Donnie Douglas
Columnist
If I could redeem every second I have spent in my life watching “The View,” then I might have time enough to make a sandwich, although not to toast it. There is an abundance of moments in my new life when there is more time than things to do, but the to-do list has never included watching a bunch of women sit around a table that slants in one direction and drone on about whatever pops into their ADHD-addled minds.
Now before you start calling the publisher and asking that I be canceled because of my sexist comment, let me tell you that my sentiment extends as well to a collection of men when the subject is anything other than sports, beginning with UNC athletics and then winding down from golf, football, basketball, baseball and ending with curling. But my job working in a pro shop requires just that. At least I am getting paid and play for free.
So, I was left to learn the news of Whoopi Goldberg’s incredibly ignorant statement that the Holocaust was not about race the new-fashioned way, and that was on social media, which is increasingly becoming a national plague — and is valued at about $710 less now for each person in the United States than when I began writing today’s column. Now I do not give a whoop about Whoopi, and my only surprise here was not that she said it, but that someone so ignorant of what happened during the Holocaust had a platform to do so.
That does not seem assured going forward, although an insincere apology spiced with some crocodile tears might get her another chance to embarrass herself.
This news comes on the heels of Neil Young demanding that Spotify remove his music because someone on the Joe Rogan podcast, according to Neil, spread misinformation about COVID-19. Now I don’t know much about Spotify, and I have never heard a Joe Rogan podcast, but I have always liked Neil Young’s music, even if I am a Southern man.
I did see Rogan mount a defense, effectively I believe, that much of what was said early on concerning covid-19 the so-called experts we now know through the passage of time was misinformation. Remember the initial advice not to wear masks, and to huddle inside? Today’s misinformation can become tomorrow’s truth.
All this just continues a growing trend of trying to silence those among us who would offer an opinion that sails into, and not with, the prevailing wind. And I really don’t care how uninformed the opinion is or that it might be wrapped in hate; informed by history, I find any effort to systematically silence dissent scary.
The reason is simple: I trust myself to be the arbiter of the truth more than I do, well, anyone else.
Social media typically offers an ignore function, although I am quite capable of ignoring someone without the push of a button.
When did we come a nation of folks who so easily break? Remember sticks and stones?
We see this increasingly, with the banning of books or the firing of a football coach because of decades old emails, and it infects the Left, Right and to a smaller degree the Middle, so neither side has the high ground although both claim it.
As editor of this newspaper, I stubbornly clung to a philosophy of inclusiveness, often telling the critic that the best way to ensure the publication of their opinion was to make it contrary to that of the newspaper. I believe that this page should offer a diversity of ideas, and should not be an echo chamber, my confidence and comfort coming from a belief that the readers could sort it all out. To believe the readers are too dumb, is what’s offensive.
For a lot of folks, this is where that whole First Amendment thing gets murky. People have a right to express their opinion, but that doesn’t extend to the television or Spotify. Those are industries responsible for turning a profit, and that pursuit more than anything else will almost certainly determine Whoopi’s fate on “The View” and whether or not I will be able to find “Cinnamon Girl” — my favorite Neil Young tune — on Spotify.
I prefer ignoring the opinion more than canceling the person offering it. And that includes all of what you just read if that’s your wish.
It’s not hard to do.
Donnie Douglas is the former editor of The Robesonian in Lumberton.