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Why I Got the Boot From the Today Show
Stephan Savoia / AP Photo
I was recently invited on the Today show to talk about Skip Gates’ arrest—an appearance the producers likely rued and one conservatives have seized on for all the wrong reasons.
An article I wrote for The Daily Beast regarding the brouhaha surrounding the arrest of Harvard Professor Skip Gates snagged me an appearance on the Today show last week—most likely my first and last appearance on that program. It wasn’t that I flubbed any lines or busted any verbs—I’m a pretty fair speaker and know the King’s English—it was what I said that will most likely preclude me from having another 15 seconds of fame.
The offer was originally extended because I’d somewhat taken Gates to task for mouthing off to an armed intruder in his home. Sure, the guy also had a badge and a uniform, but he indeed was armed, and he certainly wasn’t invited—which makes him an intruder. To me, and most other blacks with any street smarts, the wise thing to do in this situation is get this dude out of your house with as little drama as possible. You don’t talk about his momma; guns can somehow go off in those kinds of tense confrontations, and guess whose version of the event will be believed in court? Even if a tinge of racism is detected in the officer’s tone or demeanor, that’s an issue that should be taken up with his superiors in the relative safety of the police station—not mano a mano inside a house with no witnesses.
I can only imagine the producers’ surprise when I stated that with America being far and away the world leader in per capita incarceration of its own citizens, we are living in a police state.
So, evidently the producers of the Today show thought—mistakenly—that I was one of those conservative black writers, akin to Thomas Sowell (a man I roundly despise), who earn their daily bread by exculpating whites from any responsibility for the racial tensions extant in America. So I can only imagine their surprise when I stated that there is a history in this country of negative and sometimes explosive interactions between minorities and police officers, and, with America being far and away the world leader in per capita incarceration of its own citizens, by that measure and definition we are living in a police state. Somehow I got the feeling that statements of that kind were not what I was brought on the show to give voice to. Oh well, there goes my shot at TV stardom.
Now I should have perhaps narrowed my focus a bit and said that black and brown Americans (not all Americans) live in a police state, because, in spite of the fact that members of the majority culture don’t care to admit it, there are still two Americas and there always has been. This fact needs to be part of the national dialogue we should be engaging in on the subject of race, or there always will remain two Americas.
Nonetheless, a video clip of my “police state” comments are now posted on some conservative Web sites and I am being castigated by the “America, love it or leave it” crowd as somehow unpatriotic. Sorry, but I’m from the “America, love it and change it” school of politics and journalism and I’m not about to go anyplace… why should I? This is my country too, it was built largely on free black—slave—labor.
The old-guard reactionaries can keep the hate-filled emails and phone calls coming, I’m not changing my number, I’m still listed in the phone book in Cleveland, and I’m going to continue to speak truth to power.
Mansfield Frazier is a native Clevelander and former newspaper editor. His regular column can be seen on CoolCleveland.com. An avid gardener, he resides in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland with his wife Brenda and their two dogs, Gypsy and Ginger.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Martin Jacques is the cofounder of the UK think tank Demos, writes a regular column for The Guardian, and is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. His new book, When China Rules the World, is available now.
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Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
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Mansfield Frazier is a native Clevelander and former newspaper editor. His regular column can be seen on CoolCleveland.com. An avid gardener, he resides in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland with his wife Brenda and their two dogs, Gypsy and Ginger.
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Mansfield Frazier is a native Clevelander and former newspaper editor. His regular column can be seen on CoolCleveland.com. An avid gardener, he resides in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland with his wife Brenda and their two dogs, Gypsy and Ginger.
A Serial Killer's Free Rein
Mansfield Frazier is a native Clevelander and former newspaper editor. His regular column can be seen on CoolCleveland.com. An avid gardener, he resides in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland with his wife Brenda and their two dogs, Gypsy and Ginger.
Church!!!!
Good for you. I love how these "don't rock the boat" types use so-called patriotism as a weapon against those whose beliefs are different from the norm. You are absolutely right, this is YOUR America as much as it is anybody else's.
