"Leaders" and "Spokesmen"

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The following is from Thomas Sowell. Is Reality Optional? pp. 173 - 174.

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"Leaders" and "Spokesmen"

TELEVISION AND NEWSPAPERS are constantly telling us what women want, what blacks want, what the elderly want, or what some other group wants. Usually this means what some organized noisemakers want. These noise-makers may be called "leaders" or "spokesmen" by the media but often their views have no relationship to the views of the groups in whose name they speak.

During controversies over whether English should be the official language, and whether it should be the language in which Asians, Hispanics and others are taught in school, all sorts of bitter complaints have come from "leaders" and "spokesmen" for various non-English-speaking minorities. The controversies have been especially bitter in California, where there are many immigrants whose native language is not English.

A recent poll among Filipinos, Hispanics, and Chinese in and around San Francisco showed that their views on language were radically different from the views of their "leaders" and "spokesmen." More than two-thirds of all the Hispanics polled approved of making English the official state language. So did more than three fourths of the Chinese and 90 percent of the Filipinos.

This was especially striking because more than a third of these Hispanics did not speak English in their own homes. Neither did nearly half of the Filipinos and more than half of the Chinese. As one Hispanic man put it, "If we do not learn English, we will never get ahead."

In addition, despite bitter complaints by "leaders" and "spokesmen" for such groups that they are treated unfairly by immigration officials or border officials, 86 percent of the Hispanics denied that they or any member of their families had ever been treated unfairly by these officials. So did 91 percent of the Chinese and 92 percent of the Filipinos.

College and university campuses across the country are full of student "leaders" and "spokesmen" for various minority groups. Academic administrators are quick to cave in to demands made in the name of these groups, without the slightest attempt to find out whether the views of minority students themselves coincide with the views of the noisemakers.

Last summer a group of Hispanic students at Stanford sent a letter to the university president, saying that the local Hispanic establishment did not speak for them and in fact engaged in harassment of Hispanic students who opposed the militant party line. After the local establishment denied harassment a representative of other Hispanic students again complained of "strongarm tactics" and pointed out that only 15 percent of Hispanic students at Stanford had ever participated in any of the activities of the group that speaks so boldly in their name.

Noisemakers acting as self-appointed "leaders" and "spokesmen" for other ethnic groups, for women, and for others have been kowtowed to by academic administrators on many campuses across the country. College deans and presidents routinely accept what noisemakers say and demand as the authentic voice of whatever group they claim to represent. Sometimes this is naivete but often it represents a pragmatic judgment that the noisemakers are organized and can easily become troublemakers, whether or not they speak for anybody besides themselves.

It is not at all uncommon for noisemakers to intimidate members of the very group for whom they claim to be speaking. This intimidation may be physical or social. For example, a black South African student who came to America to escape apartheid discovered a new apartheid being imposed by black campus militants. "I and .a few other black students were labeled Uncle Toms for sitting with whites in the cafeteria," said Mark Mathabane, author of the book Kaffir Boy.

James Meredith, who braved racism and dangers to his life to become the first black student at the University of Mississippi in 1962, was in 1988 kept off the campus of Hollins College by the Black Student Alliance there. The BSA had originally invited Meredith to speak at Hollins but the invitation was cancelled after they learned of what he had said at nearby William & Mary College. He had supported family values and hard work, including hard work in college.

Widespread media acceptance of noisemakers as "leaders" and "spokesmen" gives them a leverage out of all proportion to their numbers—and a leverage dangerous to all groups in this society. A vocal fringe can generate enormous hostility between groups, even if most of the people in each group have common sense, decency, and good will. What most people think is not what is featured in the media.

When the media feature outrageous accusations, demands, threats and disruptions by a vocal fringe—and depict that fringe as representative of the group—such distortion can only contribute to a growing polarization.

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Do people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton really represent the views and sentiments of blacks or are they just noisemakers?

13 May 2024