WHO SAYS TWITTER MAKES ME STUPID?

In case the name Bill Keller doesn’t ring a bell, he’s the executive editor of the New York Times. Keller, somewhere in his early 60s, has been a print journalist his entire adult life, and has worked for the Times in one capacity or another for most of his career. So, it is not surprising that he is evidently feeling somewhat intimidated by the emergence of new media, particularly Twitter. Last week, Keller wrote a piece called “The Twitter Trap,” in which he seems to be agonizing over up and coming technology that enables citizens to learn of events in an immediate way. Said Keller, “Whether or not Twitter makes you stupid, it certainly makes some smart people sound stupid.”

Oh Bill (pictured below, left). Bill, Bill, Bill. Do you know how typical you sound of journalists of your generation? And guess what Bill. I’m not much younger than you, and still I can see that you are feeling threatened by pathways of information that do not require your lifelong accumulation of skills. Let me spell it out: It was via Twitter that the world first learned of the unpredictably safe landing of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 in 2010 by Captain Chesley Sullenberger. Remember the great earthquake of 2008 in China? Twitter. Oh, and Michael Jackson’s death? First reported by TMZ.com when major news organizations were unsure whether it was a hoax or not, the story went worldwide via Twitter minutes later. And then, of course, there was the big daddy tweet of them all: Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsefeld's chief of staff Keith Urbahn first let the world know about the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound - via Twitter. I could go on, but you get my drift – print journalism is not dead, but it’s not keeping up with consumer demand.

In the above-mentioned column, Keller wrote:

“My father, who was trained in engineering at M.I.T. in the slide-rule era, often lamented the way the pocket calculator, for all its convenience, diminished my generation’s math skills. Many of us have discovered that navigating by G.P.S. has undermined our mastery of city streets and perhaps even impaired our innate sense of direction. Typing pretty much killed penmanship. Twitter and YouTube are nibbling away at our attention spans. And what little memory we had not already surrendered to Gutenberg we have relinquished to Google. Why remember what you can look up in seconds?”

I’d like to answer that: Now that the calculator eased our way to solving math dilemmas, maybe our brains have more room for other endeavors. Do you really believe your “innate sense of direction” is hampered by a G.P.S.? Come on, Bill. Typing killed penmanship? Here’s all I have to say about that…R.I.P. penmanship. The culture evolves in a way that streamlines life. That is what is happening now.

And don’t just take it from me, Bill. Listen to what Gizmodo’s Mat Honan has to say about your ramblings:So, Bill, I’m just wondering: Should we also worry about digital cameras that may have killed the lost “art” of the darkroom? Or, what about birth control devices that now allow us to have as much sex as we want to for pleasure instead of simple procreation? And how about Rachel Ray and her ilk who taught us how to make a full dinner in a half hour? Did Miss Ray effectively kill the all-day cook-a-thons that were once a part of our culture? I could go on, but you get my drift. It is called innovation and progress, Bill. Did you also badmouth that first computer they put on your desk at the Times? Are you similarly reluctant to embrace dating web sites because they eliminate the need for endless small talk, smoke and alcohol in a bar you didn’t want to be in in the first place? Bill, catch up. It is, contrary to your apparent preference, 2011. You do not have to wear a dark suit to work every day and you do not have to even go to work every day if you have yourself properly outfitted elsewhere with the necessary technology.

Oh, and Bill...guess who agrees with me about social media -- your own CEO, Janet Robinson, who told the graduates at NYU's Stern School of Business: “The New York Times has more than 3 million Twitter followers on its main account.That is nearly 2 million more than any other newspaper. We’re proud of that….For some people, all the news that’s fit to print means all the news that fits in 140 characters or less in real time.”

She also said this:

“We used to wonder: If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Now we ask: If a tree falls in the woods and your smartphone doesn’t buzz, did it happen?” Janet rocks. And briefly.