Keep fighting the good fight.
I completely agree with you, Jack.
Mr. Frazier, I'd read your stuff over Skip Gates any day! Same goes for watching the Today Show versus reading one of your articles.
I do not understand racially judging someone else in this world.I know it exist for sure.To me,everyone deserves a spot on this earth and who am I to think in anyway that I am better,more deserving,smarter and on and on. How do we come together?How do we solve this?How do you change ignorance? Shallow thinking? We are smart people.
"...got the boot." Meaning what? The interview was abruptly terminated? Or it was never aired? Was he told he'd never be invited back? The producers "likely rued" his appearance?
How did they indicate this?
Or is all this just something Frazier is imagining, like Sgt.
Crowley's racism was imagined by Gates?
i am glad to hear someone finally say it one one of these blogs the media only want to hear what they want to hear and you was not it and they are also the ones who gin up all the hype about the birthers and anything else about obama they know they really can't stand him and they drag any thing they can find on to talk about their view so they won't have to say it especially msnbc and cnn
Yes. Exactly. Very well said.
Just when I was about to give up on tdb. I'll watch if you every get on tv again.
Huh? got the boot? splain me Manny?
Did the police state you live in come in and haul your black butt off the set?
Where is the editord on this?
English bitch do you speak it?
I always find it funny the amount of "love" conservatives give to any black who makes a living criticizing other blacks, but they love them until they forget there place and critize whites or the establishment even once... just once... then they are Al Sharpton.
Sir, your title is misleading. It appears that you didn't get the boot after all. You appeared on the Today Show and were not booted off.
I take your point that possibly the Today Show producers might have expected you to be a conservative black writer, but since they didn't kick you off the set mid-interview, I think your title is just false.
"I can only imagine the producers' surprise when I stated that with America being far and away the world leader in per capita incarceration of its own citizens, we are living in a police state. "
Those people are incarcerated because they broke laws. Plain and simple.
Yes just like the millions of White people who break laws and don't go to jail... it is racism, plain and simple.
Just like OJ.
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rowland
Just like OJ.
------------------------------------------
come on Rowland... really every black man to get into any controversy has be come OJ for the last 14 years now.. Let it go. Hey, may be we will consider letting go that whole slavery, Jim Crow, decades of second class citizenship thing...yeah all that. (Its not fun being held responsible for other peoples deeds is it. So don't dish it.)
case12345, I think you need to let the slavery thing go. It was a while ago, even before OJ.
America has 23% of the worlds incarcerated and only 5% of the world's population. If these numbers aren't indicative of a police state i don't know what is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Comparison_ with_other_countries
I love the ending biograph where the editor says that Mr. Frazier life is elaborated on" by stating to his wife and children, but also "their two dogs, Gypsy and Ginger." I love it.
I doubt Thomas Sowell gives a rat's rear what you think of him. He's too busy looking at the American landscape from an objective perspective. Forgive him if he seems to have led a useful, integral life without feeling the need to blame whitey.
He's not always right. Nobody is. But if everyone thought more like Thomas Sowell and less like Rev 'Em Up Al Sharpton, we'd advance toward a greater society much faster.
Mr. Sowell is to be admired and emulated.
You don't sound like the type that Whoopi Goldberg would call "Uncle Tom" - and you don't say exactly what it was that caused what you perceive as having your plug pulled. Maybe you should of established your credentials first by saying that you despise Thomas Sowell, that should have gotten you off on the right foot , no make that the left foot, with those drama queens.
Thank you Mr. Frazier for standing up to hegemony in this country. Thank you for shedding some light on the despicable practices of the media. Keep on going Mr. Frazier, some of us are right there with you.
