CommentsMY THOUGHTS - The United States has long been known as a country of immigrants (I’m one), but in addition we are becoming a country of hypocrites.
We don’t just have double standards…but in many cases triple standards. The verbal mishaps from Joe Rogan and Whoopi Goldberg have had more coverage with tweets, media opinions, pontification, and a small measure of sensible commentary from all sides, than the Ukraine/Russia standoff.
Joe Rogan is a fifty something former -although some think he is still- stand-up-comedian. He has been around a long time and managed to have some success in TV series and standup comedy. According to research his very large audience on the platform Spotify, is primarily misogynistic males, who think he is being “honest and straightforward” because he makes his presentations in such a low-key sincere manner. Chances are Spotify will not remove him, because he makes them lots of money.
It's interesting to examine this Podcast dialogue in terms of racial bias. We have made great strides in becoming inclusive. Remember when people of color started appearing in commercials? It is so common now that no one even notices. Hallmark-my favorite happy ending channel -has utilized mixed race dating, marriages and families; as well as featuring LGBTQ, relationships. It is also becoming a staple of network television. Joe Rogan is something of an outlier. Perhaps he serves a useful purpose to remind us of what used to be.
Comedians are allowed a certain leeway. I remember seeing Mort Sahl and Don Rickles for the first time. No one wanted to sit in the first row for fear of being subjected to the comedian’s ridicule. They made fun of everyone including themselves.
Whoopi Goldberg is NOT anti-Semitic and should not be judged the same as Rogan. The View, started by Barbara Walters, was supposed to encompass different points of view. You can’t put her in the same guilty category. Rogan should have known better. He is not a stupid man, which doesn’t keep him from doing hurtful stupid things! He doubled the stupidity by both spouting misinformation about COVID and using hurtful names that have been outdated for years.
Of course, we don’t know if he is still engaging in this type of despicable name calling or if it was in his past. Most of us say and do dumb things when we are young. One of the punishments presented to Rogan was to switch platforms to Ex-President Trump’s new internet media conglomerate for 100 million dollars. Now this is worth an entire article all by itself. So will leave it for another time. Let’s see if Spotify makes up its mind as to what is acceptable discourse.
The Pendulum has indeed swung. There are words or names we cannot utter for fear of being accused of being a racist/socialist/fascist/Karen etc. I still can’t figure out if “woke” is good or bad. As an example: not too long-ago four-letter obscenities were never heard in polite company. Today they are used abundantly in contemporary music, movies, TV programs, normal conversations and opinions etc.
Whoopi, on the other hand, was partly correct in her belief that Judaism is not a race but a religion. Among Jews there are different opinions. She mentioned, from her view as a black woman, she was readily identifiable as a person of color. Whereas if she were standing with a Jewish person, they were not recognizable as such. There are Black, Asian, Latin, Indian Jews, and a whole polyglot of other races. How many of you of Jewish faith have heard, “You don’t look Jewish.”
Jews have been enslaved many times in their history, where they were categorized as an inferior race. Hitler put them in that category. He had to make his countrymen feel superior to someone, so they wouldn’t blame him for the poor economy. This week ,Atlantic Magazine had an excellent article discussing “Are the Jews a Race or Religion”. I urge you to read it.
Surely there has been “mingling” over the years and if all of us were to check our DNA there would be many surprises. So, why are we becoming a nation of hypocrites, you ask? My opinion again, but human nature causes all of us, in some way, to want to feel superior to someone else in something. Whether its physical beauty, academic brilliance, financial wealth, cooking or a zillion other little things. Deep down, we want to feel we have something which makes us unique.
At the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance there was an entrance with two doorways: One doorway has a sign which said , “Enter Here If You Have No Prejudices.” The other doorway had a sign saying, “Enter Here If You Have Prejudices.” Both doors led to the same place. In other words, we all have prejudices, and we all have a particular bias towards certain things. We just can’t let them diminish our judgement on the important issues.
The brouhaha over Rogan and Whoopi will soon fade and we will await the next scandal
(Denyse Selesnick is a CityWatch columnist and a former publisher/journalist/international event organizer. Denyse can be reached at: [email protected].)
