Oh. Hi there. Thanks for stopping by.
I thought I would welcome those of you who might be first-time visitors.
I’m Allan. I’m an Angry Black Lady.
Natasha Lennard’s article included the following paragraphs:
“What u said was that Obama was against what happened in NY which is inherently dishonest. U made like he lobbied against the bill,” read one tweet; “why did you lie?” demanded another; and “@maddow has Hate and Racism towards Obama!” wrote another. The playwright and journalist J. Samuel Cook tweeted, I feel sorry for all the #LGBT Americans whose victory last night in New York is overshadowed by @maddow’s and @ltdanchoi’s hatred of Obama.”
Allan Brauer, a blogger at AngryBlackLady.com, wrote that Maddow was refusing to acknowledge a quote from a letter Obama wrote to an LGBT group in California in opposition of Prop. 8. “I want to congratulate all of you who have shown your love for each other by getting married these last few weeks,” Obama wrote in 2008. Others point to the fact that Obama’s view is “evolving” to illustrate that Maddow’s use of the word “against” did not do justice to the president’s view on marriage equality. [emphasis added]
And concluded:
Maddow may have been a bit too strong in her initial comments, but clearly she touched a fragile, irrational nerve in the body of Obama’s diehard supporters.
When ABL sought out the author for clarification, she acknowledged (via Twitter) that my comments were a “fair critique,” which suggests Lennard is differentiating my feedback from that emanating from the “fragile, irrational nerve in the body of Obama’s diehard supporters.” Hey, I’m a white male, so I’m accustomed to my opinions being given greater credence. But whatever. I don’t feel the need to slam other people for how they expressed their feedback to Rachel, even if I don’t agree with all of it.
I’ve had a few things to say since I joined the team here at ABLC, including some reflection on how people communicate via Twitter, and how some public figures are navigating this highly interactive, two-way medium more effectively than others.
But for now, a few thoughts in no particular order:
1. Thanks for calling more attention to the topic.
That’s primarily what those of us using Twitter to respond to Rachel are asking. Let’s explore this in question in more depth. I’m glad that Lennard wrote her post at Salon and I appreciate being cited in it. And I especially appreciate that she sees a fair critique in the example I proffer.
2. Ms. Lennard, have you actually read the comments section at Salon?
Or the websites of major daily newspapers and television networks? The conversation at Twitter is absolutely no different than any other online medium, except each comment is < 140 characters. There’s wheat, and chaff, and outraged apoplexy, everywhere. The condensed nature of the Twitter format takes away room that might be spent in other media hemming and hawing, and offering some praise along with the critique. It’s blunt. Just as members of some cultures express themselves more bluntly than others, and that bluntness can be misinterpreted.
Back when I still read Salon, it seemed to me that Joan Walsh’s own readers regularly blasted her in the comments over virtually everything she posted, and got into fights with each other as to whether she was right or wrong. I suspect you’ll also find heated conversations among supporters and detractors of Glenn Greenwald in the comments on his Salon blog posts.
When you’re actually expressing your opinions as your profession and earning a living at it, or even doing it for free as I do, your performance will be reviewed. This Internet 2.0 is a two-way street. Deal with it.
3. If you’re going to put ideas out into the blogosphere, you will get feedback.
The feedback itself does not reflect upon you; but how you choose to respond to it does.
If famous people, public figures, reporters, pundits and opinion generators want to express their thoughts but don’t want feedback, they should either refrain from posting content to Twitter; or post there but ignore the responses their content generates; or choose to engage with those who agree and/or disagree with them on an individual basis. But really, sighing and tut-tutting over how misguided, misinformed, evil or deranged one’s critics are is not a response to the meat of their complaints.
4. Part of the wonder of Twitter is its immediacy.
Many who use it value it for this kind of real-time response, and monitor their feedback to see how their ideas and opinions are being received. This can help alert authors to mistakes, misattributions, and possible misrepresentation of their subject’s views. A cat may look at a king. And even meow and hiss at him on Twitter.
