Easterbrook Donnybrook
Published October 20, 2003
Since the media elite has declared that bloggers shall no longer believe that a media titan's religion should inform his business judgments, I have a new rule for the media elite. Henceforth, no reporter shall mention Justice Clarence Thomas' race when discussing his work on the Supreme Court.If it is unfair to cite one's religious background in trying to hold that person to a higher standard, then certainly it should also be unfair to cite one's race.
While there is a measure of humor in that statement, there really is a problem with assuming that members of an identifiable group always have the same beliefs about every issue. Even those who share the same religion - or the same race - do not always agree on everything. It isn't so much citing "one's religious background" that was troublesome in Easterbrook's comments, but rather his blanket assumption that all Jews would - or should - agree with his perspective about cinematic violence. If Easterbrook could point out how Weinstein or Eisner were directly contravening their own religious perspectives, that would be one thing, but he made an assumption about how they should think - merely because they were Jewish. It would have been far better for him to identify the religious principle he felt was applicable in this situation, or to articulate his position in a more generic fashion. After all, as I pointed out last week, what he was really trying to get at was sensitivity to cinematic depictions of violence, and that concept is not automaically applicable to any indentifiable group of people, regardless of how much suffering they may have historically endured as a collective entity.
Then you have those, like Professor Lawrence Lessig, who think this is an issue of media concentration:
[If ESPN] fired Easterbrook because Easterbrook criticized the owner, that's an offense to society, whatever the injustice to Easterbrook — at least when fewer and fewer control access to media. No doubt, anti-semitism has done infinitely greater harm than misused media mogul power. But if firing your critics becomes the norm in American media, then there will be much more than insensitivity to anti-semitism to worry about in the future.
Maybe so. The firing of Easterbrook certainly might raise questions regarding the objectivity of ABC News or ESPN as regards Disney-related news events (in other words, don't bite the hand that feeds you, or that hand will whack you). But "employment at will" remains the general rule in most of this country, and that means an employer can fire an employee for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all. And in the wake of the whole Rush Limbaugh-Donovan McNabb thing, I hazard a guess ESPN is fairly sensitive to any comments, even if they weren't so much anti-Semitic as perhaps overly broad. So while I understand the "concentration" concern, I think the key question for now is simply whether Easterbrook should've been canned for his comments - i.e., if they warranted anything more than challenge and a bit of chastisement.
- Easterbrook Donnybrook
- Published: October 20, 2003
- Type:
- Section: Politics
- Filed Under: Culture: Media, Video: News
- Writer: W.E. Wallo
- W.E. Wallo's BC Writer page
- W.E. Wallo's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
A fine and reasoned wrap-up Bill, thanks! I agree, the firing was an overreaction and one that rightly or wrongly gives fodder to the anti-media consolidation argument. He was wrong - we've all said so - but not so wrong or so offensive that it calls his job into question, especially since he didn't make the offending comments on ESPN. We all have the right to make mistakes, to be told we are stupid, wrong and deserve to be beaten with canes, without our employers overreacting and dumping our dead asses.
Thanks Eric.
Chris - why can't I lump Easterbrook in with Limbaugh, Rocker, Shockey, et al? I wasn't focusing on the relative weight of their comments (i.e., is one set of comments better/worse than another). I was getting at the nature of debate in general: if I say something, others are entitled to argue with me, and say I'm wrong, stupid, etc - just like people did in each of those instances, be it Easterbrook or the others. However, I understand that Easterbrook might not like to have his comments tossed into the same general class as those made by the other gentlemen. ;)
In the context of being able to be told you are stupid, yeah I can see the point.
In all the huffing and puffing about whether Easterbrook hates Jews, Warren Sapp calls the NFL a Slave System and no one says a word . . .
Clearly it would be if slaves only had to work half the year and average a million dollars per pickin' season.
Hey, wait a minute - who said I said anything stupid? :)
As for Sapp v. the NFL, boy is that an interesting can of worms: you have the whole debate over whether so-called middle class America only thinks of African-Americans in terms of athletics or entertainment (i.e., Michael, Prince, or the rapper of your choice), combined with the counter-argument that athletes and entertainers often make a whole lot more money than your basic middle class American.
Be curious to see if Sapp's comment truly gets "lost" - it may fuel some debate somewhere, we'll see. What the heck, maybe you just gave me fodder for another post. :)
Like Harlan Ellison said: "Don't fuck with the mouse".
The only good mouse is a dead mouse. Or something like that. :)
You know, I can only claim that I came up with the title of this post independently from Mickey Klaus (this being further evidence of the concept of simultaneous development of ideas). Klaus likewise posted his "Donnybrook" post over the noon hour as well. I did not see it until just now (via the Volokh Conspiracy). It has some interesting stuff in it, for those - er, interested.
If reasonable folks can't even come to an agreement as to whether Gregg Easterbrook's words were racist or anti-Semitic, then I think this issue being blown all out of proportion. I would be willing to bet that Michael Eisner fired Easterbrook for being insubordinate, not because he felt insulted as a Jewish person. But, then again, what the hell do I know?
For what it's worth, I agree with Professor Volokh: Easterbrook's comments were unpersuasive but not anti-Semitic. I think he was just trying to make a religious appeal to Eisner and Weinstein and it came out sounding a whole lot like anti-Semitism--though the substance of his argument was mostly innocuous.
In carefully analyzing the debated section of text of Easterbrook's argument as it appeared on Blogcritics a few days ago and in my local paper today, it is my considered opinion that what Easterbrook said was stupid, but that it was neither morally wrong nor anti-Semitic. He made the mistake of voicing an inflammatory statement and including the religion of his two targets as a part of that statement. Dumb, yes. Worthy of a heartfelt apology for being a dumbass, yes. Bile spewing, no. Worthy of getting fired, no.
I'm afraid that political correctness has gone too far in this country. I certainly don't want to return to the days when someone could put in their shop window "Hiring - no Irish need apply", but an American is entitled to his own stupid opinion.
I think the time has come for the Anti-Defamation League, NAACP, Al Sharpton, and all the others who try to find hatred, intolerance or racism in every statement to examine the content of things a bit more carefully, and not see hatred in everything everyone says.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/9333)
Only one disagreement -- you can't really use the name of Easterbrook in the same sentence as Rush/Rocker/Shockey.