My reading of the Rick Sanchez meltdown is that he was implying in his radio interview that Daily Show host Jon Stewart is prejudiced against the working class and against Latinos (apparently Sanchez’ evidence for this charge is that Stewart sometimes made fun of Sanchez). Even though I can’t imagine anyone taking it seriously, I think it is important not to let Sanchez’ implicit charge go unanswered. I’d just like to point out that Stewart has been absolutely scathing toward Arizona’s hideous new law on the treatment of people police even have a suspicion might be illegal aliens. That is, Stewart has shown solidarity with Latinos. Here is an example:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Latino 911! | ||||
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If Sanchez wants to see bigotted toward Latinos or workers, he’s got the wrong channel on; it is there 24 hours a day on Fox.
The idea that Stewart, among the few genuine progressives on American mass media, is anti-labor is absurd. Here is an example of his clever attack on the regressive tax policies being advocated by the American Right, which is an implicit defense of workers and the poor against their exploiters:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| That’s Tariffic | ||||
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I presume Sanchez was hurt at the cancellation of his 8 pm show by CNN and by Stewart’s barbs. But it is strange that he should lash out at an ally just because he has thin skin.
As for his charge that
‘ Yeah, very powerless people. [laughs] He’s such a minority. I mean, you know, please. What—are you kidding? I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart. And to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? ‘
— that is also bizarre. Of course Jewish Americans are a minority. They are only 6.5 million out of over 300 million. And they often face discrimination. My Jewish friends and acquaintances have spoken about how even living in small towns in the Midwest can be daunting, and the way they are signalled by locals sometimes that they are unwanted. In recent months Facebook pages with slogans like ‘kill a Jew day’ have been proliferating.
If the implication was that most American Jews are wealthy or upper middle class, that allegation is simply false. The Simon Wiesenthal Center points out that even before the economic meltdown, a fourth of Jewish New Yorkers were living near the poverty line.
Sanchez had it all wrong, from beginning to end. Stewart is the ally of the values he said he advocates, and there are lots of Jewish families, many of them fairly recent immigrants, who live a life his father would recognize. As for being made fun of by Stewart, Sanchez doesn’t seem to realize that it only means you have arrived. If he didn’t get that, he wasn’t anchor material.
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