I am so discouraged by men and women of my age and older who simply are not ambitious enough to learn the advantages that technology affords us. Keller says Twitter and YouTube are “nibbling away at our attention spans.” No Bill, that is not the case. Our attention spans have become shorter because the amount of stimuli around us has increased exponentially, and the sheer volume of information that confronts us requires greater mental time management. We have more to see, hear, learn and discuss because we have allowed ourselves to live outside the 1950s box. The brevity of Twitter and YouTube are simply the current day results of 1980s MTV fast videos, which were that era’s result of mid-century TV sitcoms that told a story with a full conclusion in 24 or 25 minutes. Those sitcoms were really the result of earlier 20th century radio programs that lasted 15 minutes. Those 15 minute shows were the result of an industrial revolution that shortened the waiting time for various types of societal gratification.

With all of that said, I will add that social media has not yet firmly found its place in our culture. It is still used more for entertainment than for business, education, finance, government, and other essentials. We still have the Facebook user who posts, “I am at the grocery store buying peaches.” Who cares? We still have Twitter users whose real goal is only to see how many other Twitter users they can persuade to follow them. We have pop culture celebrities like Ashton Kutcher (above, left) who somehow feel validated because his Twitterverse followers number in the millions. And there is the dark underbelly of it all, such as individuals who lure people with false promises on Craigslist, simply so they can commit crimes including rape and murder. Bill, nobody said we are there yet. But we are making progress.

Down the road, I fully anticipate mainstream media’s acceptance of social media as an equal. We must bear in mind it is in its infancy. Besides Twitter and Facebook, most social media companies have not yet found their footing or their patrons. I envision a social media world in which the free enterprise system exercises its considerable gravitas and earns itself a new and more efficient way of doing business. In the meantime, it matters that we continue to teach people how to write a decent sentence, how to appreciate literature that relied on more than 140 characters to get its point across and how to look at one another eye to eye and tell the truth.

But Bill…listen….about those 2,000-word stories you are still allowing in the Sunday Times? I suggest you let your reporters and writers in on what I tell my journalism students – learn how to say more using fewer words. It’s what I call the Greenberg Rule. There is no turning back, and blame it on Twitter if that makes you feel better, but it really is more about information supply and demand.

YET ANOTHER REASON NOT TO LIVE IN INDIANA

Picture this: It is 3 a.m. and you are sound asleep. The house is dark. Your kids are asleep down the hall. Suddenly and without any warning, the front door of your home is kicked in and several men enter the house. You can’t see them because the house is dark. What would you do?

If you own a gun and you can get your hands on it quickly, you’d probably use it, right? You would do whatever it takes to resist the intruders and protect your home and your family, right? Instinctively, you switch on a light to see who you’re dealing with. It turns out your unwelcome intruders are cops. What are they doing there and what can you do about it? Well, as it turns out, if you’re in Indiana, there is absolutely nothing you can legally do about it. This week, the Indiana Supreme Court sent down two outrageous rulings: First, last Monday the court ruled police serving a warrant may enter a home without knocking if officers decide circumstances justify it. (Previously, police serving a warrant had to obtain a judge's permission to enter without knocking). Then, three days later the court said this:

"We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," David said. "We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest."

In simple terms, your home in Indiana is no longer a sanctuary. It is fair game for law enforcement officers to simply barge in and do what they wish. If you put up a fight, you are viewed as potentially violent and therefore in violation of the law. Oh, and that Fourth Amendment they mentioned? Just as a refresher: The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ensures this legal right -- “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Indiana evidently feels secure in its imaginary power to defy the U.S. Constitution. I can’t help wondering: Since when is the U.S. Constitution negotiable? So, you may wonder why this came about. It seems that recently in Vanderbergh County (the county seat of Evansville), police were called about a domestic disturbance. When they arrived at the home, the male resident resisted their entry and shoved a cop. He was subsequently neutralized with a stun gun. Indiana apparently doesn’t take kindly to cop shoving, so a brouhaha ensued that went all the way to the Indiana Supremes, who issued the aforementioned rulings.

So here’s the problem (besides the Constitutional fuzziness here): What if, for example, you are a single woman in the house by yourself and suddenly the cops burst into your house? What if it turns out they actually had the wrong address and they were supposed to be investigating the house next door? Do you have a right to resist or are you suddenly a criminal if you do? Or, consider this: What if an intruder who is not a cop bursts into your house and announces he is a police officer? Suppose his goal is rape and/or robbery and he accomplishes one or both of his aims?