Others treat it more as a fan-club space. Comments of praise are RTed, while criticisms are either ignored, brushed off, or even excoriated. Some of us do both: sharing and responding to disagreements and praise, while spotlighting the worst insults we receive for a kind of “would you look at what I deal with” catharsis.
5. Rachel is one of the better on-air personalities working today.
She generally goes farther than most to make sure she’s being accurate and fair in how she’s characterizing the views of others. One of her strengths is that she routinely checks in with guests she’s just introduced to confirm the accuracy of her set-up and introduction.
Rachel also runs a “Department of Corrections” feature from time to time, further emphasizing her sincere wish to make sure her program accurately characterizes the news, current events, and peoples’ political positions.
Rachel has a Twitter account, and promotes it on her program, so people feel free to use it to offer feedback, as I have. She seems to be able to take criticism, and even incorporate it into her future commentary, and it is in this spirit that I have expressed myself.
6. Some of us have made our case as to why we disagree with the words Rachel chose to use last Friday.
Rachel continues to insist that she is correct because her comment characterizes President Obama’s recorded personal views on marriage. I say she is incorrect because Obama has clearly separated his personal views from his policy and legislative position. Every time he’s been given an opportunity, he has indicated either before or after the fact that he supports the right of individual states to come to their own conclusion about the legality of same-sex marriage.
Therefore, to say that Obama “is against what happened here” depends on your definition of “what happened here”. On Friday night, when Rachel spoke those words, the context was “both houses of the NY legislature passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage”. President Obama is nowhere on record opposing that action.
I DVR Rachel’s show daily and watch it often. I was watching live when she made the statement in question. I will almost certainly watch her show again in the future.
And I would like for her to acknowledge that there are multiple interpretations of what she said, and that there are perspectives from which what she said is incorrect. That’s the kind of thing I expect from Rachel that I wouldn’t expect from your average cable TV hack.
7. Natasha Lennard, the author of the Salon piece, knows how to use Twitter, but chose not to.
She has never availed herself of the Twitter medium, or any other communication channel, to ask me any questions. I even sent her a tweet to make sure she knew where to find me if she was interested in learning more. It’s odd, because she’s used Twitter to reach out to potential sources in the past. Though she’s not yet contacted me, she has updated her post, although only to add another link to Greenwald. Oddly, though she linked directly to several other peoples’ tweets in her original post, she did not link to mine, though she characterized them pretty accurately. But she chose to highlight a different sentence in Obama’s letter than I did. I spotlighted this excerpt:
“I support extending fully equal rights and benefits to same sex couples under both state and federal law.”
which I felt was a clearer articulation of a principle. Obama supports the actions that states take toward equal treatment of same-sex and opposite-sex couples. And that’s “what happened here” in New York on Friday night. It would have been interesting to converse with Lennard about the topic, and could have possibly made her reporting more informative.
8. I’ll get back to my regularly scheduled programming now.
I have some good stuff I was working on before the spotlight landed on me today, and I think you’re going to like it. But while you’re here, bookmark the site, check my archives, follow me on Twitter, and read some of the Twitter conversations I’ve documented via Chirpstory.
And thanks for visiting!
Slightly off-topic, but I and my friends too have to use a “Spokesmodel” sometimes. My gay homeboy (who is white) and I tag team like this often.
It’s just like the Dave Chappelle sketch where he has the pretty white girl sing his paranoid thoughts(http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=210277&title=pretty-white-girl-sings-daves). I can say everything Allan just said, but some how its given more credence when he says it. Same thing with my gay homeboy and lgbt rights. As a straight black woman, when I speak about it for some reason people listen to me, more so than they listen to the 6ft tall white man that happens to speak just like the 5’3 black woman.
Anyway, hate that that’;s true, but just wanted to share.
As a working journalist (well, okay, it’s arts journalism, but still), I have to say that it’s appalling to me that people at major media outlets (or even Salon — zing!) think it’s okay to make no effort to contact people they’re quoting in articles in order to give full context. Especially if they’re going to be characterizing them by association as “fragile and irrational.”
