Asswad of the Month Award (Late Edition): Sean Hannity

I'm not really saying anything people don't already know about our dear friend Sean Hannity. Underneath those mopey bushy brows of his lies the brain of an idiot, the same idiot who spouts off right-wing talking points without a moment's thought in the name of journalism.

It's no secret that I don't like the guy (or, at least, his television and radio persona), mainly for making absurd attacks on people who are "Enemies of the State" (as depicted above), and for having no shortage of stupid shit come out of his mouth such as (from Wikiquote) "It doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution this idea of the separation of church and state" or blaming liberals for the anti-gay protests at soldiers' funerals.

But Hannity's intellectually offensive banter goes deeper than just saying ridiculous stuff. He is a classic illustration of the "Just don't get it" right. He subscribes to those kinds of beliefs that makes you wonder whether he's being deliberately obtuse or if he just doesn't understand the reality that exists around him.

This particular example has won him asswad of the month award from yours truly, and it is mostly regarding attacking Barack Obama's membership in his church, The Trinity United Church of Christ, that was recently portrayed in an (online) article as being black separatist. To his credit, after talking about Barack Obama's church to the reporter, Eric Rush, who "broke" the story (who, I might add, did all his research from the website of the church instead of frequenting the church or interviewing, say, Obama), Hannity then had the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright from Chicago's Trinity United Church on several days later to comment on the article and the attacks on Obama and the church. It was clear from the outset that Hannity meant it as a hit job and not in the spirit of professionalism or good journalism, but if there's one thing I've learned from Martin Luther King, Jr., you don't fuck with a black preacher. And Hannity definitely got the proverbial smack down (posted on Crooks and Liars, if you're interested), in that vein. But I digress.

So the gist of his interview with the reverend and the original reporter is this notion of black separatism based on the 12 tenets that the church subscribes to, which include:

1. Commitment to God
2. Commitment to the Black Community
3. Commitment to the Black Family
4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
6. Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”
9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black
Community
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and
Supporting Black Institutions
11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value
System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.”

Hannity's argument is pretty much entirely based on the use of the word "black." He passionately argues that characterizing certain tenets as "black" is separationist and racist. The outrage is natural, he affirms, because were you to replace the word "black" with the word "white," it would immediately be hailed as White Supremacist and bigoted. Hannity argues that churches should be striving for equality and not endorsing one particular race or the other (all the while, I might mention, the stock footage of the Trinity United Church was panning over a largely white audience).

I agree with Hannity that inserting "white" into the slots that say "black" would make it rather racist and bigoted. I do not, however, agree that there is a double standard, that somehow we are allowing blacks to be proud of their race but not whites. You see, Hannity lives in this fantasy world, like many others, that thinks racial equity is the norm and that the civil rights movement accomplished total social and racial harmony back in the 60s. Anybody who considers themselves a thinking individual has known that this is not the case, and theoretically anybody who had even one functional eyeball realized how erroneous this assumption is/was in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. You look at the prisons, they're mostly black. You look at the military, mostly black. Poverty, black. Poorer overall health, black. Poorer education, black. At some point it stops being coincidence and starts being a trend. And it's not because there's anything inherently wrong with them as some might want you to believe. It's because they're trying to operate in a system that is out to get them, and that ain't no lie, sho' 'nuff.

So when you have a Church stating unity under God and unity under the idea that an oppressed people can band together and move themselves forward out of subjugation and into true equality, that is not racism or separatism. That is the definition of unity. There is no preaching of superiority, no implicit or implied threats to other beliefs or cultures. There is merely a pride in wanting to bring things onto even planes.

And Hannity had some nerve quoting the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Rev. Dr. Wright as part of his argument, stating that he judges not on the color of skin but on the content of character. Like Hannity has any understanding whatsoever of the black plight and the civil rights movement. Please.

It seems unfair then, according to Hannity, that white people cannot express pride in their race in their church tenets. I think Rev. Dr. Wright put it best when he stated something akin to the fact that "white" was already implied in many cases. The difference, it seems to me, is that when the group in power espouses following its principles, it's an assertion of dominance, not of civil equality. Thus the connotation of 'white power' and 'black power' can differ by a word yet differ vastly in their meaning and interpretation.

UPDATE: Sean Hannity won himself double honors for giving Ann Coulter unfettered ground to defend her name-calling of John Edwards as a school yard taunt. He once again didn't seem to understand that calling Edwards a faggot is insulting even if he isn't in fact a homosexual since the person using the term is using a derogatory term for homosexuals, in general, and is further perpetuating the stereotype of equating the word with effeminacy and wimpiness (Andrew Sullivan from "The Atlantic Monthly" has a great post about this). It would be like them calling somebody a kike and then saying "Oh, I know he's not Jewish so he shouldn't take offense. It's just a school yard taunt to imply that he's greedy." Same thing, but nobody would DREAM of letting anybody off the hook for that kind of derogatory statement. Similarly, neither Hannity nor Coulter should be allowed to get away with demeaning homosexuals the way they did.

So for deliberately refusing to understand the world around him, Sean Hannity wins asswad of the month honors for February.