Great job. I love when someone throws the producers. They pick and choose people and stories to fit in with their formula or bias. Occassionally someone slips through the cracks, and their neat little idea or story, gets a life of its' own. http://news1.wordpress.com
I may be wasting my time but here goes:
Imagine you lost your cool and slapped a friend in public humiliating way, but shortly there after realized the error of you ways and attempted to make amends. Afterwards you would feel relieved and able to go on with your life, but your friend may not be able to. He would never forget that moment and may never be able to fully trust you again. This is the case with American race relations. White American has somewhat moved on from its own past transgressions but the throbbing from the humiliating slap remains. I have aunts who were forced to use horrid segregated bathrooms and children and young women when visiting the south because of their skin color while they watch white peers being provide the best accommodations. Those images never leaves a person.
Excellent analogy.
My parents were turned away from a hotel where they had reservations for their honeymoon. My father was in his army uniform. It will be another generation or two before we get over the slap, unless it is fully acknowledged and apologized for.
I can understand...but are we unable to change anything because the image will never leave?Are we stuck forever ?Nobody ever has advice on how we evolve to a different place in the world.If that is the case, we will be having the same conversation forever.
Uh, Mr. Frazier, I'm pretty sure the Today show is not a well-known conservative sympathetic show. And if you can somehow prove that the US throws people in jail at the drop of a hat, I will be on your side. From what I have read, it takes a lot to get jailed - as in you have to commit a crime. This is not a police state, weirdo.
We have, by far, the highest incarceration rate in the world - about seven times the rate of Europe. Do you think it is because we have seven times the rate of crime? I assure you, we do not. Perhaps it is because we throw people in jail for far lighter infractions ... and the fact that the prison population is about 50% black when they make up 12% of the country implies disparate sentencing.
My older brother was a police officer in a large mid-west city during the late 70's and 80's. During a visit, I got permission to ride with him for a couple of nights. The community in which he patrolled was about 25% black. My brother's arrest ratio was about 70% black. His calls involved blacks about 80% of the time.
I asked my brother why, and he said "we went to the same schools, played on the same baseball teams and went to the same movies. I don't know why it's going this way. When I get in court, though, it's always the fault of the white people."
I don't know either, but I taught schools for over 30 years, and found no racial bias regarding where I found intelligence. Somewhere in our society we need to combine Rights, Responsibilities and Opportunity to Achieve in a workable format.
I do suspect that to some extent there is a cultural bias towards crime. Blacks commit crimes for the same reason "Angry White Males" commit crimes; when you think the system is rigged against you, you feel no compunction about breaking laws. However, there is also a tendency to stricter enforcement, I suspect.
You have to be a minority to really know what Mr. Frasier is talking about. It is fairly recent that male whites are fast becoming the newest minority. Women and non whites are electing presidents now. Witness Obama.
Welcome to the Grief Train, white dudes.
Many people voted against 8 years of Bush and 6 years of a Republican Congress. That is what the election was about.
A lot of racists responses here! Stunning! (Or maybe not.)
What do we do about these racist attitudes?How do we change them?
Are implying that a Soviet-type gulag may be called for in America as part of a campaign to make everybody just looooove Obama?
The most powerful man in the world (supposedly) was elected by playing the race card. He has spoken out championing Mr. Gates and his predicament with the Cambridge police - and his attitudes are overtly based on race as well as the President's.
Silencing speech in a country founded on the principles of freedom and free speech is particularly odious - it's a police state tactic of tyranny.
Didn't Gates maintain his freedom of speech while in his own home? It amazes me to see people willing to overlook the law concerning Gates' arrest. Does race trump everything in this country....even the law? Jeez.
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Yeah. If there are a lot of black men in prison then the system must be racist. Like this poor fellow:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-charlessamuel-timeline,0,7810737 .htmlstory
oops - link is spoiled by a space after line one.
Google search " la times charles samuel timeline " returns first result
DO NOT DO THIS!! IT takes you to something that loads a virus!
Here's the link again - it worked for me when I deleted the extra space.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-charlessamuel-timeline,0,7810737 .htmlstory
Obviously, many of the folks in prison deserve to be there. However, in my experience, most folks in prison are just screw-ups who don't know how to run their own lives and need vocational training, not long prison terms (note that vocational training in prison radically reduces recidivism).
