On Friday nights I have the habit of watching the PBS News Hour (I have been watching this since I was a little girl with my dad), then To the Contrary, Washington Week and then The McLaughlin Group. It is the last one that drives me insane.
I can't get through the show without saying how much I hate the blond - I think her name is Monica. Apparently, she is also a commentator on Faux News, but I don't have cable so I am not aware of her in any other format. There are a number of things that infuriate me about her, but my number one thing is that she has little or no respect for President Obama. And, frankly, that behavior is exhausting.
Sure, I am/was no fan of Reagan, Bush Senior, or Junior Bush - their policies drove me insane, but I don't remember just hating them. Well, Junior Bush and I had our moments, but it was really just that he was rather dumb. In fact, Bush Senior, although being creepy and CIA-ish, is rather centrist now. It seems foolish given the extremes of the right or Tea Party that I even bothered to not like his policies.
What I am talking about, though, is the blatant disrespect for Obama both as the president and as a man. It reeks of racism. I know that they would never blatantly say that they were racist, but what else explains the crazy hatred for everything he or his wife does.
I rationalize that it is something with the 24 hour "news" cycle that means they have to fill the airwaves with commentary - they have to say something to keep people watching. And if they are pushing a forward or even subtle button on racism that will keep them hooked.
The truth is that as a white woman who grew up in Orange County, CA I don't have a lot of experience with African Americans. My daughter, who is going to school in the South, laughs at me that I really don't know anything about black culture. I don't. I am clueless - but that doesn't make me afraid. It makes me curious.
But I am not in the norm - the truth that I see - is that if you don't understand or know something you are automatically (maybe it is our primal nature) supposed to fear and distrust it. And if I am like most white people in America, we don't really know very much about black people - so, therefore, we are supposed to be afraid and in the end not trust/like/respect our President.
This kind of logic is scary on so many levels - but if I were Faux News I would capitalize on this obvious lack of understanding or knowledge. I could fill your head with all kinds of subtle lies. I could help you feel ok about your fear. I could make you feel ok that you not only fear black people, but that makes you hate them. And with that fear I could make it impossible for you to respect our President.
I am sad about this every Friday when I watch that silly "news show" on PBS. Wonder what watching cable news would do to me? We have a long way to go as a multicultural nation. We have a long way to go as white people and the first step, it seems to me, is to respect our President.
Photo: Flickr Barack Obama
