More Medved

I can't let Medved's pro-slavery defense go. I want to compare Medved to the quotes about Jack Johnson I discussed last week.

What is worse, Medved in 2007 saying slavery wasn't so bad or the New York Times saying this circa 1906:

"Even those who have an absurdly exaggerated horror of prize fighting as a 'brutal' sport should gently warm in their sensitive minds a little hope that the white man may not lose, while the rest of us will wait in open anxiety the news that he [Jim Jeffries] has licked the--well, since it must be in print, let us say the negro, even though it is not the first word that comes to the tongue's tip."

I always talk to my students about the importance of context. I think it's generally OK to condemn people in the past for their actions, but to do so we must understand the context of the times they lived in. So we can attack Jefferson for owning slaves, but we must understand the place and time he lived in to know if we are being reasonable.

We must do the same for the present. In a direct comparison between Medved and the Times article Medved doesn't come out looking quite so bad. But the arguments are made 100 years apart. What the Times said was horrible, but lots of people made similarly awful arguments in the early 20th century. But for his time, Medved has shown himself a leading figure in American racism. No one can legitimately make the argument in 2007 that slavery wasn't that bad and that the United States doesn't really have any responsibility for it. Such an argument basically paints you as a racist of the highest order.

I was discussing the Jack Johnson quotes with a colleague of mine. I was saying that even though I knew what was coming, I was still shocked. She pointed out the importance of maintaining the ability to be shocked. What Michael Medved argued is truly shocking. If Congress can pass a resolution condemning MoveOn for the General Betrayus ad, shouldn't they do the same for Medved. Isn't defending slavery far, far worse than attacking a general for sugarcoating an unpopular war? I sure think so.