Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, and sudden celebrity amidst the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, came under fire recently for remarks he made during New Orleans' Martin Luther King Day Parade. Stating that "God must be mad at America for being in Iraq", in his attempt to convey a reason for the barrage of hurricanes this past summer caused outrage. Nagin followed these comments with what many perceived as yet another poor choice of words on Nagin's part in calling for New Orleans to re-emerge as a "chocolate city". He explained that he was simply trying to explain that blacks were a key part of New Orleans history and culture, and was attempting to call out their place in the receovery and rebuilding of the city.
The American public is especially sensitive to comments like these, I guess, in light of recent spoutings by conservative Christian leader Pat Robertson, who stated that he believed Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke as a result of his decision to pull out of the Gaza Strip. He attempted to explain what he believed was divine retribution for the ailing Israeli leader, which garnered massive criticism in the American media, and which cost him involvement in the soon to be built Gallilee World Heritage Park, a 50 million dollar construction project. Robertson retracted his comments, issued what I thought was as genuine and heartfelt an apology that you could get considering what was at stake, and instructed his PR team to diminish the issue in the media at all costs, no doubt to attempt to salvage the business deal. Israel's Tourism Ministry has recently stated that although the construction project will proceed, they have no intention to include Robertson and his group of companies in any way as a result of the embarassing and insulting public statements. I believe that this is God's way of telling Pat Robertson that he can't diss the leader of God's land when he's suffered something as debilitating as a stroke, and punishing him for breaking the 11th commandment, Thou Shalt Not Be An Asshole.
I'm forced to wonder....what's going on?
Is it me, or has there been an increase in instances of public figures being totally irresponsible and uncouth in what they say, using the televised forum? I don't think it's fair to draw an identical comparison between what Nagin said and what Robertson said, but it's an example nonetheless. Frankly, I believe that Nagin should be cut some slack, as he strikes me as a guy who continues to deal with traumatic experiences that I believe he will live with for the rest of his life. Robertson is an influential figure in politics and religion who has a history of dumb and insensitive things that he has said, and he strikes me as an opportunist who's business is religion.
To me, this proves a major point. Have your staff review what you're going to say, and furthermore, avoid improv on television, especially live television, when your handlers can't edit out what you say. No matter how emotionally charged you have the intention of making something, these people should be mindful of the effect of their words. In Robertson's case, I just think he is constantly looking for something that will parallel to passages in the bible, in an attempt to maintain his following and enrichen the Christian Americans values that he preaches, while attempting to distinguish them. What bothers me about him though, is that his comments, related to Sharon, are completely un-Christian, in bad taste, and easily construed as malicious, making you wonder whether he thought very clearly about what he said beforehand. I believe he did. Not cool.
I don't think everyone who does this is bad. Kanye West had the funniest on camera statement blunder that I can remember when he blurted out that "George Bush doesn't care about black people" during the Hurrican Katrina telethon that NBC put on back in September. Israel's Tourism Ministry cut him from the Gallilee Heritage Park as well, and Kanye went on to write "Gold Digger, as a response to the exclusion.
No comments:
Post a Comment