How is Indiana Supreme Court (left) going to justify that? Here’s how: The prevailing wisdom of the Indiana Supremes is that you have a legal right to file a civil suit against the above-mentioned cop with the wrong address or the robber/rapist who defiles you and your property. Seriously, that is what Indiana says you can do about it. First, how far do you think you’re going to get by suing a cop who entered your home with the full blessing of the highest court in the state? And if you sue the robber/rapist, hasn’t the harm already been done? What good will a law suit do?

The bigger implication here is even scarier. We have already lost almost our last shred of privacy in this country. Whether you know it or not, you are on camera almost every time you go anywhere in public. Security cameras on private properties and businesses share intrusion of privacy rights with city-owned cameras used in the name of public safety and security. So, the last bastion of privacy you had was your home. Indiana has now taken that away from you with the full blessing of the judicial system. What if their actions are emulated by other states and ultimately sanctioned by the highest court in the land?

Make some noise, America. Speak up now. If you don’t, you’re about to be reduced to a caged animal in your own space, and the only ones with the keys will be the men and women in blue. Is it just me or is there something distinctly un-American about this? Oh, by the way: In Evansville, IN, you can join the police department at age 21 with a GED. You don’t even have to have really gone to high school. This might be who knocks down your door in the middle of the night. I don’t know about you, but it makes me just a little bit uneasy.

THE JOURNEY OF RECONCILIATION

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders, a group of young men and women who bravely boarded interstate busses en route to Southern states, in an effort to challenge racial discrimination laws. The activists would be seated interracially on public transportation, and blacks would even sit up front, which was strictly outlawed at the time. Predictably, the Freedom Riders met with mob violence in various Southern cities, with the most vicious attack culminating in a bus being set on fire and the door blocked so riders could not disembark. Somehow they did manage to exit the bus, only to be brutally beaten. Efforts to lynch some of the riders failed, but mob violence would follow the group city to city. Whites who tried to help the battered blacks were roundly ostracized by their communities. I could describe the subsequent bloody beatings with iron pipes and wooden planks, the inhumane treatment of those who ended up in the Mississippi State penitentiary and the law enforcement officers who stood by and allowed the riders to be battered into unconsciousness. But it’s all in the history books and archives of the civil rights movement.

Instead, it seems appropriate to mention something that happened many years before the 1961 Freedom Rides. It was called the Journey of Reconciliation, a bus trip by 16 men, (above, right) blacks and whites, out to accomplish what their 1960s counterparts would replicate. It was led by Bayard Rustin,(left) a 37-year-old black man with a long history of battling against the widespread racial discrimination of the early to mid-20th century. Today, the late Rustin is not a household name like other civil rights activists, but it was he who really stood up to the white establishment and fought racial inequality. Later in his life, he tried to do much the same thing for the civil rights of gay Americans. Rustin was a man who truly walked the walk.

Here is what Rustin and his Journey of Reconciliation companions (eight blacks and eight whites) were up against in 1947. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that racial discrimination in interstate travel defied the U.S. Constitution. Rustin and company were out to see how that was playing in the deeply racist Southern states. Much like Dr. Martin Luther King, with whom Rustin (right, pictured with Dr. King) would later ally himself, the 16 men planned on non-violent, civil disobedience. As we later saw in the 1960s urban riots, non-violence is tough to maintain, but Rustin and his cohorts did it. But here is what happened: Along the way, five blacks and five whites were arrested at various times. Rustin himself ended up on a chain gang in North Carolina, where the treatment was reportedly so brutal and inhumane that the chain gang system was ultimately outlawed.

It has been widely reported that after Rustin was arrested in North Carolina, the presiding judge said this to the white members of the Journey: "It's about time you Jews from New York learned that you can't come down here bringing your niggers with you to upset the customs of the South. Just to teach you a lesson, I gave your black boys thirty days on the chain gang and I give you ninety."

