Bill Yousman's blog

On Fox News, ABC, and most other mainstream media outlets, Reverend Jeremiah Wright has been cast as an anti-American spouting hate speech, a racist, a threat, and/or a lunatic. Yet what is missing from most of the “analysis” of his sermons is one crucial point: Much of what he says is simply factual.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama have put race in the news. This is long overdue in my estimation because Americans are usually so reluctant to talk about race in any meaningful sort of way. Unfortunately, much of the recent commentary by media pundits is marked by both ignorance and hysteria. I'll post more about this in the weeks to come, but meanwhile, to coincide with March Madness, here are a few thoughts on race and a huge and important part of our media and popular culture environment-- the world of televised sports:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoJwOXzO8Vw

Recently there has been a lot of discussion on the ACME email list about Miss Teen South Carolina and her inarticulate response to a question about why some Americans can't find America on a map.

(You can see the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WALIARHHLII)

This got me to revisit something I wrote a few years ago. I think it's still relevant:

Its a Tuesday afternoon in March and I’m teaching a media literacy course at a small New England Unversity.

My class is a group of about 25. They are fairly lively and involved students as these things tend to go.