Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Imperial Nudity
In recent days we’ve had a very public re-enactment of the story about the boy who saw that the emperor wore no clothes and innocently dared to say it out loud. In our own time, however, in which sexism and ageism are both hate crimes, we’ve been careful to observe the etiquette so that the Crier of Nudity in our case was an old woman.
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You left out a third -ism in this context...though this latest transgression concerns sagging skin not skin color...
ReplyDeleteWell put!
ReplyDeleteI must say, I was dumb founded when I heard on NPR all about the horror of Helen Thomas' remarks in an interview, captured on either tape of video. I hadn't heard anything about the incident until then.
The outrage and vehemence with which she was being attacked was truly amazing. I mean, there were suggestions that she's become senile and couldn't possibly have known or meant what she said.
I just listened to this for a while and then had to turn it off. Everyone was trying to be even more outraged by it all than the other commentators. The righteous tone was simply too much to bare.
Has the suffering of the Jewish people through history been so much worse than any other that the actions of a government that claims to represent them become... somehow sacred, not to be questioned at all? Regardless of what they do? Really?
Amazing.
Shared your reactions, Monique. Was out shopping as I listened to NPR and almost had to stop the car to control my nausea...
ReplyDeleteYou will both be surprised to hear that in Letters to the Editor in the NYT 98% were critical of Helen Th. and the efforts of the Freedom Flotilla.
ReplyDeleteIn the alternative sources that I read besides the NYT, the ratio was exactly reversed. Our so-called free press seems to have forgotten its true mission and the other freedom, Freedom of Speech; this last, in addition, I was sure was applicable to a private conversation...