Such was life in the deep South (even in the judicial system) in the 1940s. Remember, this was way before Rosa Parks (below, left) took her seat at the front of the bus. It was also long before the landmark ruling Brown vs. Board of Education, in which the U.S. Supreme Court said segregating schools was unconstitutional. It wasn’t until 1967 that blacks and whites could even legally marry in this country, and that too had to be dictated by the Supreme Court. It was, to understate it…a different time in America.

By 1961, when the Freedom Riders boarded busses to push the segregation envelope to its extreme, the U.S. was still deeply rooted in its post-slavery mentality. Blacks were begrudgingly tolerated as long as they shut their mouths and didn’t cross any societally-dictated lines. But often forgotten is the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation. Rustin and his group were pioneers. The Freedom Riders were soldiers in the seemingly never-ending war on racism.

Having lived through those tumultuous 1960s, when the Civil Rights movement reached its bloody zenith, I still say that racism today is far more pervasive and divisive than it was then. Back then, society was unfortunately organized around racism. Today it is not. Today racism is more deceptive. You see it in the offices you work in, when equally qualified individuals are up for the same job, but the white male establishment chooses one of its own for the promotion. You see it in school, where the black kids all sit together in the classroom across from the white kids. You see it on television, where it is rare for a lead role in a fictional drama to be played by a black actor. You see it in the movies, where romantic stories are generally built around white characters.

So, nobody’s using separate drinking fountains anymore, or banning entire population segments from lunch counters, or giving whites preferential treatment on public transportation. Instead, racism rears its aged head in more institutional ways. How many fingers do you have left when you try to count the number of black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies? What’s the percentage of black elected officials in the 112th U.S. Congress? I’ll help you on that one – it’s 9.66%, far below the percentage of black Americans, according to the U.S. government’s own stats. How many blacks make it in to med school in America? According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, in 2010 there were almost 50,000 active white enrollees in the nation’s medical schools, vs. just over 5,500 blacks.

Unfortunately, activism is not the main event in America anymore. Where are the Bayard Rustins of the world now? Twenty-five years from now will Congress, corporate America, television, movies and med schools still be lily white? I’m an optimist, but I’m also a realist. Twenty-five years ago was 1986 – do you sense a major shift in the arduous climb toward racial equality since 1986? Neither do I. But still, I can’t help thanking Bayard Rustin and his associates, and the many courageous Freedom Riders of 1961 for all that they did. I’m waiting for that same new day in America that I was waiting for back in the 1960s, but no matter what happens next, what happened back then was nothing short of exceptional.

SHAKIN' IT WITH THE FIRST LADY

STAGE PRESENCE

At the recent White House Correspondents Dinner, President Obama took almost 19 minutes to address any number of recent critics. Oh yes, Donald Trump was there. By the way, what was Donald Trump even doing there? One has to wonder if he regretted RSVPing to this one. If you want to see the intersection of smart humor and real class, watch this guy. Possible future Letterman replacement? Hmmm. I'm just sayin'.

NOT QUITE PRESIDENTIAL

It took would-be presidential candidate Donald Trump only about 25 seconds to prove how non-presidential he really is. Listen to what he said to a group in Las Vegas last night:

JAILED FOR SENDING HER SON TO SCHOOL

If you’re homeless in America, and you have kids, what do you do about putting them in school? Most of us never thought about that until last week when news reports told Tonya McDowell’s story. McDowell is a homeless mother who enrolled her son in a good elementary school, using the address of a friend who lived in government subsidized housing. Once it was discovered that McDowell had perpetrated this ethically confounding offense, she was arrested on charges of grand larceny and conspiracy to commit first degree larceny after enrolling her son in Brookside Elementary, in Norwalk, CT. McDowell and her son reportedly live alternately in her van and in a homeless shelter. And get this: The school in which she enrolled her 6-year-old, wants her to pay them $15,000 for stealing their services.

To add insult to injury, Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia (below, right) issued this statement about the McDowell issue: “This now sends a message to other parents that may have been living in other towns and registering their kids with phony addresses.”

Indeed it does, Mr. Mayor. It sends this message: ‘If you’re homeless in America, don’t bring your kids to our schools. You’re not wanted here. And if your children are uneducated because you are homeless, that’s not our problem.’ Mr. Mayor, does that about sum up your message?