Go to the original source for a quote! If you can’t get ahold of the person before deadlines, you could at least maintain some semblance of credibility by saying “So and So could not be reached for comment by deadline” — and since it’s the Intertoobz, you can add updated quotes and context if/when you DO reach them!
Fucking Journalism — How Does It Work?
Also, too, why would Salon be so down on people who have “evolving” views, given that Lil Glennie Greenwald of 2005 was writing anti-immigration rants (complete with use of the odious phrase “illegals”) that he now insists were just “youthful” indiscretions? (He was 38 at the time — but I guess in Glennie’s mind, he was a mere yout’!)
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2005/11/gop-fights-itself-on-illegal.html
Possibly he was anti-immigration because it didn’t affect him, personally. Now that he has a partner who is from Brazil… voila! He cares about anti-immigration laws.
Except Greenwald’s views have actually evolved in the intervening space. Obama’s staff insist his position has remained the same.
Thanks for the information about Obama’s staff, Scarletyoshi. Do you have a link?
At today’s presser he stated DOMA is unconstitutional. So how do people come to the conclusion he is against ssm as a civil right?
Evolved?
Only if you consider moving closer to the Cato Institute “evolution” have they evolved.
Greenwald lives in a world made up of carefully constructed abstractions that exist solely in his mind.
you said it!
And let’s not forget that Glenn also supported the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Thought I deleted the above post. Sorry it’s still there. Look below for the full post.
that was my bad. i saw it in the trash and thought “that doesn’t belong there!)
anyway, thanks for the comment! i will check those links. i had NO idea glenn had ever espoused those positions. not that it matters to his minions. they are all brainwashed savants.
-ABL
No worries. Not used to this system, anyway.
Glenn’s loyal followers rarely find fault with him, even when it’s right in their face. They just make up excuses for his mistakes and absolutely disgusting behavior toward those with whom he disagrees. Although a few of his long time commenters expressed surprise when I pointed out his previous positions on Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course they quickly forgave him and then childishly attacked me. All I’d done was point out what many, it seems, never knew.
And then there was the time I caught him lying about Elena Kagan on Democracy Now. I didn’t write this comment, but except for the blanket statement about Obama, it just about perfectly sums up the philosophy over there:
http://tiny.cc/kdwzg
And let’s not forget that Glenn also supported the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. You can look it up in the preface to his first book, although he’s never written about it on the internet. And if he had, he would have let me know in no uncertain terms when I brought it up in his comment section. The preface is here:
http://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm/book_number/1812/index.cfm?fuseaction=printable&book_number=1812
I have no problem with people who evolve in their positions, but since Glenn continually savages those who supported Bush on Iraq, his criticisms ring more than a bit hollow. Here’s but one example:
“What about the most destructive “anarchic exercise in ‘freedom’” the planet has known for at least a generation: the “human disaster” known as the attack on Iraq, which Klein supported? That didn’t result in the imprisonment of “a single foreign national,” but rather the deaths of more than 100,000 innocent human beings, the displacement of millions more, and the destruction of a country of 26 million people.”
But of course you’ll never see Glenn writing about his ‘loyalty’ to Bush on his blog. Nor the fact that he wanted to wreak “vengeance” on Afghanistan after 9/11. That would undercut his whole ‘Dear Leader’ Obamabot schtick. So he leaves it buried in the preface to his first book. No need to write about it on the internet because it’s assumed everyone has read everything Glenn has ever written.
But he does post terrorist propaganda on his blog. You can read about that little incident here:
http://sadredearth.com/the-vice-of-the-extremes/
And he does illegal wiretapping too (in defense of white supremacists no less).
http://socfools.blogspot.com/2008/05/illegal-wiretapping-indeed.html
“because Obama has clearly separated his personal views from his policy and legislative position.”
This is my view of it. Obama clearly sees himself as president of all the people, even the ones who didn’t vote for him, a la Bartlet on West Wing.
He doesn’t have to accept everyone’s position as his personal view in order to protect their rights to those positions, and their civil rights in general.
