Words Matter. Really.

Posted by Karoli in News February 21st, 2008

lynch mobBill O’Reilly is a big-mouthed bellicose twit. He isn’t afraid to toss epithets and names around, but he always manages to walk on the very edge of the firing line when he does it. Ordinarily I don’t even read the text of what he says because he’s so annoying that he distracts. But with all the discussion this week about words, and tone, and what words are owned and which are borrowed, and which words count and which words don’t, the most recent O’Reilly gaffe just can’t go unmentioned. It can’t.

It’s not that it was directed toward Michelle Obama. It’s the idea of using this specific language and imagery toward a woman and an African-American, and you really can’t get a sense of the menace in his voice when he said what he said without listening to it. This is the 30-second excerpt that sent me into orbit. I encourage you to listen to it before reading the transcript I’ve copied below it, because it’s the vocal cadence and inflection that really creeped me out.

…every time the guy turns around, there’s another demagogue or another ideologue in his face trying to humiliate him because they’re rooting for Obama.

That’s wrong. And I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that’s how she really feels — that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever — then that’s legit. We’ll track it down.

So if I have this right, O’Reilly feels some sympathy for Bill Clinton because everyone is attacking HIM for defending his wife. Okay, no problem there, though Hillary Clinton can stand up for herself quite competently and does on a daily basis. But look at the picture to the left and listen to the inflection and then think about what he really said about Michelle Obama and how he said it.  The fact that it was audio only makes it all the more powerful to me, raising mind pictures of nooses and hooded mobs hunting down the sinner.

This is the same theme I hammered on in my post about Larry King last week. Words matter. Tone matters. Meaning matters.  Using the term “lynch mob” in connection with a high-profile black woman. Gay-bashing by the ‘family values’ set. Words matter. Tone matters.

I’m writing this here instead of the political blog because it’s not a political post. It’s a post about how we interact together as people, the undercurrents that threaten our kids and our society, how we regard one another.  In my neighborhood, the majority of families sit down together and watch Bill O’Reilly and Fox News over dinner. Even though this was a statement he made on his radio show, it’s still coming from the same guy, and if a clamor grows for him to apologize, resign or be fired (none of which will happen), the folks around here will shrug and say “What did he say that was so horrible?”

President Bush made strong statements against lynching jokes and displays last week, saying this:

`The noose is not a symbol of prairie justice, but of gross injustice,” the president said. “Displaying one is not a harmless prank. Lynching is not a word to be mentioned in jest.”

As a civil society, Americans should agree that noose displays and lynching jokes are “deeply offensive,” Bush said.

“They are wrong,” the president said, referring to such displays and jokes. “And they have no place in America today.”

And I’d say that any reference to a forming a “lynch mob” against the wife of a presidential candidate also has no place in America today. What do you think?

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