Here’s my message: Where is the compassion? Are we really prepared to marginalize children whose parents are homeless? I don’t think so. Shame on you, Norwalk, CT. Are we truly going to write off the Tonya McDowells of the world simply because they live in a van? And before you get too high and mighty, how many of you out there are one paycheck away from being Tonya McDowell? Fess up. What’s that they say at times like this? Oh, yes…”There but for the grace of God go I.”

We could fixate on all of the usual arguments – you know the ones – racism, welfare, responsibility – but let’s not. Instead, once again, I’d just like to ask, “Where is the compassion?” At six, most of us remember how exciting it was to be starting school. At six, if you’re homeless, what are you allowed to get excited about? Or, maybe by six you, too are excited about going to school, because your homeless mother has always been determined you were going to go to school – somewhere. And someday you will understand why she did it – because education is your ticket out of life in a van.

This story has already gone national. It’s all over everything online and off. I’m anxious to see how America reacts to what Tonya McDowell did. I think she’s a wakeup call for all of us. Instead of viewing the American homeless as a deviant population segment, let’s look at why they’re homeless. The buzzwords: Divorce, unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, addiction, mental illness, domestic violence. Do I need to go on? Contrary to the worn out stereotype of homeless people being degenerates, they are you, and they are me.

The National Coalition for the Homeless reports that the U.S. is experiencing a steady increase in the number of homeless families. Families with kids who need to get an education. In 2007, the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported that 23 percent of homeless people in America are families with children. Single mothers with children make up a significant number of these families. In a 2009 Coalition report, it was estimated that 600,000 families a year will experience homelessness in America. Right here. In your America.

Let’s break this down: If you are a child whose homeless family has already been disenfranchised by the rest of society; and, if you can’t go to school because you don’t have an address; and if the statistics are true that at least once a month you may have to go without food – what happens to you? If you are exceptional, you rise above it, eventually. It is more likely that you grow up navigating poverty. And what do we get when we add poverty and lack of education together? We get homelessness. We get a never-ending cycle.

So, take that, Mayor Moccia, and Brookside Elementary and Norwalk, CT police department. By not giving Tonya McDowell and her young son a leg up, you are probably contributing to the continuing upsurge of homeless families, even in toney Connecticut suburbs. On the other hand, if your city would get behind job training programs for women like McDowell, and provide decent, temporary housing and universal public education for the children, it seems likely that some of the disenfranchised would smartly work their way back into productive society. It is a no brainer.

It is sickening that in America in 2011, any parent has to sneak their child into school. McDowell’s child was dismissed from the school as soon as her transgression was discovered. Try to explain that to a six year old. And keep in mind the child now has to live with the humiliation of being kicked out of school because he is poor, for the rest of his life. It is a memory that will not fade and one that should never have been inflicted on Tonya McDowell’s son.

NOTE: VISIT CHANGE.ORG TO SIGN A PETITION TO STOP DISCRIMINATION AGAINST HOMELESS FAMILIES IN NORWALK, CT.

POLITICAL BAD BOYS UPDATE

If you have followed the John Ensign story over the past couple of years, you can now chalk him up as one more elected official who has walked away in disgrace. Ensign (right), the Republican Senator from Nevada, resigned as he was under heavy investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. Allegedly, Ensign had an affair with a campaign worker, and steered big contracts of some sort in her husband’s direction. Sleazy and convoluted as it was, Ensign had managed to hold on to his Senate seat, until this week. After Ensign announced the resignation, the two Senators who head up the Ethics Committee, Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA) issued a terse statement which said only this: “Senator Ensign has made the appropriate decision.”

Here is how you can read those words – “has made the appropriate decision” – with some X-ray vision. The Ethics committee was probably about to unload some real dirt on John Ensign. He was informed of this and decided to bow out. By doing that, the Ethics Committee is not required to release the information about him. Whatever the case, Nevada is sick of the John Ensign story, as evidenced by a recent column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal in which writer Jane Ann Morrison says of Ensign’s announcement, "This is all about his ego, his arrogance and saving his reputation. It's about the threat of more embarrassing publicity and his inability to raise money.”

