Whether his fears were justified or not is just an irrelevant distraction from the heart of the matter: he should have kept his thoughts to himself. His job required him to maintain a public appearance of objectivity on controversial subjects. I agree with what the NPR CEO Vivian Schiller said several days ago (and which she later apologized for saying :p):
You’re moving on to step 2! Make them figure out step 1, first.
Exactly. This is why I’d like to hear exactly what it was Williams said. Was it more:
“Seeing someone who I think is Muslim on a plane makes me nervous, and I think we should enact greater scrutiny of Muslims who want to fly”
or
“Seeing someone who I think is Muslim on a plane makes me nervous, but I realize that that’s an attitude of unreasoned bigotry, and I work to prevent myself from actually acting on that irrational fear”?
If it’s the former, I’d absolutely agree with the firing. If the latter, I think that that’s the sort of discussion we need to have more of. Because that’s absolutely a problem we have in America, with a bunch of different groups, and pretending like it doesn’t exist isn’t helping anybody.
Hey, look, guys, **SA **just made another post full of disgusting bigotry. What a surprise!
“Well, actually, I hate to say this to you because I don’t want to get your ego going. But I think you’re right. I think, look, political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don’t address reality. I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous. Now, I remember also when the Times Square bomber was at court – this was just last week – he said: “the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood.” I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts.”
Okay, yeah, that looks like a #1 to me. Kick the bigot out the fucking door, and good riddance.
No, no, he said he wasn’t a bigot. It’s cool.
Yep, it’s like anti-venin. Why, those words make a person completely immune!
ETA: Metaphors! I likes to mix 'em!
Or, maybe you’ve got a black man who obviously isn’t a bigot towards black men, having written a book on the civil rights movement for black men.
Obviously a Muslim-lover.
-Joe
Juan Williams will be a guest on Diane Rehm this morning.
Wow, NPR fired someone, and now he is invited to be a guest on an NPR show. I wonder if this would ever happen on Fox.
Williams frequent appearances are a slap in the face to NPR. He is supposed to be a fair observer. That is not what they do at Fox. I read that he had been talked to several times over the appearances of him on a slanted lying network. But he did it again. Then a biased remark gave then clear cause to get rid of him and end the embarrassment he was giving the station.
No. You really should read the whole discussion in context, not just the convenient snips the media and posters here have presented.
Watch the full video in the link and decide for yourself. Look, I’m a self-identified liberal, but Juan’s comments, while provocative, I believe were honest and a rhetorical effort to help listeners, many of whom have similar fears, identify with his point and the conclusions that he eventually draws, which are decidedly not anti-Islamic, in my read.
**puly **- to me, here’s the point: I totally get your read of what happened. But there are too many ways to come up with other interpretations, which is why NPR discourages this type of comment. I don’t question, or I suppose care about, Juan William’s actual point of view as much as I see how his comment runs a high risk of not being the “teaching moment” he might want it to be - witness the result.
NPR obviously wanted Juan Williams to go for awhile. I think they were stupid to make this the centerpiece of their firing. I think it makes NPR and liberals by extension (even if they aren’t particularly liberal to me) look stupid, reactionary, and hypocritical. I really can’t defend his firing to people who ask me about it other than he should have been a little more nuanced in his choice of words. He’s saying what a lot of people are thinking, and then admitting it’s wrong, which is a much better way, in my opinion, of getting people to listen to you and consider alternative points of view than acting like: a) not acknowledging these thoughts exist in the minds of many, if not most, people or b) acting like you’re superior to everyone else because you don’t harbor these fears. Especially when you’re on Fox and not trying to be the token liberal, but actually trying to change people’s minds and get them to think about these issues. (Yeah, yeah, I know, fat chance of that happening on Bill O’Reilly, but if I were to try to do it, that’s the tack I’d take.)
I can’t get to streaming video from work, which is why I asked for the remarks. From the way the Slate article is presenting things, that does make him sound a lot closer to a #2.
I watched the whole interview. The Slate article is being far too forgiving.
I watched the same interview. I have a different conclusion.
Ah, well the difference is I am right, and you are wrong. Obligatoy winking emoticon, to ensure no one loses their shit: 
Is it a vase or two people kissing?
It’s two people kissing a vase. And who the hell does that?
I can’t find the actual transcript of the interview itself, but I found this from NPR’s “On the Media” which contains a lot of the important parts transcripted and put in context.
I’m with the Slate guy’s take on it.
Now, granted, his statement was coming from a place of prejudice, by definition. But how can we have an open and honest discussion about these sorts of things and be able to change these prejudices without admitting that we have them, they’re irrational, and they need to be addressed?