Given that Obama’s DOJ has stopped supporting DOMA in court, clearly he’s not actively working to oppose gay marriage. Does he need to PERSONALLY accept it? Well, I suppose that would be nice. But it’s not a prerequisite for getting good policy and good legislation, as Obama and the previous Dem congress record (DADT repeal) shows.
As a pro-choice atheist, I would love to see more public officials get away from God-Talk. And I would REALLY love for them to stop using language that suggests that abortion is a big bad terrible thing that they personally oppose but it needs to be legal. Please note that I’m not saying abortion and gay marriage are equivalent — but as a woman who has terminated a pregnancy, I suppose I could get a righteousgasm hissy fit going over the constant need for even “liberal” politicians to paint the choice that saved MY LIFE (and trust me, that is not hyperbolic) as something that is de facto tragic and awful and something that I should feel deeply ashamed about.
But it’s not about my need for emotional validation. I don’t give a good goddamn if Obama is personally opposed to abortion. In fact, I give him mad props for saying what is true — a lot of anti-abortion zealots believe that women should be “punished” for being sexual by having a baby. He took a lot of grief for that at the time from right and left, but I think he was the first candidate running for the presidency who had the balls to call it like it is on that score.
well-said. i don’t understand why these virulent obama-haters want him to have them over for a gay beer summit anyway.
and believe you me, if he came out and said “i support gay marriage,” these same assclowns would be yelling “it’s just words! he’s throwing a bone to the base!” and so on.
A lot of them are very confused. They hate him, yet demand his personal validation.
These are people who have never read a book on the Civil Rights movement in their entire lives.
it’s so bizarre to me.
the salonistas are all arguing about how MADDOW SPOKE THE TROOF, but they are missing the plot.
had maddow said “obama is against gay marriage” she would have been correct. unfortunately, that’s not what she said on friday. she said “obama is against what happened here,” meaning “obama is against New York passing SSM legislation,” and to that i say “horseshit.”
“These are people who have never read a book on the Civil Rights movement in their entire lives.”
Or much of anything else that didn’t feature unicorns, maybe?
Perfect summation! They are the equivalent of people in the restaurant complaining about “Such bad food! And such small portions!”
Right, ABL. There are sneers about how all he does is give speeches. Then he and the Dems in Congress pass more progressive legislation (and here I must again add NANCY SMASH!!!!) than we’ve seen in my nearly half-century on this big blue marble — and it’s not enough, because he didn’t say the secret words to make the public option come down.
There are asshats who just aren’t happy unless they are in constant victim mode. And I get it — I’ve been guilty of it myself. Victimhood and grievance is a drug. It keeps you from having to accept any agency or doing anything, because the world done you wrong. But the difference between a victim and an activist is that a victim whines “See how awful they are to meeee!?!?!” An activist says “This shit is wrong. What can WE do to start making it right?” They don’t wait for A Big Strong Daddy Man to give them permission, either.
They complain about speeches, then complain that he doesn’t use the bully pulpit.
They won’t be happy until he gets up in front of the Lincoln Memorial and gives a speech they wrote, that declares free universal public option and gay mariage for all.
Not that that would DO anything.
Well said, Allan. I agree completely that Maddow is one of the better media figures out there and that she was wrong in her speculation about Obama’s response to the passage of marriage equality in NY.
Too bad Salon couldn’t have focused more on the thoughtful argument you offered rather than “nut-picking” to make the story about Maddow coming under attack by Obama zealots.
“Obama zealots” is their meme du jour. They’ve been taken over by Greenwald’s demented Libertarian (read: pathological) worldview, in which Barack Von Bush Hitlerbama (Mussolini Stalin) ChairmanMaObama spends his time eating live babies while kicking gay people, after a long, hard day’s conspiring with the health care and banking industries.
Must be something in the water out there or something. Drink beer instead, I guess.
Thanks, friends, for reading and commenting. Now I have to go pitch FoxNews on new program featuring Dana Milbank and Mark Halperin. It will be called “The Dick Show” and it will run five inches, er minutes daily.
hee!