Nobody would even know that some Dominick guy has a radio show where Sanchez said thing or two if it was not for sensationalistic and over the top tabloid style reporting that went as prime-time news on major TV and cable news shows. He was fired because of false accusations that he is in fact an anti-semite. And, once that accusations sticks its an all out invitation from all kinds of characters to spew it on the man like in the movie when someone, suddenly turns to a zombie and then the all out shooting starts.
Now that dust has settled, he even apologized. I though that the times when people apologize for something they did not do are long gone - but they made him think that he did that; they made him look into the mirror and say to himself “maybe you are what they say you are”. I can only imagine what goes through his mind when he calls Stewart and says something like “you know, I really am not an anti-semite”. That soul is broken. And, now Stewart tells us that Sanchez “is good at heart”.
No. He was fired mostly likely because he was on his way out anyway AND he crossed a line and *used the wrong words *in an on-the-record interview. The true-or-falseness of his anti-semitic (or not) character is NOT the point, no matter how much you want it to be.
If he had acknowledged with humility that he was a goofball, as seen on The Daily Show, then the incident wouldn’t have happened. It’s precisely in projecting the problem outward that he ended up tripping on his own tongue.
I can see being willing to cut the guy some slack and interpret the case charitably. But you sound as though you think the guy has been brainwashed. Let me give you some advice that Sanchez could have used: Try not to specify who you think is responsible for distributing the alien mind-control pods. That’s how they really get you, whoever they are (wink).
He was not fired because of the way his comments were reported. He was fired (in part, maybe) for what he said. It’s a big difference. CNN fired him before there was any Imus-style backlash in the media. They were probably going to fire him soon anyway and decided to do it now.
There are no such thing as souls and it’s not relevant to what happened here. The man said something that was very stupid and pretty offensive. He lost his job over it - probably just a little early - which CNN has the right to do if it wants to. I don’t know if he’s really an antisemite or not, but I never said he was one. I think his words on the radio show are clear, but anybody can have a bad day. What I will say is that even if you exclude the stuff about Jews, he made himself look like an idiot by overreacting to some minor ribbing by Jon Stewart* and trying to turn it into an identity politics issue.
*Not mentioned is that Stephen Colbert has probably made fun of Sanchez just as often, and he doesn’t have the same background Stewart does. Although obviously they worked together for years.
I liked Stewart’s reference to himself last night as “the fortunate son of a single mother in the education field”. IIRC he’s said that his father was a deadbeat dad, but the family certainly wasn’t rich. Here’s an article on his childhood.
I never watched Sanchez’s show so I might be full of it. Please bear with me. I live in Miami and I’m suspicious of people characterizing Rick Sanchez as liberal. He immigrated to Miami in 1960 from Cuba when he was 2 years old. This group of Cuban immigrants are almost rabidly rightwing. I read somewhere that younger Cubans seem to be more liberal but even the kids in my university are typically conservative or libertarian.
Also, I think Sanchez is exaggerating his “poor immigrant” background. There’s a strange quote by him in Wikipedia:
What prejudice is he talking about? Hialeah has been majority Cuban for a long time, probably since the mass influx starting 1958. Now it’s ~ 80% Hispanic (~70% is Cuban). Spanish is the language. Telemundo’s headquarters are in Hialeah.
Edited to say: Looks like Jon’s dad was not in academia according to the article above so…I don’t know.
The reason I’m pointing this out is that Cuban Americans enjoy a special status in the US that other Hispanics don’t have. 10-20,000 Cubans immigrated at the same time as Rick Sanchez’s family. They were mostly from middle to upper-class families and the US government helped the immigrants with a huge refugee program with buckets of money to Cubans to start small businesses. Even now Cubans have the “dry land” policy (I think it’s still in effect, correct me if I’m wrong) in which if Cuban immigrants can get to dry land, they get to stay. Therefore, many of them come through the Texas border.
It’s quite amazing how differently Cubans were/are treated because of the Cold War. Now they are a strong voting block so they have huge political clout. However, I’m always surprised to see someone not acknowledge the advantages they have over other Hispanics in the US.
To sum up this long post on someone I have no clue about, I suspect that Sanchez had a fairly middle class childhood (at least as he got older). If Jon Stewart’s mom was a teacher and his Dad a Physics professor, he grew up as middle class. Physics professors in a small non-PhD-earning school make pretty mediocre salaries and if dad was in graduate school when Jon was born, he was making shit. I’m going to make a stab at it and say Jon and Rick’s families were financially very similar (unless Rick’s parents were unemployed all the time).
Plus even if he really did grow up not speaking English as a kid, Miami’s a place where you can do that without a whole lot of problems. It’s not like you’re the son of Mexican migrants in Iowa or Tennessee where you’ll play hell finding somebody outside of the family who speaks your language.
And homophobia is stronger in NYC than in many other cities. The gay community is very visible, and on Pride day, there are an organized number of counter-protesters. Here in Cleveland, the gay community is not that visible, and there’s more of a “live and let live” attitude.
NOTE: In Rick’s own words - this was NEVER about whether he was an anti-Semite; it was because he “used inartful words” - i.e., he crossed a line he shouldn’t have while speaking, regardless of his actual beliefs. I hope we can put that to rest now.