COLUMN: Divided we are, united we fall
By Mike Nichols on July 25, 2012 8:00 am / 7 comments
Surf the net for a day and you might just discover you’re a bigot.
Bigotry is defined as “intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.” Based on that very simple description, I’d say a disturbingly large amount of online content in the form of memes, blogs, conversations and comments reveal an ugly chunk of America’s public are bigots.
Part of my job as an editor is to sift through news sites and social media and approve comments on news stories. Of the millions of bits of online information my brain takes in daily, most of it’s pretty negative. Common courtesy or empathy or a respect for human dignity are clearly not popular conversation guidelines.
I watch sadly as both parties, be they liberal or conservative, religious or non-religious, one percent or 99 percent, citizen or illegal, pick fights without showing any interest of hearing the other side out, illogically make leaping assumptions about the personal motives of their opponents and damn each other as the most inhuman apparition ever, then dust themselves off and accuse the other side of being uncivil and ignorant.
Election years seem to stir up this savagely-competitive spirit the most, reminding me how poisonously bigoted we still are as a nation. We demonize so quickly, label unfairly, then judge everything inside that label. In a country built on preaching freedom’s tolerance, we sure practice hate oppressively well.
Bigotry is a two-headed dragon.
One head is legal. One head is social. America has taken shots at the de-jure head, but it’s like we don’t even know how to wound the de-facto one.
The Internet gave Americans a mass voice only to show us that all our education, legislation, demonstration and reformation have not kept us from unleashing human nature’s basest and ugliest traits.
Personal conflicts are inevitable, necessary and at times healthy, even liberating. Logically disagreeing after open and polite conversation is fine. But so little of the content I see does that.
We are so cursed with pride.
This is my last column for CM Life. And as someone who loves our readers very, very much, I want to end my voice at this publication with a simple encouragement, as your friend . . .
Please believe in grace.
If we want answers, unity and peace, we must choose the path of grace, the path of loving those who feel unlovable, of trying to empathize and openly, sincerely offering to be a true friend to all, even those hold starkly different views.
I think the world needs grace more than anything else in life.
May we find the grace to love our neighbors and our enemies, to bless those who curse us, to forgive those who hate us, to do unto others as we would have others do unto us.
Please choose grace.
Yours truly.
Like us on Facebook
Recent Comments
- Marty: Hi I am searching for a Honda rear wheel hub,shaft drive (d…
- Karen Ohneck: Scott you are awesome I have known you for8 yrs. These kids …
- Samantha: Go Kirsten!!!! U are my mentor and I hope u will come back t…
- Hannah McCalister: I disagree with your statement. This was a great article and…
- Jason: Maybe it's just me, but I've never done anything this shorts…
AD LINKS
• Is your baby graduating CMU? Place a personal greeting and photo in CM Life's Baby Graduates special pages. Download the form here
• Contact local movers in Mount Pleasant to help with all of your moving needs.
• Download Campus Cash Coupons!
• Search for local apartments
• Add your link here
7 Comments
Divine love and protection bestowed freely on people. The state of being protected or sanctified by the favor of God. An excellence or power granted by God.Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/grace#ixzz21eZHIXJi
First of all, this is an awful read through and through. There’s no relevance here to modern issues or societal values; this reads more like a sermon than a column. Really? People need to stop the bigotry and find grace in Jesus as the tags would suggest? What incredible insight from Christian Michigan Life. I never realized that being a bigot was a negative thing: thank Jesus that you provided the definition.
The most exciting part of this article? ”
This is my last column for CM Life.”
Maybe you can find a new writer with enough creativity and originality to form a valid and thought-provoking column that might actually interests readers.
But this… this is garbage.
Well said, Mike. Your thoughts uphold the traditions of CM LIFE and CMU’s journalism department very well. Best wishes in your career.
Thank you for the article. I’m glad that you did not take sides on any particular societal issue as it would have strayed from the point that you were trying to make overall. I believe that your column makes an important point and that is that above all, regardless of our beliefs on particular issues, there is a desperate need in this country for mutual respect and love. Something that seems to be preached in every Hollywood ending but never actually carried out when we are faced with the slightest controversy. I don’t believe that you were overtly preachy at all and your message was well received.
I couldn’t agree more with what Guest wrote below. A newspaper should never be a vehicle in which someone uses to push their religious beliefs onto his or her readers. Newspapers and journalists have have one purpose: to tell the news, nothing more.
There isn’t a single ounce of news in this column. In fact, aside from the definition of bigotry, there isn’t even a single fact. Columns are supposed to be opinion pieces wrapped around a few nuggets of truth, sermons to the masses.
Also, there is absolutely no reason for you to “love” your readers. As sad as it is, your readers are your customers and they are paying you to tell them the news, which is something this diatribe doesn’t accomplish. Journalism is a business transaction.
I feel it’s also important to mention the fact that the third paragraph in the column is 69-words long. That’s a run-on sentence that should never have slipped through the cracks.