Unlike other politicians, Ensign can wipe his brow and breathe a sigh of relief. He may have dodged an embarrassing bullet. (The Ethics Committee still has the right to release its findings, but most likely will not). Here’s the question, though: Why do so many politicians and government officials put themselves in the line of fire? Why do they continually believe they can get away with it, whatever “it” is in their individual cases. Sometimes (okay, most times) it’s sex. Other times it’s political shenanigans. And sometimes it’s greed. But every time it is about power. There is something about D.C. style power that seems to overwhelm some men. Men who otherwise seem like they’ve got a level head on their shoulders just lose their sense of order and right and wrong.

Since we’re talking about once-powerful bad boys, here’s the update on John Edwards (left), the 2008 would-be Democratic candidate for President, who allegedly steered campaign funds in the direction of his mistress, who later became the mother of his fourth child. Misuse of campaign funds is a Federal offense, so he is being investigated on that level right now. Edwards, who carried on the affair as his wife was dealing with terminal cancer, was later outed by the National Enquirer and that was the end of his political career. Edwards, now a widower raising his and Elizabeth Edwards’ children, faces possible jail time if convicted. Recent reports indicate Edwards is terrified of going to prison, to the point of being suicidal. Hell of a guy, that John Edwards. He has two small children who only months ago lost their mother, and he considers taking his own life, so that the kids will have lost both parents.

If some of these scandals seem to drag on forever, it may be that the alleged perpetrators of wrongdoing keep doing wrong. Take Jesse Jackson (right), for example. Ten years ago, married family man Jackson had an affair with a staffer that produced a child. Much like the Edwards affair, there were ongoing reports of money paid to the child’s mother for questionable services. Now, a decade later, a gay male staffer has filed a discrimination suit against Jackson, claiming, among other things, that he was ordered to bring women to Jackson’s hotel room, and then clean up the room after Jackson had sex. Oy. Sleazy, huh? The Windy City Times detailed the charges in an explosive article last week. The above-mentioned charge is tame in comparison with other charges in the discrimination complaint. In fairness, it should be said that Jackson has a history of supporting gay rights, but as mentioned several paragraphs ago, so often it’s about sex. And as we all have learned, where there’s smoke….well, you know the rest.

The old saying goes like this: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." That phrase has unknown origins, but it sure says a lot. What are these guys all about, really? Do they seek power positions to satisfy their other needs in life, or does power truly corrupt absolutely? I guess we’ll never know, but the evidence sure stacks up if you just keep your eye on politics, big religion and big business.

MEET MARILYN, THE RACIST

By now you have no doubt heard about the California GOP official who sent out an email with a doctored photo that depicted President Obama and his parents as chimpanzees. The caption: "Now you know why no birth certificate." I could post the picture here, but I won’t. Why should I? For that matter, why should anybody post it anywhere? It’s disgusting and sophomoric. If anything, we should all post the picture of the idiot who sent the email. Okay, just did. It is the lead photo for this story. Marilyn Davenport is originally from Kansas, but is now a resident of Orange County, one of the whitest counties in California. The U.S. Census bureau puts the black population in O.C. at two percent. Davenport issued a half-assed apology after her transgression became public. Too little, too late, Marilyn.

Why should we allow the Marilyn Davenports of the world to denigrate an entire segment of the U.S. population? And if she does so in keeping with her Constitutional right to freedom of expression, why should her job as a public official remain intact? I don’t get it. Do you? There seems to be some disagreement about whether Davenport should be fired. That baffles me. As a society, we have collectively moved forward from the days of “anything goes,” as it refers to insulting each other based on religion, skin color, race, ethnicity, or sexuality. Oh, it still happens, but these days it can cost you. Hey, it cost Kobe Bryant $100,000 the other day when he called a referee a faggot. It cost acerbic radio host Don Imus (left) his job with CBS a couple years back when he referred to the women of Rutgers basketball team as “nappy headed hos.” Let’s not forget widely acclaimed fashion designer John Galliano of the House of Dior who was fired after a video surfaced that showed his anti-Semitic outbursts at a Paris bar. And in case you're wondering what ever happened to "Seinfeld" alum Michael Richards, you can see his racist swan song on Youtube.

