Let’s begin with the premise that no people, culture, religious, racial or ethnic group is by definition immoral. Not acknowledging this, at the core, is the problem with Juan Williams’ gross generalization about Muslims that recently got him fired from National Public Radio (NPR). But if NPR’s “Fresh Air” interview last week with the rapper Jay-Z about his new book Decoded is any indication, it’s a message still lost on Terry Gross.
To be sure, Juan Williams revealed his bias by openly expressing his personal opinion. Terry Gross didn’t do that. Instead the bias is more subtle and insidious and lurks in the line of questioning.
While not as shocking as the obvious blanket condemnation Juan Williams advanced, the Terry Gross/ Jay-Z interview is even more problematic because it illuminates a tendency pervasive in today’s news media. This is a moment in which Blacks can be embraced and promoted at the same time that their humanity is dismantled—all in a 30-second sound bite.
Throughout her interview with Jay-Z, Gross kept returning the discussion to those places that reinforce the idea of Black culture as immoral and Black people as corrupt and/or...