Great comments. I head some great things and I heard some rediculous things, but we all have our right to our opinion...now. It wasn't that long ago where our "people of color" were "colored people" and weren't offered that freedom in reality. I think that is why there is a lack of trust. Just like in Iraq there is a lack of trust about the Americans. Or when an African American returns to Africa to visit, they are referred to as white and treated the same way. It sucks...but I think time will help and although I think it's great that Barack Obama is President, I think it's the biggest hypocrasy that the most racist group of peopl in my opinion are spending their time, calling everyone else racist. The conservatives. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Having been a part of the GOP in the past, I played witness to this hatred first hand. It's my opinion, it's my experience, and it's not going to change. The world is changing though. We are on our way and it's really exiciting to be a part of the "dream".
Wrong! It implies disparate criminal activity.
Disparate criminal activity? Overtly yes, but that only speaks to the vast racial segregation that still exists within the United States. For example, in largely black or latino neighborhoods drugs are sold relatively openly outdoors; therefore, police have a higher presence in those neighborhoods. Whites travel to these areas to purchase drugs, they're guilty of a crime, but largely are not arrested nor subsequently prosecuted. Juxtapose that situation with the untold numbers of white teenagers selling marijuana out of their suburban bedrooms to their classmates. Rarely caught or dealt with by the law. Disparate activity or disparate punishment?
This is the core of the issue and I suppose why Mr. Frazier chose the words "Police State."
The reason cops go into these neighborhoods where blacks live is the high number of murders that are committed among their own people, 3 times more then their percentage of the population of 12 percent. Why are white cops not arresting large numbers of native american or asian even though these groups also use drugs but they don't committ murder in greater proportion to their percentage of the population? These two groups committ 1.4 percent of homicide but account for over 5 percent of the population, far less then the rate of incarceration, acording to the DOJ,then whites. If racism was the only variable for minority imprisonment all minorities in USA would have high rates of incarcerations which Mr. Frazier could not provide facts. I know what a police state is, having fled from a dictator, the USA is not. It has social problems but becuase of political correctness refuses to address.
I'd agree that murder rates are the dominating reason for heightened police presence in certain areas, and rightfully so. But surely you can't mean that blacks are more prone to commit murder than any other group? I'd argue that it's the nature of the business (i.e. the illegal drug trade) that brings the violence. Not the only industry that can claim such a dubious distinction, btw. Just look at the history of the banana business, the diamond trade, arms, organized labor, oil, et al. Ironically, violence in the ghetto has only intensified with the introduction more efficient corporate models running the show. Neighborhoods whose drug turfs were once enforced by fist have long since changed to the assault weapon.
This is all getting pretty far away from the subject matter in Mr. Frazier's blog, but it's still relevant. Hard questions for mainstream media's talking heads to answer (nor are they inclined to). It's no wonder his comments on the Today Show were met with a chilly reception. After all, how far does the rabbit hole go?
Denzel Washinton's movie " American Gangster" is a true story about a powerful black drug dealer who killed those who opposed him without using so called assualt weapons, which I don't think you can define. Assualt weapons as defined by Senator Fienstien is based on the gun being black in color, having a pistol grip and flash hider which have nothing to do with the lethality of a firearm. A 9mm pistol has the same lethality as an UZI that is feared by the uninformed.
White gangs like the Hells Angles control and distribute tons of meth yet they don't committ the amount of murders black gangs do for much smaller amounts of drugs. This does not mean the DEA is not after white drug gangs it's that they are most often convicted for drugs not murder which attracts media attention. The Hells Angles are aware of the attention murder will draw the media on them which gets more law enforcement on them, bad for business.
I'm not saying blacks a genetically predisposed to murder( stable countries in Africa have lower murder rates then some European counties) nor are the black gang banger who commit the murders. I think it has nothing with drugs because the same drugs are available in my neighborhood yet there is no constant shootings. You know the answer after reading human behavior books but only Obama can talk about it because me doing it I would be called a racist by liberals and progressives.
I get your point, though I don't necessarily agree with it. The film you mention, however, was a steaming piece of crap!
Thank you.
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