In discussing the latest developments on the killing of Trayvon Martin, the Up w/ Chris Hayes panelists highlight the racial polarization surrounding the case.
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Over the past decade, Americans watched in bafflement and rage as one institution after another – from Wall Street to Congress, the Catholic Church to corporate America, even Major League Baseball – imploded under the weight of corruption and incompetence. In the wake of the Fail Decade, Americans have historically low levels of trust in their institutions; the social contract between ordinary citizens and elites lies in tatters.
How did we get here? With "Twilight of the Elites," Christopher Hayes offers a radically novel answer. Since the 1960s, as the meritocracy elevated a more diverse group of men and women into power, they learned to embrace the accelerating inequality that had placed them near the very top. Their ascension heightened social distance and spawned a new American elite--one more prone to failure and corruption than any that came before it.
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I know Kerry Picket is on the show just as a foil to the liberals, and I certainly don't agree with what she seemed to be trying to say about the Trayvon Martin case. But unfortunately I could barely make out what she way trying to say. There were very, very few instances where she was allowed to finish a sentence, let alone a complete thought, without being interrupted. In the few instances where was allowed to finish at least a sentence, the person who interrupted her (usually Michael Eric Dyson, but also often Chris Hayes) made sure his response was about four times longer than he had allowed Picket to speak.
If you let the representatives of the right wing bubble express themselves, they'll dig their own holes. Please let them. Not doing so is rude and makes you appear intolerant and narrow-minded.
Guess nobody is a rabid "Law & Order" fanatic.
The second episode EVER of the TV series was about the same subjects that isn't eerie to watch it in today's headlines. And that episode entitled "Subterranean Homeboy Blues" was one of those ripped from the headlines plotlines that "Law & Order" became famous for. In this case it was the trial of Bernhard Goetz in 1984.
What Kerry Pickett was doing by pulling the "violence card" in reaction to the reactions of black people to injustice and unfairness is the same kind of deflection strategy of pulling the "emotion card" in reaction to the reactions of women to injustice and unfairness.
It is a way to not have to think about or comment on the actual issue at hand, but is instead, a way to deligetimize the voices of blacks or women or whomever is speaking that they don't want to hear. And we are tired of it.
First of all, I want to congratulate Chris for having one of the best shows of its type on television today. You do a better job than most at keeping the level of conversation reasonably coherent though your Saturday program seemed to prove a particularly difficult challenge. I don't know how you get your guests to better honour your show's rules for respectful dialogue.
Kerry Picket was a perfect example of someone living in a partisan bubble. I could read in her face a silent scream "Don't confuse me with facts or realistic perceptions. I've written my own script and I want to stick to it because it grounds me as a person." It's just scary that so many think like her.
Keep up the good work, Chris. You are one of a handful of real gems in a field of paste replicas.