BEN STEIN'S DIARY : Outraged Sadness
Stein, Benjamin J.
ben sTeIn’s DIARY Outraged Sadness by Benjamin J. stein TuesDAY T his is probably the saddest column I have ever written for the Spectator. It takes some explaining, but I can...
...Every human fault is absent in dogs...
...He assured me my rights had been violated, as well as those of my makeup artist, and asked me if I wanted to file a claim...
...That’s what sells papers...
...I found out about it the next day when some executives of the network where I often appear talking about the news (not Fox) called me in high dudgeon...
...They are gone...
...The only black person on the premises was Willy, the patient, kindly janitor...
...Now, let me unpack this, as we used to say in law school...
...I am in Phoenix at the airport, Sky Harbor, and it’s an amazing sight...
...They know that even to mention race in reference to black people, except if you are a black person talking or making jokes about blacks, is dangerous...
...When I feel suicidal, which is often, just touching my Brigid’s nose saves me...
...I did a lot more of it, including picketing, demonstrating in scary places like Cambridge, Maryland in 1962, raising money for the Free Breakfast Program for the Black Panther Party in New Haven, and work on school desegregation when I was at the Nixon White House...
...Isn’t a recession supposed to be about high unemployment...
...A technician somewhere had taped the conversation—hearing only bits of it—and had put out the negative parts, without any context or understanding, to some of his colleagues...
...Then I called my lawyer...
...Now, the point of the joke was and is that of course he is black and that—by his own description—is a huge part of why, in his view, he should be president...
...Anyway, I got home and we have a new German short-haired pointer named Cleo...
...The point of the joke was how much America has changed, to the point where it’s a plus, not a minus, to be an attractive, self-confident black man...
...Despite its many holes and lacunae and unproven allegations— which is fine, since it’s a theory, not a fact—you are considered a criminal if you question it...
...We used to have free speech...
...Scientists know it’s true, but you’re not allowed to say it...
...And these are brave people...
...Okay, now, flash forward to right now...
...Can’t you like equality of opportunity for all people and also love and respect the First Amendment...
...The gist of the joke was that people would be upset if they found out he was part black...
...For now, the extreme—and well-earned—guilt of the white man about mistreatment of the black man has combined with a wicked political correctness and need to control other people to simply You can show the most extreme violence and pornography imaginable to anyone with a computer, to any ten year old, but you cannot even talk about global warming or evolution or racial political correctness without being branded a criminal...
...Can we even have any freedoms at all without freedom of speech...
...Rights of pri vacy are not going away in America...
...People in neckties and jackets...
...Even now, much later, I speak prolifically about civil rights in my speeches and always quote with love and admiration Dr...
...Global warming...
...It is later than any of us dare think...
...64 THe AMeRIcAn sPecTAToR APRIl 2008...
...Well, off to bed with my Brigid and my new Cleo...
...The only discipline problem I ever had in elementary school was when I told a teacher I did not think he should call black people “coons...
...She’s just right for us...
...But it’s his right as an American...
...You are simply not allowed now to say that there are many explanations for global warming besides burning oil...
...You can get punished drastically for even the most lighthearted, harmless comment taken out of context...
...Sweet, unassuming, never any trouble...
...And now, well, now it’s a memory...
...Then we went back to the joke-making process...
...She was our dream girl...
...See Don Imus...
...Whites...
...We missed her cruelly, and now we have a new hound...
...Freedom of speech is not going away in the United States of America...
...Anyway, it was bits and snippets continuing old discussions and impossible to make sense of if you had just been, so to speak, wiretapping the conversation...
...As you can imagine, it ruined my day except for this great fact: I told my joke about Obama on Kimmel later in the day and it got a wonderful laugh...
...I suggested several options, and then came up with one I thought was really funny about Obama...
...But they smile and are eager to be helpful...
...I hate it when I hear people say blacks are stupid or violent, but it’s an American’s right to speak freely...
...Now, it so happens that I don’t have a job to lose, but that’s not the point...
...I could understand the network people’s fears, but I called my lawyer...
...At the California Pizza Kitchen across from gate A21, all of the staff are from Ethiopia and Somalia...
...The same thing is happening about global warming...
...A few days ago, I was in a studio with my makeup artist...
...As for the privacy part, well, I already covered that base...
...Then we talked about how wild his crowd was in Wisconsin and how upset it would have made old-time racists to see a black man get that kind of applause...
...People in tribal dress...
...I hate it when I get e-mails calling me a kike...
...The same thing is almost happening about Darwinism...
...Many of the white students, and even some of the teachers, routinely called black people by terrible names, especially “n----r” and “coon...
...ben sTeIn’s DIARY Outraged Sadness by Benjamin J. stein TuesDAY T his is probably the saddest column I have ever written for the Spectator...
