By, Renee Wood

Anyone who knows me, knows I am a CNN watcher.  However, I do watch Hannity, Tucker and Ingraham at times on FOX.  Anyone watching either FOX or CNN must realize a few things;

1. News broadcasted 24 hours a day, is no longer “news” but mostly entertainment based on events that took place recently. When we only had an half hour of world news, half hour of national news, and 3 half hour segments of local news a day, there was very little time for commentary or opinions in the broadcasts.  With very little time to report the news, much more energy went into reporting just the facts.  This meant people had to draw their own conclusions using the same facts from 3 stations.  There were still lively discussions among family and friends on ways to deal with the country, as well as world issues, but the premise started with the same facts.
2. When human beings report on a story or event, even if it’s in an objective manner, there will always be a slight slant in the story. Why?  Since we use words to report a story, a word choice can create a slant in the story without intending to.  This is because we see and interpret things through the individualized filters of our life.  In college, when taking media communications, we were given a set of facts and had to write 3 different half page articles with opposite slants, and one purely objective article.  Mine was read aloud by the prof because she thought I nailed it.  If I can write shit from a set of facts, and also write an objective article using those same facts, then I can also parse out facts from a slanted story, especially a heavily slanted story, when I hear or read it.

Let me be clear, my blogs do not report the news.  My blogs do reflect my opinion using my life’s filters, but I always felt the obligation to know, understand and include, to the best of my ability, the other side’s opinions.  Not too many people’s points of view are totally without some merit, or some overall truth, or even what they perceive as vitally important to their life, that we can’t actively listen and find ways to compromise.  All hope is NOT lost in a marriage that still has arguments and fights.  Hope is lost in a marriage when there’s silence between them, and they start demonizing one another to family and friends.  They don’t hate each other, they have just become indifferent to the other to the point that they just don’t care anymore.

3. We, in the U.S., have no objective news source today. FOX slants way right, CNN slants left, probably not as far left as FOX slants right, but definitely leans heavy left.  Then there’s many sources of news in between CNN and FOX, and some even lean farther left/right than those.  The producers of CNN and FOX, as well as some other news outlets, know it’s not really reporting “the news”, but using the “news” as entertainment for ratings.  As evidence of this, they hire charismatic “entertainers” to report and commentate on the news.  They are no Walter Conkites or David Brinkleys anymore, who just read the news without alarm or inflection in tone.  Conkite, Brinkley and other news anchors from that era, had very good enunciation in their reading voices, which didn’t sway opinion, but allowed the public to listen and form their own opinion.  Nowadays, as soon as you hear words like, “Wasn’t what we just saw (from a video) awful”, we have left the news of that video and have entered into what we are to “think” and “feel” about what we saw in the video.  I love it when, after showing a video, correspondents say, “Did you hear him/her say ‘da, da, da’ in that video”, which is never using the person’s exact words, but rather, an interpretation of what their words meant from their point of view.  Sometimes I yell at the tv, “Nope, that’s not what they said”!  However, I am well aware that I am being entertained at that point, and the news was the event caught on video.

What got me thinking about how to unify, is Don Lemon, from CNN, saying, “How do we even talk to these people (on the far right) in Congress?  There’s no way we should have to.  They sided with the insurrectionists by not voting for impeachment.  How do you unify with that! We shouldn’t have to”.  Quite frankly, his divisive words pissed me off.  This is NOT a fringe element we’re talking about.  This is a good swath of the U.S. population which holds similar views that far counters the left views.  WE HAVE TO LISTEN TO THEM.  If we don’t, were headed for trouble.  Does that mean we cave and do whatever they want?  No, of course not.

One example that I think most citizens, in both parties, would agree, is that the white supremacy ideology is counter to our American values today, but this ideology is embraced by too many of our citizens.  It’s said that the Republican Party owns the white supremacy vote.  Whether we like it or not, America owns white supremacy, as well as their votes, not a political party!  Shifting blame to one party, does not eradicate the responsibility that all Americans have in trying to understand the premise of white supremacy, in order to eradicate those beliefs that foster prejudice and harms our country.  To place this responsibility on a single party only suffices to relieve the other party of their part in the matter.  We all have to recognize that these are true beliefs of too many in American society.  We have to deal with the fact that white supremacists are America citizens who have the right to vote.  Even if both parties denounce the white supremacists views of blacks (which they should), white supremacists are still going to align themselves with one party or another, and vote.  No party should court their vote, as Trump seemed to, but we can’t (as much as we’d like to) throw them out of the country, or forbid their vote.  They are here, and as much as we cringe, they are our brother and sister Americans.  It’s too simplistic just to say, “Well they believe that whites are the superior race, and that’s just not factual, so let’s just write them off as not part of us.  Ignore it and it will cease to exist”.  What happens when you ignore an open festering wound, oozing with green pus?  Does it just go away?

When we lance the wound (acknowledge its existence – although still repulsive), analyze the problem (give it voice – listen to the underlying truth, rather than the obvious disgusting pus – rhetoric of white supremacy), and diagnose the true issue (an example might be, white men don’t know where they fit in anymore, or know their role in a changing demographic society), then a true conversation can begin on how to move forward, so everyone feels welcome and has a seat, as well as a voice at the table.  That’s how you begin the healing and uniting all the people.  It does not unify or heal the current wounds of white men, when you point out that they used to dominate the spaces at the table.  That’s like pointing out how unblemished one’s skin was before their wound developed – it doesn’t mend their current pain, or begin to help them envision what this difference, that they fear, will look like, if allowed to properly heal.  Or, worse, it also doesn’t help heal the wound, to throw in their faces that their ancestors caused wounds that left scars on others, which they may interpret as, “Now it’s the white man’s turn to suffer these indignities”.  No, no, no, that incites terror, and makes them just cling all the more to what was “safe” for white men.  They fear they will become the oppressed minority.  They need reassurance that although things will look different at the table, that no one, including the white man, will become the “underdog”, the “forgotten”, the “left out”, the “freakish”, the “voice that doesn’t matter”.

Many others on the far right, who don’t embrace white supremacy, are also acting out of fear.  Fear that someone will come in their homes and take their 2^nd amendment rights away.  Fear that every word they utter will be analyzed and deemed politically incorrect, which makes them feel like the underdog, or worse, thought of as “stupid”.  The far right also fears that public schools will be designed to stamp out the Christian values taught in their homes and churches, in order to teach acceptance of everything that the State values (abortion, sexual freedom to have sex with whoever, whenever, as long as pregnancy is prevented). Another thing the far right fears is that their children will be programmed to think in a certain way and be forbidden to question, challenge or disagree with those in authority.  It all boils down to they fear the change that they feel not part of, but forced to accept with no input.

Although I, as well as you, know the government is not planning any of the above, these fears are very real to them.  Unless these fears are acknowledged and taken seriously, they will fester and grow to others.  Scoff at the fears of the far right if you feel you must, but then see where that gets us as a unified country.  Or, we can take the higher road and listen through the rhetoric, and hear the real source of their pain.  Allow it a voice, so we can work together to heal ALL the wounds in this country, rather than just those we know, understand and agree with.