We live in an impatient world. We take 2-minute clips and issue quick judgments.
We are becoming a YouTube justice system: short audio or video clips, without complete context or secretly recorded to capture the slip-up, and then wham! you are caught and condemned, with little opportunity to explain or defend.
The latest episode in our YouTube justice system is Shirley Sherrod. If all you viewed was the short clip, you would think she was a racist. Listen to the full speech, and you would hear the thoughtful discussion and lessons learned in life about overcoming prejudices and importance of helping people when in need.
If it wasn’t so damaging, it would be comical to watch how the cable news channels one day are condemning Shirley Sherrod and the very next morning praising her and condemning the people who forced her resignation. We have a large pipe of TV air time which must be filled, so let’s just fill it with whatever has turned viral and don’t find out the rest of the story.
Can you imagine Paul Harvey in today’s world? During one of his dramatic pauses in telling the “rest of the story,” the news flash would be issued and judgment passed without the complete story!
Is this the society we have become? Do we really want a YouTube justice system? Are we that fearful of cable news “talking heads” and 24-hour news cycles that we must make snap judgments without the context or all the facts?
The Department Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has shown poor leadership and a lack of strong character in the handling of this situation. Expediency was his objective – get rid of this story before Glenn Beck comes on! He was not the only guilty party, even the NAACP judged Shirley Sherrod one way yesterday and a better way today. Making decisions based on political convenience does not make a good leader, and it does not exhibit solid principles to move our society forward.
We need to exhibit better leadership qualities in our judgments and better character qualities in our decisions. We need patience, along with context and facts.
It was easy for people to believe the original story because deep, deep-down, it reinforced something each of us believes. Many of us just know that gov’t officials are corrupt. Others fear the new neighbor down the street that might be a little different. We are sure that person running towards us intends to do us harm…. So when we hear the “pundit of the day” proclaim some far-out wacky theory (can we call any of it news anymore?) it touches something in our core and we listen and believe.
If the video had shown Ms. Sherrod proclaiming her abilities to fly to the moon while knitting socks for the grandkids, we would have laughed it away (or at least most of us) as ridiculous “exertions” and that would have been it. Instead, when the original video surfaced, with a story that was just as farfetched, for a lot of us it touched that “dark” part of us that believes a black woman had actually used her powerful gov’t position to deny services to a white man.
At moments like this I am reminded of a Shakespeare quote from my youth … ”In time, we hate that which we often fear.”
Great insights and points. The Shakespeare quote may sum it up best. Thanks!