...Now, tell the truth, wouldn’t you guess that it was about 10 percent from reading the newspapers...
...You can show the most extreme violence and pornography imaginable to anyone with a computer, to any tenyear-old, but you cannot even talk about global warming or evolution or racial political correctness without being branded a criminal...
...And Kimmel helped me make it even funnier and it was terrific...
...benJAMIn J. sTeIn I just finished a movie in which we question Darwinism largely based on Darwin’s allegation that there are superior and inferior human races...
...Cleo was given away by a family who decided she was too old...
...It’s gone...
...But if we are to have free speech in this country, we have to be able to speak about anything except inciting to violence...
...Less than one percent...
...ben stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu...
...Wow, do I love dogs...
...We’re old, too...
...Except...
...Long ago, when I was a pupil at Parkside Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland, the school was racially segregated...
...If it bleeds, it leads...
...But they don’t think that far ahead...
...Plus, I just read in the Desert Sun, my local newspaper in Rancho Mirage, that the Riverside– San Bernardino County metropolitan area has the fourth-highest foreclosure rate in the nation at just under four in every 100 homes...
...By the way, do you think that maybe dogs are the Master Race...
...Unfortunately, that’s pretty much just what was going on...
...Okay...
...We talked about extremely intimate details about my makeup artist’s recent giving of birth...
...There are people of all nations milling about...
...Hispanics...
...This movie, Expelled, is going to be very controversial...
...It’s really criminal how the media are desperately trying to sell us despair...
...Not long...
...Martin Luther King, Jr...
...I listened to them for a while, protested that my conversation was supposed to be private, and said it was an outrage for people who were not even close to being born when I was getting spat on for demonstrating for civil rights to be doing this...
...We’ll start at the beginning...
...I arrived moments later and hugged my dead Susie...
...Of course, if they keep at it, they’ll succeed, and then advertising will fall and the newspapers will fail...
...It was really making fun of the racism of old...
...When I was younger and felt really suicidal, just hugging my Weimaraner, Mary, saved me...
...And when I say the people at the network were upset when they called me, I mean UPSET...
...Now, as I keep saying, I have a long record of fighting for the rights of black people and the fight is not over...
...These are worldly people...
...They barely speak English, and I mean barely...
...Anyway, our beloved Susie died after collapsing in the backyard and after my wife brought her in and she lay on her bed...
...That’s a lot, but guess what the national foreclosure rate is: less than one percent...
...We have reached a stage where political correctness has totally beaten free speech to a pulp...
...I was telling her I was to be on Jimmy Kimmel a day later and had to come up with some jokes about the election...
...See Don Imus...
...But I would not want to make speech a crime...
...She had a look of such harmless curiosity and she never bit anyone...
...She was lightning fast, probably because she was part Whippet...
...Asians...
...All caps...
...It wasn’t long ago...
...Our beloved, precious, perfect Dalmatian mix, Susie, died last Tuesday at age 17...
...You can get punished drastically for even the most lighthearted, harmless comment taken out of context...
...As I was talking to her, a producer came on the line and told me I would not be on for a half hour...
...I would always tell the white kids not to call black people “n----r,” that it was 62 THe AMeRIcAn sPecTAToR APRIl 2008 insulting and hurtful and the white kids would always scoff at me and often fights would start over it...
...Have you ever noticed how wildly superior they are to us...
...This was the beginning of my life in civil rights, or what my niece calls “freedom work...
...It takes some explaining, but I can summarize it for you briefly in a few words...
...Blacks...
...I hate it when Minister Farrakhan rails against Jews and Israel...
...Except that when I even tell people this story, they blanch...
...It is too cold to swim tonight...
...It’s amazing...
...fRIDAY W ell, onward and upward...
...The point is that we have reached a stage where political correctness has totally beaten free speech to a pulp...
...But, wow, do we miss our Susie...
...What kind of recession is this if we are so short of labor that we are taking in people not proficient in English to work at the airport...
...You’re not on air for a long time now,” she said...
...We have been friends for seven years...
...We loved her beyond words...
...I hate it when they call me a “Jew Bolshevik...
...They are just saintly by nature...
...You can really get in trouble even mentioning race,” they say, unless you say how great Obama is...
...You can lose your job if you ever even mention race unless you say how bad racism is...
...I loathed it when Malcolm X called white people “blue-eyed APRIl 2008 THe AMeRIcAn sPecTAToR 63 ben sTeIn’s DIARY devils,” but the cure for bad speech is good speech, not shutting down speech...
...Right...
...It’s interesting when people die...
...I can remember it...
...I said I would think about it...
...How long do we have...
...banish free speech where some aspects of race are concerned...
Vol. 41 • April 2008 • No. 3
