Matt Welch gets a bit het-up about an academic’s easy characterization of the racism and hatred he feels is still a malignant, powerful force in American politics: “Hate, if it ever truly threatened to leave the political stage, is most definitely back, larger and nastier than ever.”
To get all journalistically theoretical for a moment, what is the definition of journalism? Well, I don’t know, but I do know that one thick chunk of the idea is to write or say (or aim to write and say) things that are unequivocally 100 percent true, and hopefully verified in some way. This is even more true, if such a thing is mathematically possible, for those who deliver lectures on all that should be true and good about journalism.
What, class, do we notice about Davis’ statement above? IT IS DEMONSTRABLY FALSE. We used to have slavery in this country, and Jim Crow laws, and all kinds of officially sanctioned, legalized discrimination against disfavored minorities. And you want to tell me that hate is “larger and nastier than ever”? We had a CIVIL WAR in this country, where people not only brought their legally licensed firearms to townhalls, but they MURDERED THE SHIT OUT OF ONE ANOTHER. How many people died in racially fueled street riots 41 years ago, compared to how many died in racially fueled street riots in 2009? This little couplet, tossed off without evident concern, as if OF COURSE we all know this is true, is blatantly, sophomorically, and insultingly untrue. It’s an advertisement for the author’s fundamental lack of seriousness about the very subject he aims to address.
