Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Carolla vs. Newsom vs The Young Turks

It is impossible for The Young Turks (TYT) to be further off base with the recent interview that Adam Carolla did of Gavin Newsome (Lieutenant governor of California).

Original Interview

TYT response/outrage over it.


The interview was contentious, and at one point Gavin Newsom mentioned that over half of African American and Hispanic families do not have access to a bank account. Adam Carolla pounced and asked very pointed questions, and would interrupt the instant it seemed Newsom was either straying off the question or filibustering so as to not acknowledge obvious truths. It seemed to me that each question was an exercise in trying to get Newsom to point out obvious cultural / familial / educational differences among groups. Not to shame, not to denigrate, but rather to acknowledge then attempt to remedy the situation.

To me this is the exact opposite of racism, but yet simplistically TYT assume Carolla's just a bigot that hates blacks and hispanics. I have watched a few episodes of TYT and I thought they were relatively knowledgable and had a bit of nuance, but for them to take this kind of interpretation of how the interview went I'm going to have to fall back on an old Carolla-ism:

TYT: Are they stupid or just liars? Which is it..

It's infuriating and discussion of this sort only serves to try to get someone to shut-up. Don't talk about a group's problems. Don't you dare try to isolate and (FSM forbid) try to help them.

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