By Arsalan Iftikhar, Special to CNN
Date Posted: October 22, 2010
Editor’s note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and legal fellow for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington.
(CNN) — Imagine for a moment that there was a prominent American conservative journalist who ignorantly disparaged an entire minority group on national television, got fired for it by the nation’s largest public radio media organization and then still managed to pull down a $2 million payday with the television network where he made the remarks.
Man, it must be nice to be Juan Williams.
A quick recap: Williams, a National Public Radio “news analyst,” appeared on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday to talk about Bill O’Reilly’s recent remarks about Muslims on ABC’s “The View;” the latter’ shows co-hosts, Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, had walked off the television set in protest.
When asked what he thought about the incident, Williams responded: “Look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. …You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. … But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
When someone begins with the weak disclaimer that he is “not a bigot,” you can probably bet the farm that he is about to say something pretty bigoted.
Continue Reading Arsalan’s October 2010 CNN Column Here…
