More on the Media Racism Scapegoating Ritual

Atrios has this to say about the stylized ritual drama I sketched out in my previous post:

Memo to the Media

Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are not the only black people in America, and more than that they do not have the ability to force themselves onto your news shows. There's a pattern here:

1) Bigot eruption somewhere
2) Lots of people condemn it
3) Al Sharpton goes on every teevee program
4) The media people turn around and use Sharpton's past as a distraction/excuse for the current bigot eruption

If Al Sharpton is an imperfect spokesperson for an issue, and you keep putting him on the teevee to be the spokesperson for that issue, then the obvious conclusion is that this is a deliberate strategy.

If the talking-head shows called upon people like Michael Eric Dyson or Cornell West, they might wind up actually getting people in the audience to look at their own behavior. The advertisers would never stand for that.