Lots of people would be silent in the face of this for reasons that have nothing to do with bigotry and everything to do with the way people who are very much like each other interact.

It may very well be a moral failing, but should not be held up to ridicule by people who have no interest in understanding why specific people act as they do.

So this kind of gotcha scenario, aside from treating people like guinea pigs and aside from allowing possibly inaccurate generalizations, also has the potential to further screw up people who are already emotionally screwed up. After seeing something like this go on, you can bet I’d be headed back home to hide from people for the next couple days. I can’t imagine I’m the only one. And anyone who found out this was a setup and they individually were being judged on spontaneous reactions to unexpected situations may very well assume the same thing is happening the next time they see a situation that seems to call for their intervention, and that may very well make them even less likely to intervene next time.

I’m specifically referring to the ones who didn’t say anything, not to the ones who offered praise to the bigot actor, which is itself problematic in different ways as Quaker and Sophronia point out.

“Never do anything in public you wouldn’t want Allen Funt to put on TV.”

Without the staging, I doubt the bystanders would have gone out of their way to offend anyone. If keeping our failures to ourselves isn’t good enough, we’re all in trouble.

Only if I’m not the yokel caught on camera.

I think it says enough about the technique that if Malkin fans staged any of the scenarios she mentioned in her post, such as the professor at a university wearing a W shirt, she and her minions would amplify every critical remark and screech for years about how it proves every liberal out there is Josef Goebbels’s spiritual heir.

aimai

I think she is objecting to the tactics. And whether she is or not, I am.

A network TV “news” organization has uncovered a handful of yokels who hold prejudiced, bigoted views about people who are different from themselves? Well, hell yes, then. Let’s take ol’ Bubba Dumptytruck who was minding his own business having a coffee and a strudel and out the sonofabitch for his hatefulness and xenophobia on the national teevee.

You know, I don’t agree with the people who gave a big thumbs up to the actor portraying the sales clerk. I’d like to tell myself I’d show the same bravery as the women who stood up for the actor-customer. But the network has used its vast resources to hold up to scorn a tiny handful of people who were going about their business and just stumbled into this little play-acting scene. Maybe these people do hold hateful views about Muslims–but without Primetime Live to stage this scenario, they likely would have just kept their opinions to themselves.

This isn’t journalism, it’s bullying. Americans believe hold all sorts of beliefs. Some of us–or our family members or our friends–believe things that are stupid or ugly or bigoted. I don’t think that warrants a national TV network staging an event to try to make them reveal themselves on a coast-to-coast broadcast.

As you note, it’s interesting that considering the various actual ethical problems with this kind of thing as a general tactic, that Malkin’s bunch grabs for the specifics (It would have been okay if it was a Jewish person! Or a W supporter!) in making their objections.