Apr 05 2006
Nascar to NBC: This is Outrageous!
The blogging world has been buzzing since Michelle Malkin broke the story about NBC’s Dateline and their story idea: Catch Muslims being treated badly on hidden camera buy sending stereotypically dressed men to Nascar races.
A source who monitors political e-mail lists sent me an intriguing message disseminated last week, which involved an apparent Dateline NBC solicitation to Muslim groups. Check this out:
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:05:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Subject: Looking for Muslim Males to participate in NBC Dateline Segment
[Forwarded]
Salam,
I hope everyone is doing well.
I have been talking with a producer of the NBC Dateline show and he is in the process of filming a piece on anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination in the USA. They are looking for some Muslim male candidates for their show who would be willing to go to non-Muslim gatherings and see if they attract any
discriminatory comments or actions while being filmed.They recently taped two turbaned Sikh men attending a football game in Arizona to see how people would treat them. They set them up with hidden microphones and cameras, etc.
They want to do the same thing 2 or 3 other times (in various parts of the USA) with one or two Muslim men in each setting. They are looking for men who actually "look Muslim". They want a guy with no foreign accent whatsoever, a good thick beard, an outgoing personality, and someone willing to wear a kufi/skullcap during the filming.
They also want someone who is fairly well accomplished and has contributed to American society at large in some meaningful way.
That said, I’m urgently looking for someone who can be filmed this April 1st weekend at a Nascar event (and other smaller events) in Virginia. NBC is willing to fly in someone and cover their weekend expenses. The filming would take place all day on Saturday and Sunday
…
Catch that? The apparent "sting" involves targeting Nascar and other sporting events. ‘Cause that’s presumably where the fair and balanced NBC news staff thinks all the bigots are.
More on this at her site:
News sting ideas of the day
All the news that’s fit to stage
Well tonight she has Nascar’s response to being used as the backdrop to the Hunt for Larry the Cable Guy show, or whatever they are calling it, and they are not happy:
I spoke this afternoon with Ramsey Poston, managing director of corporate communications at NASCAR. He’s on his way down to Texas for the NASCAR race this weekend, and he responded to NBC Dateline’s undercover Muslim stings, which I first reported on yesterday morning.
"This is outrageous for a news organization with the reputation of NBC to stoop to the level of attempting to create news instead of reporting it. Any legitimate journalist should be ashamed."
Poston told me NASCAR contacted NBC, which confirmed they are doing the story (also reported here yesterday).
"It’s hard to even call it journalism," Poston told me. I asked him why he thought NBC was targeting NASCAR fans for the racism sting. Poston vigorously defended the NASCAR fan base as "diverse, from every background in America."
Poston expressed dismay at NBC’s "attempt to provoke a reaction from our fans" and said his organization was "confident they would not fall for it."
The sad thing is that they will find someone who will fall for it, because it is an uncomfortable fact that there are actually racist people in America.
And if I am right, the truly sad thing is that they will paint all of Nascar fandom as sheet toting, cross burning racists because of a few idiots.
You see, what NBC does not get is this: The issue is not whether their wired Muslims find a few intolerant people in America. The issue is this:
"Is that intolerance, those acts of overt racism, and those ignorant people who commit them, are they tolerated in America?"
And the answer for most Americans is No.
Most Americans hate racism, and racist people, be it the Muslim haters or the race baiters like Cynthia McKinney. Most Americans want there to be equality. Most Americans want to end it.
Exposes like this play on stereotypes and do nothing to ease racial tensions, it only serves to create the false sense of problem.
A friend of mind once told me that "life is simpler when you were part of the solution, not part of the problem".
Pay heed to her advice Dateline.
3 Responses to “Nascar to NBC: This is Outrageous!”
Dateline Debacle…
cartoon courtesy of Cox and Forkum
I am always in awe of the extreme intolerance of the ones who scream loudest about tolerance. Or is it just stereotyping, or profiling.
Meanwhile, over at Dateline NBC, they are doing some fast-talking to convince w…
No real Muslim (or Christian) would go anywhere near a NASCAR race except to protest. Regardless of the fact that cars kill an American every 12 minutes (making cars the #9 cause of death in America), NASCAR sells beer while advertising hard liquor on Fords racing during the Coke-Cola 600 while Ford and Coke-Cola finance gay marriage. Does NASCAR care? No. Do you? (Links edited and removed, I dont want this to be a launch point for a nascar boycott. LSU)
No real Muslim (or Christian) would go anywhere near a NASCAR race except to protest. Regardless of the fact that cars kill an American every 12 minutes (making cars the #9 cause of death in America), NASCAR sells beer while advertising hard liquor on Fords racing during the Coke-Cola 600 while Ford and Coke-Cola finance gay marriage. Does NASCAR care? No. Do you? <boycott link removed. LSU>