by Tavis Smiley
If We Could Only Hear Ourselves
Regrettably my unexamined behavior seven years ago seems to be part of a growing epidemic of unconscious, unjustified, and uncivil behavior. Today, we all live in an increasingly uncivil society, where everybody feels justified to be undignified. Fired CNN host Rick Sanchez apparently believed that his criticizing all Jews was a reasonable retort to the ribbings he received from one Jewish comedian—Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show. Students (and some of their parents) feel no regret if they curse their teachers. Getting flipped off in traffic is a common occurrence. The anonymous aspect of the Internet gives opinionated cowards license to write the vilest, most demeaning comments when responding online to articles or opinions published in newspapers and magazines. Folks who could never say these things to your face become big bad dogs online. Has the definition of “free speech” been amended to include the right to “demean and hurt” without censure?
During the 2010 annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, attendees were presented with the results of an online survey involving 339 faculty members. The study conducted by three researchers at the University of Redlands (California) focused on faculty members’ experiences with incivility at the hands of students. The types of student incivility ranged from sleeping or texting in class to more disruptive behavior—open expressions of anger, impatience, or derision. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which summarized the study, “When it comes to being rude, disrespectful, or abusive to their professors, students appear most likely to take aim at women, the young, and the inexperienced.”
Nearly 70 percent of those questioned in another Associated Press–Ipsos 2005 poll believe that people are ruder than they were 20 or 30 years ago. The interesting finding in the poll was that very few in that number admitted their roles in a rude society. Slightly more than 37 percent of the 1,001 adults polled did admit to using a swear word in public. But only 13 percent said they’d ever made an obscene gesture while driving, and a mere 8 percent claimed to have used cell phones in “loud or annoying” ways around others.
When asked about incivility in our society, people will admit it’s prevalent and point accusatory fingers at parents, rap music, movies, terrorism, commercialism, and a bunch of other “isms,” but rarely do they acknowledge or accept personal responsibility for their role in society’s devolution.
The disrespect virus has also been multiplying exponentially in the political arena—a Congressman shouts “you lie” at the President of the United States during a nationally televised speech; a former Vice President instructs a senator to “Go fu** yourself”; the President speculates about whose “ass to kick” during a Today show interview; political advertising drenched in cut-throat, personal attacks, and destructive lies—nobody balances the justified with the dignified anymore.
That old cliché—“It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how you play the game”—doesn’t apply anymore either. Not only is the maxim destructive in politics, it doesn’t apply on the job, on Wall Street, or in our personal relationships. For the most part, we’re interested only in the game of scoring points, taking out our enemies in the most take-no-prisoners public fashion. Society’s civility-versus-incivility balance beam is tipping toward the latter. We are creating an environment where rude, aggressive, and abusive behavior is socially acceptable. Instead of finding ways to articulate or deal with hurt and anger, we’re settling for uncivil redress. And there’s a thin line between a rude response and an aggressive one.
Therein is the doorway in which a caring father was transformed into an aggressive brute.
I often find myself wondering if there is a genuine solution to the absence of civility.
The school bus incident with the outraged father went viral on YouTube. Days later, James Willie Jones held a news conference and admitted that he had become a bully. Before offering a public apology for his actions, he explained his revelation:
“If you see the tape,” he said, “I feel like I was backed up against the wall as a parent. I just didn’t know where else to go.”
Did seeing the actual tape online—seeing himself in an infuriated, explosive, and threatening state—did that have the same effect on Jones as it did on me? Did Jones, like me, see an angry stranger who looked and sounded nothing like himself?
Cultivating the Tools for Success
Just before I turned this manuscript in to my editor, tragedy struck the nation on January 8, 2011. Jared Loughner, 22, attended a political event called “Congress on Your Corner” at a Tucson grocery store. The event was hosted by three-term Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Loughner allegedly shot Giffords in the head at point-blank range. She survived the shooting, as did 12 others who were wounded. They were luckier than the six attendees Loughner allegedly killed, including nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, an A student, dancer, gymnast, and swimmer.
At the time of this writing, Loughner’s motivations for the attack weren’t fully known. We had learned from prosecutors that he specifically targeted Rep. Giffords. We also know that the Arizona Congresswoman’s seat was one that former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin described as a top “target” in the 2010 midterm elections. Palin zeroed in on the lawmaker because she supported President Obama’s health-care reform legislation. To emphasize her point, Palin posted an illustration of targeted Democratic seats with a gun’s crosshairs positioned over each congressional district, including Giffords’.
Palin immediately pulled the map off her Website after the shooting and lambasted the media for daring to suggest that her images and language influenced Loughner. At the time, there was no concrete evidence linking the gunman’s actions to Palin’s caustic rhetoric. That fact, however, does not absolve Palin. She and too many other political figures—Democrats and Republicans—have engaged in the type of behavior that feeds the monster of incivility and easily ignites fringe individuals to extreme actions and reactions.
