Webb’s Media

What’s so threatening about what someone has said or might say? It’s just words, pieced together, the expression of thoughts. In this particular case, not a call for action, or a declaration of war, just a critique of a system that is in need of critique. Or if the system is so great, we shouldn’t feel threatened to hear it critiqued. But once the media, with its truncated, spun-round-and-round, memes of information gets a hold of a message, it doesn’t matter what was *actually* said. Because of the public’s ever shortening attention span, all anyone listens to is the opening adverbial clause before the media is off and running and spinning. [Transcript of Ward Churchill's speech]

And what’s so important about what isn’t said? Why is it that when a couple of white kids in Colorado shot up their school, Clinton made a public expression of sorrow immediately…but a Native American in Minnesota shoots teachers and students in his school, and Bush can’t find time in his calendar to comment.

But these language actions and inactions are real and they are strongly felt. What does it say when a professor of Native American descent is being censored by the state University where he works and by other venues he was scheduled to speak. It says to me that when that State University puts “Equal Opportunity Employer” on their applications that it’s a bunch of bullshit. They don’t want discussion or debate or opinions unless it’s the “right kind” of opinions. And what does it say when a Native American student carries out the most bloody school shooting since Columbine and our president can’t be bothered to even make a public statement of solace. It says there are lives that are important in our country and worth media attention– but not these lives. This seems particularly callous since the President *can* be bothered to make a public statement on behalf of a woman who has been turned into a media object, dehumanizing her, ironically in a discussion of her humanity– the symbol of a twisted argument about who should get to play God—husband, parents, or the State. Nowhere in the discussion of Terry Schiavo has there been action to silence the opinions of either side of the discussion, nor has there been silence from the State. There’s plenty of “compassion” [if compassion means being converted from human being to object for public display] for a woman who is helpless to speak. But a Native American professor with a controversial view who might talk back—we turn a deaf ear; and a deadly shooting a community already rife with poverty and difficulty—we turn a blind eye and a silent tongue.