’d be happy to see a much stronger case than the one you just presented.
Sam, did you see the part where I said?:
Just a theory that last paragraph — take it or leave it.
I guess you can just go ahead and leave it then. I was never going to convince you anyway, but other folks can read what I wrote and determine if it has any merit.
Leftists, when they organize at all, tend to do so against real issues such as illegal wars and stolen elections and beauty pageant contestants who give a “wrong” off-the-cuff answer to a controversial question of the day.
Fixed that for you.
Yes, that whole Miss California thing was a pretty black eye on liberalism, as even (a few) liberals have admitted.
Liberals, just like conservatives, moderates, libertarians, traditionalists, etc., all have the same tendencies — as individuals — to engage in the weakness of ganging up, mob mentality, making fun of, etc.
My point is that because liberals, generally speaking, invest more of their self-identity into their personal politics than the average person, it is more likely to be a political trigger that activates all those much-too-human frailities.
With such poorly constructed and weakly supported arguments, you are right about that.
Kinsley’s column reads more like concern trolling, but if you want to count his one voice as ‘a few liberals,’ then even that fuzzy math is better than assuming he speaks for all liberals. I’ll count that as a relative bright spot in your comment. Though I missed the big meeting about marching on Miss California, so perhaps my definition of ‘organizing’ is different from yours. In any case, I’m trying to figure out why you propped your argument on such an irrelevant and anemic example (“a pretty black eye on liberalism” you called it. Heh.), and it almost makes sense when I read your “point”:
Huh? Whose identity is one supposed to invest in his/her personal politics?
We had all kinds of nonsense from the PUMAs in Knoxville and elsewhere across the state.
As a card-carrying PUMA for most of 2008, I’m here to tell you that just because there was racism against Obama doesn’t mean there wasn’t sexism against Clinton.
Not that we need to get into it all here, but I really don’t think you want to turn this into a racism-is-worse-than-sexism argument, and you really probably don’t want to be defending Keith Olbermann as some shining proponent of women’s electoral progress, either.
As to that ridiculous email, it’s a tough call. On the one hand, it’d be great if a lot of people with stupid ideas were to suddenly realize the errors of their ways, but on the other? This email was sent on state time and using state resources. I’d feel a bit better if the consequences were stronger than “strongly worded reprimand.”