Days after the shooting, President Obama attended a memorial service in Tucson where he delivered a memorable speech about the shooting:
“But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized—at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do— it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”
In a nation where incivility is in our media, our politics, and our everyday life, Obama properly contextualized what we are up against. I wish the President had gotten around to that speech a year earlier, when South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson stood up on the floor of the House during the President’s State of the Union address and shouted: “You lie!” Obama quickly accepted Wilson’s apology and—in the process—moved right past a teachable moment. I’m not saying it would have stopped a crazed gunman from killing innocent people, but I am suggesting that we would have been involved in a national conversation about civility long before the tragedy in Arizona.
Years ago, Sheryl Flowers tried to warn me that my foul mouth and aggressive behavior would slip across the boundary of our personal relationship and into our professional and public spheres. My point here is really Sheryl’s point long ago: We must be equally cautious about our personal, professional, workplace, and shared spaces as citizens. Intimidating, disruptive, and inappropriate behavior is all uncivil behavior. Incivility feeds society’s warlike aggressive notion that “might makes right.”
To remain dignified even when you feel justified not to is the shot of humanity that bolsters civility in an increasingly uncivil society. And there is hope.
A 2010 study conducted by the Center for Political Participation at Allegheny College (Pennsylvania) found that Americans overwhelmingly believe civility is important in politics. The majority of those surveyed (95 percent) said civility in politics was important for a healthy democracy. Further, it indicated that t
he majority of women—nearly six in ten—are more likely than men to be turned off by negative politics.
Daniel Shea, center director, said: “Americans believe in civility … and in compromise; they believe in middle-ground solutions.”
Shea makes a good point. We all really want to be less vulgar, abrasive, hostile, and aggressive. We just haven’t cultivated the social tools required to help us respond in dignified ways when we feel attacked or slighted: Respect. Empathy. Understanding. Sympathy. Decency. Self-discipline. Love.
Success—personal, professional, and societal—mandates that we cultivate and master these tools that help us gain control, self-respect, and respect for others. When we conduct ourselves with dignity, we walk through the world with an inviolable sense of respect that invites emulation. Respect for others means we commit to making sacrifices. We sacrifice the temporary gratification of ego. We restrain the psychological trigger that can turn our words into weapons. We forfeit the emotional rewards derived from acting out, losing control, or reacting violently—even when we feel justified in doing so.
After the humiliating ordeal at NPR, Sheryl didn’t beat me down or say, “I tried to warn you.” She knew me well enough to know that the CD shocked me out of my vulgarity. “Just do your best,” my dear departed friend said after I promised to correct my incorrect behavior.
I’m still working to better my best.
I believe the entertainer mentioned earlier hugged me tightly because she needed validation. She needed someone to say, “I understand.” But I think, in losing her cool, she saw a part of herself that caused her great grief and shame. In me, she recognized a fellow traveler on the dark side of incivility.
Believe me, I know the value of having someone close who at least understands why you did what you did. I’m glad I had a dear friend nearby in one of my darkest hours … a friend who wisely shared with me: “Even when you’re justified, you have to remain dignified.”
CHAPTER 8
DO YOUR
HOMEWORK
We all make honest mistakes. There’s no way I’ve been talking on TV and radio for 20 years without the occasional on-air faux pas. But I’m the kind of guy who prides himself on being prepared for any endeavor. No matter the situation—be it delivering speeches, conducting interviews, or presenting commentaries on my radio and TV programs—I like to avoid scripts, cue cards, and TelePrompters®. I excel in studied spontaneity. And the more homework I do, the better prepared I am to share the fruits of engaged conversation. With a combination of preparation, confidence, genuine interest in my subjects, intellectual curiosity, and occasional doses of wit, good on-air conversation can appear effortless.
In my world, honest mistakes, even for those who prefer scripts, are acceptable. Not doing your homework is not. There is a difference. Making a mistake is embarrassing. Failure to validate or back up your findings can ruin a promising career.
Consider the case of Dan Rather. A year short of his 25th anniversary as anchor of the CBS Evening News, and what happens? One apparently flawed report aired on 60 Minutes II about the special treatment that George W. Bush received as a member of the Texas Air National Guard, and Rather’s misstep escalated into a career failure.
CBS had to admit it had been “misled” about the authenticity of the documents that disparaged Bush and launched an independent investigation. With storm clouds brewing, 60 Minutes II was abruptly canceled; Rather stepped down as the Evening News anchor and—on June 20, 2006—left CBS altogether.
A lifelong record of excellence was tarnished because the homework hadn’t been done.
Now, there are some media folk who seem to succeed despite sloppy standards. Since “news” has become mostly personality driven, the journalistic bar has been lowered. Talking heads can get by with partisan razzle-dazzle. Some can divert attention from their blunders by positioning themselves as victims of “mainstream media.” For example, Tea Party heartthrob Sarah Palin claimed it was the badgering by news anchor Katie Couric that led to her embarrassing, incoherent pre-2008 election interview with CBS News.