From an ethical standpoint, this column is an embarrassment to Central Michigan Life. Upon reviewing the tags under which this column was filed, I saw the following: “Jesus” and “religion.” For one, neither of these are even mentioned in the above column. Secondly, because they are not mentioned, it is clear that this column is nothing more than religious propaganda being spewed from someone who has a decently-high platform to spew it from. Mr. Nichols, I urge you to reevaluate the purpose of journalism.
It’s a shame your last piece of writing in CM Life was this one, Mr. Nichols.
Mike, some friendly advice. You should shy away from the hard news business. If you want to stay in journalism, review movies or concerts.
Or, better yet, move to Cuba or North Korea where you have a dictator and everyone thinks like the dictator….or pay the consequences.
What makes America the greatest country on earth is our free society with many, many opinions. I may think, for example, that money-strapped college students with debt loans of $40,000, shouldn’t have to pay $30,000 and first-class airfare for a Hollywood star to come talk about a hyphenated-American topic. The administration may have no problem with that. So, we have a difference of opinion. What’s wrong with that?
During the professor pay fight, the Administration and the Union fought. As long as it’s civil and there is no violence, riots, etc., then that’s just part of being in America.
It’s one thing to disagree with my hero, Rush Limbaugh. As long as it’s civil.
But, when Wanda Sykes, some black comedian says at the White House Correspondents Dinner (it’s on YouTube) that she hopes Rush Limbaugh dies of kidney problems and Barack Hussein Obama is sitting there laughing really hard, then I have a problem. That’s bigotry. You may disagree with Obama or Rush but you shouldn’t wish any ill on either one.
Reading your comments Mike, George Washington and Company shouldn’t have fought the British. Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party shouldn’t have fought to stop Thomas Jefferson’s Democrat Party who believed in slavery. Martin Luther King shouldn’t have fought Democrats who wanted to keep the South segregated. Thank goodness Washington, Lincoln and King were so-called bigots. We’re a better country today because of those three great men.
I don’t know if you saw Jerry Green’s column the other day in Detroit News. I didn’t know this but Green went to college with Joe Paterno. They stayed friends for 60-some years. Green, the sportswriter and Paterno, the Coach. You could tell the hurt and surprise in Green’s column about his late friend. It’s hard for some of these old-time sports media people to blast Paterno but Joe was guilty.
If you can’t handle that, then stay away from sports reporting and especially hard news. I remember when CMU beat MSU in football twice in 1991 and 1992. Those MSU fans were brutal to George Perles, the head coach. I remember that one bumper sticker in the tailgate section, “Don’t like George’s coach, then call Jack Kevorkian.” When Notre Dame, Southern Cal, Ohio State, Michigan, Texas aren’t winning football games, their fans are brutal to the coaches and the players.
Obama’s re-election will be the nastiest campaign, perhaps, in American history. He and his campaign folks are from Chicago where the Democratic Machine is brutal to its opponents. They’re famous for dead people voting, people voting several times on election day and throwing mud at opponents. The commercials will be brutal. Some already have attacked Ann Romney about her multiple scolerosis disease.
Then, there’s the hate in the mainstream media. Last week was a perfect example. A couple hours after the PHD neuroscience student (who the Federal Government gave a $26,000 grant to) brutally murdered and injured all those people in a Colorado theatre, mainstream ABC Good Morning and former Clinton White House hack, George Stepenouplous and reporter Brian Ross went on the air and accused some 54-year old James Holmes, a Tea Party member, of the crime. Right away, the Left wants to blame the Tea Party since they hate us. They were wrong but some 54-year-old gentleman in Aurora, Colorado had to disconnect his phone because 2 Democrat Party hacks, disguised as journalists, gave out false information because they wanted to blame the Tea Party. Clinton in the 1990′s blamed Oklahoma City on Rush even though McVeigh didn’t know who Rush was. When Giffords was shot in Arizona, right away the Left tried to link it to the Tea Party and conservative talk radio even though the shooting nut was neither.
Remember the creative editing of tape by NBC in Florida about George Zimmerman that got a couple people fired for fabricating a story. Then, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell did it to Mitt Romney and got caught because someone in the crowd had videotaped the even proving NBC was wrong. The mainstream liberal TV news media credibility polls are down to 21 percent approval. Liberal newspapers aren’t much better. People don’t trust and believe the mainstream media these days.
The Left throws vicious attacks at us conservatives. I guess Mike, they’re bigots!
Mike, remember, this is America. We all have opinions and we can express them as long as we’re in a civil argument and not a violent one. Some religious friends don’t like the fact I go out to the Soaring Eagle Casino and buy lottery tickets. But, I RESPECT their opinion. Since 1776, we have had a continuous fighting of opinions. But, that’s what makes our nation the greatest in the history of civilization. As much as I don’t like a Marxist like Obama, we still have the opportunity this fall to vote him out. The people in Cuba and North Korea don’t have that luxury with their communist leaders.
Good luck in your future endeavors!
A well thought-out farewell piece. It cannot be said often enough for anyone approaching the media: beware polarization, for it is the doom of rational discourse and civility. Thank you and good luck out there!