What’s going on here? In two words – social change. Commonly heard today among those stuck in 1950: “I’m sick of everything having to be so politically correct. Who knows what you can and can’t say anymore?” Well, I do, and so do you, if you think about it. First we are working hard to evolve certain words out of the language. The word “nigger” is no longer passively overlooked. Still, the other day I found myself in a back and forth written tussle with a Facebook friend who is black. She said, “We call each other nigga and that has nothing to do with you.” I said, “Well, I think it does. So many of us are trying to get rid of that word once and for all, and we can’t do it as long as you say it’s okay as long as it is said between two black people. What makes it okay?” She said, “It doesn’t offend me at all.”

We’re stuck hard on cultural versus historical context. Historically, for example, “nigger” has never been used in any culture as a positive expression. Culturally, however, my Facebook friend seems to think it’s endearing if said among black people. You can’t really have it both ways. Just as we have to distinguish the relative weight of humor versus racism in the Marilyn Davenport debacle. Some people who would never consider themselves racist can see the humor in the photograph. But as soon as the brain cells all line up inside their heads they realize the real issue here is not how funny it looks, but the historical racism it represents. Equating black people with monkeys has long been understood to connote racial bigotry. It doesn’t matter if it looks funny. It matters that it perpetuates a stupid stereotype that contributes nothing to a civilized society. We are a civilized society, aren’t we? Aren’t we??

Let’s break this down: Calling a black person a “nigger” reduces him or her to nothing more than skin color, which suggests anything else that they are doesn’t count. Calling a woman a “cunt” reduces her to nothing more than her sex organs, which does much the same thing as calling a black person a nigger. Calling a gay man a “faggot” reduces him to nothing more than his sexual calling, which means that anything else he is or does will never really rise above his sexuality.

If you are one of those people who routinely uses words like these to categorize whole segments of humanity, what do you really get out of it? It is not elevating you or them. It only accomplishes holding both of you down in a place that prevents you from being bigger than what you are now. If you belong to one of those population groups that is routinely denigrated through language, and you start using the language among yourselves, all you have really done is re-appropriate the offensive terms, and thereby granted your oppressors license to use the same words. It’s a lose/lose situation.

I’m shaking my head in disbelief at those individuals who have come to Marilyn Davenport’s defense. “She didn’t mean anything by it,” they say. “It was never her intention to sound racist,” others contend. You know what? It doesn’t matter – at all – what her intention was. What matters is the result of her socially unacceptable, ignorant communication. That matters. Marilyn Davenport needs to turn in her GOP pass and go home.

WHY OPRAH WINFREY MATTERS

The first time I ever became aware of the word “Oprah” I was in mid-flight in 1986, reading People Magazine. Someone was quoted, outrageously predicting that Oprah Winfrey, the dynamo Chicago talk show host who was about to go national, was going to give Phil Donahue a run for his money. I was a die hard Phil Donahue devotee, so the idea of anyone outdoing him in the talk show genre was unfathomable to me. Donahue had dominated the morning airwaves for 15 years by then, tackling subjects as edgy as white supremacy, the death penalty and gay rights -- way before there was anything remotely acceptable about that. Sisters, strippers and stars had chatted live with Phil, the likable prematurely gray, Irish Catholic everyman. We loved us some Phil here in America.

But the dynamo that is Oprah did indeed end up giving our Phil a run for his money. After 29 years, Phil (left) retired, but by this time Oprah was fully immersed in the viewing public’s consciousness. At first, she seemed to be carrying on the predictable “pregnant nuns who smoke and drink” variety of talk show topics. It was entertaining, if not groundbreaking, but there was something eminently watchable about Oprah. She was eternally smiling, strong of voice and highly relatable. She was very much her own person and compelling to watch. You must understand that talk shows in the mid to late 20th century were usually along the lines of Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin or Johnny Carson. Lots of laughs, highly entertaining and light chat. Donahue invented the topical, audience participation talk show format. Oprah carried it forward.