Rush Limbaugh took no permanent hit after he used an erroneous Wikipedia entry in September 2010 that misrepresented a district court judge in Florida. In his zeal to instill fear in health-care supporters appearing before Judge Roger Vinson, Limbaugh described him as a rugged outdoorsman who killed three bears and had their heads stuffed and mounted above his courtroom entrance. These “facts,” according to Limbaugh, would “instill the fear of God into the accused.”
Turns out, the story was false. When contacted by The New York Times, Judge Vinson responded: “I’ve never killed a bear and I’m not Davy Crockett.” The judge’s wife, Ellen, was offended by Limbaugh’s assertion: “I don’t think you should be able to broadcast something nationally if you can’t verify it.”
I agree with Mrs. Vinson. If you can’t authenticate it, don’t say it. Do your homework.
For me, sobering, real-life experience has demanded that this yardstick become much more than a personal motto.
The Accountability Campaign
Throughout the 12 years I spent delivering commentaries on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, Tom and I engaged in a number of on-air advocacy campaigns. One such campaign launched in October 1999 involved CompUSA. At the time, African Americans spent $1.2 billion on computers and related equipment. CompUSA—the nation’s largest computer retailer then—wasn’t spending any money, really, to market or promote its products to Black consumers.
The company wasn’t the only major corporation that practiced “selective economic amnesia” when it came to spending advertising dollars in Black and brown communities. In fact, our advocacy campaign gained national momentum when we discovered that these corporations, including CompUSA, were engaged in something called NUD, or “no urban dictate.” Through memos from advertising executives, we learned that corporations were directing ad agencies not to advertise in Black or Hispanic media outlets. In a memo explaining why advertising to Blacks or Hispanics was a bad idea, one executive offered this reasoning: “ … you want prospects, not suspects.”
We received a list from an advertising agency that identified the companies involved with NUD-related marketing. CompUSA was among the top offenders. Tom and I chose it for our advocacy campaign to send a message to all the companies engaged in this practice.
For ten weeks, we kept the pressure on CompUSA. We compiled the amount of money Blacks spent at electronic stores like CompUSA and juxtaposed those figures with what the company spent with Black advertising firms. We concocted a strategy that drew angry calls and letters on a region-byregion basis. So during any part of the ten-week campaign, CompUSA and all its branches were deluged with angry correspondences from Blacks living in the Northern, Southern, Eastern, or Western parts of the country.
Of course, during that time, we also addressed other issues related to economic and social injustice. Tom and I launched a crusade to have bestowed upon Rosa Parks, the mother of the civil rights movement, the Congressional Gold Medal before she died. Every day for one week, we called out the names of the Members of Congress who had not signed the House Resolution authored and introduced by the late Julia Carson (D-Indiana). In the end, Carson had obtained all the signatures she needed. In June of 1999, when President Bill Clinton bestowed Rosa Parks with the medal, Tom and I were seated in the Capitol Rotunda as guests of honor.
The Smokin’ Gun
Meanwhile, the CompUSA campaign proceeded with no retreat or response from the company. To kick things up a notch, we asked our listeners to send us copies of their CompUSA receipts. They flowed in by the hundreds and thousands. In turn, we shipped boxes and boxes to CompUSA to prove that Black folk spent millions with the company.
This peaceful protest still wasn’t enough to make it change course.
Then quite unexpectedly, I received a document I felt certain would tip the scales.
We had a few insiders at CompUSA. One of them, I believed, sent u
s the smoking gun—a fax, on company letterhead, with the name of a CompUSA senior vice president affixed. The missive urged me to break the news that the company had no African Americans on its board of directors. “No Black members of the board,” from an authentic source—that was enough for me. I anxiously read the letter on the air, even giving out the name of the executive who sent it.
One problem: It was a complete and utter hoax.
CompUSA called; there was no senior VP at the company with a name matching the one I had given on the air. The media had a field day with my mistake. I had egg all over my face. I have always considered myself a credible social commentator. Simply put, I dropped the ball. The failure to fact check forced me to give CompUSA, the target of our protest, a public apology:
“This is not up to my standards,” I apologized on-air. “I did not do my homework and literally did not check all the facts. I got burned. I’m sorry.”
Standoff at High Noon
Emboldened by my mistake, CompUSA decided to solicit the help of the ABC Radio Network—the company that syndicated Tom’s show. In the ninth week of our ten-week campaign, Tom and I received a phone call from executives at ABC Radio: “Either you guys pull up off of CompUSA, or we’ll pull the plug on the show,” we were told.
Tom and I caucused and decided we’d go on the air and play it by ear. The next day, ABC brass were listening. They had already called Tom’s engineer and directed him to prepare a The Best of the Tom Joyner Morning Show backup tape. If either of us even mentioned CompUSA, they were prepared to immediately pull the plug on the show.
With our livelihoods on the line, Tom urged our audience to stay tuned: “It’s Thursday; Tavis is on today. You’ll want to hear this commentary. It may be his last.”
Rather than check CompUSA that day, I felt that I had to address the radio network. ABC Radio had violated our First Amendment right to free speech as far as I was concerned. If this commentary was in fact going to be my last, I’d at least lose my job standing on the truth. In my mind, there was no other choice.
