Speaking Up

By Ezra

What Digby said, of course. But I'm not so sure about this part: "Guys like Tim Russert rarely have to face black people on the air who will confront their billionaire boys club assumptions. I doubt that Russert sees himself as an intolerant, racist sexist frat boy jerk. And in most interactions he probably doesn't behave that way in the least....[But] looking Gwen Ifill, his colleague and respected female African American journalist, right in the eye, and having to answer to her concerns is something that could have made a difference long ago."

Russert and Ifill talk regularly. She's a frequent guest on his show. And I'd bet that she never before felt comfortable looking him in the eye and expressing her concerns. Because there's nothing worse -- particularly for a minority who's "made it" -- than becoming known as the "PC" police. Nothing worse than being too humorless to get the joke. Russert had to face Ifill's concerns not because he finally spoke to an African-American, female, journalist, but because the uproar surrounding Imus made it socially acceptable for Ifill to express her long-standing discomfort in a way that wouldn't get her ejected from the club. The Imus Controversy, in other words, comprised a set of "extraordinary circumstances," in which Ifill could make these comments without harming herself or discomfiting her friends. And even in this context, her actions were brave.

I was thinking about this a few weeks ago, when I was around a table -- a table that's usually all guys -- and some of the folks were talking about the reports that female soldiers are routinely raped in Iraq. And I forget the exact context now, but someone cracked a joke, and folks were trying to keep the conversation on the light, sardonic plane it generally floats across, when the one girl looked up and said, "Yeah guys, because you know what's real funny? Rape."

You could've heard a pin drop. She was right, of course, and folks felt ashamed for having been called on it. The topic changed, the night went on. But it was a genuinely brave thing for her to have done, given the power of the humorless feminist archetype. The upside, after all, is that the jokes stop. But the potential downside is resentment, a PC reputation, and eventually and possibly, exclusion.

The problem here is, as Ifill put it regarding Imus, "that people are [not] sorry that they say these things. They’re sorry that someone catches them." Had Ifill made these comments three weeks ago, the reaction of Russert and the others might not have been to accept the criticism, but to limit their contact with Ifill -- the better to keep someone from catching them in the future. And that, I think, is why Russert, and so many guys, never hear these critiques except in the rarest of instances. Folks aren't as sorry for what they said as anxious not to be caught again, so those who threaten them run the risk of being excluded from the group. And so, save in rare circumstances where their speaking up allows the group to exorcise a demon -- as Russert's invitation to Ifill and Robinson did today -- they remain silent.

Update: You can watch Ifill's performance here.