Donahue was a white man in a white guy’s America. But Oprah was an overweight, overdressed, over coiffed black woman, on national television in white America. If her early shows were sometimes mundane in topic, she never was. She broke new ground simply by being on daily television. It took her several years to truly understand the power that came with her position on TV, and how to use it to make some changes in the world.

When I was a kid, I was repeatedly told I had good “verbal skills.” I wondered what that would do for me in the world. By the time I found Donahue, I realized one could build a whole career using his voice to address issues that mattered. But Oprah built an entire empire using words as the foundation. She gave voice to people who needed to be heard for the greater good. Of all the voices she brought forth, the one that really mattered the most to me was that of Mattie Stepanek, a young boy with Muscular Dystrophy and wisdom way beyond his tender years. Mattie, even when his age was still in single digits, was a poet, a best-selling published author, a public speaker, an ambassador for Muscular Dystrophy Association and an inspiration to many people. Mattie and Oprah became fast friends – an inspirational power couple, if you will. When Mattie died at 13, Oprah spoke at his funeral, as did President Jimmy Carter. Oprah’s interviews are proprietary material, so I can’t show them here, but here is a short tribute video Oprah did after Mattie died:

Randy Plauch was another voice Oprah amplified for the masses. Plauch was a computer science professor at Carnegie Melon University. In his 40s, Plausch was stricken with pancreatic cancer. Told by his doctors that his medical options were exhausted, Plausch, the married father of two small children decided to live a lot until the end. He became widely known for “The Last Lecture.” The real title of the speech was “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” Plausch reinforced my belief in the true power of words. His speech is riveting. On Oprah’s show, he delivered a abbreviated version. Please watch:
Voices like Plausch’s need wide distribution. That is what Oprah did for us. If Plausch’s words have meaning for you, you can watch the entire speech by clicking here.

There were so many others whose own life experiences taught us how to appreciate or improve our individual lives. There was the mother who lost all of her limbs to a flesh-eating bacteria, and decided to rise above it and just keep on keeping on. There was a 17-year-old boy who spent his early childhood encased in wire and locked in a closet, who told us the important thing to remember is to do good for others every day. Sounds simplistic? Not from somebody who grew up in a closet. I remember a guest who survived a plane crash in which the other passengers died. He was trapped in his seat so he actually watched people burn and die. He said he watched their “auras” leave their bodies. Some, he said, were brighter than others. He said what he learned was to live a good life, so that when his aura left his body it was as bright as possible. Oprah gave all of them, and thousands of others, a chance to use their voice to teach and inspire us.

Everybody’s voice counts. But many times when Oprah spoke, I was compelled to really listen. Over the years she said things like, “Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.” She told us, “Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.” And this: “Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.” And one of the most important things I learned from Oprah Winfrey: “"When you undervalue what you do, the world will undervalue who you are."

We live in a cynical, skeptical culture. We often tend to resort to sarcasm rather than clearly communicate what we feel. So, many people would hear words from Oprah and dismiss them as just the ramblings of a talk show host. Their loss, I’d say. What makes Oprah valuable to the rest of us is her imperfections, her recognition of her own personal challenges, and the lessons she has taken away from all of it. Those lessons she has translated into teachings for us. You don’t have to agree with her when she says, “"Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different," but you have to admit it sure makes you think. Oprah makes us think sometimes. Count the people who truly make you think – I bet you can do so on one hand and have fingers left over.

In the coming weeks, as we count down to the end of the Oprah Winfrey Show, you will read all kinds of tributes, reviews, editorial valentines, etc. They’ll tell you how much they are going to miss her on daytime TV. Not me. Instead I am acting on one of the lessons she offered. Over the years, Oprah encouraged us to live in the moment, be the best we could be, so that the next moment(s) would be even better. That is what she is doing. At 57, hopefully she still has many productive years to expand on what she started with the talk show. She redefined broadcasting, making it into something it had never been. The important thing is that she did it, not that she is ending it.

In Time Magazine’s 2010 Time 100,none other than Phil Donahue had this to say to Oprah Winfrey: “…you leave a legacy of responsible TV stewardship, a program that brought light to dark places and made us laugh, often at ourselves.” He also called her a “once in a century woman.” I agree. Thank you, Oprah. You matter.