An Obama Inauguration Pick the Left Can Love
On Dec. 18, all three network evening news programs reported president-elect Barack Obama's announcement that Rev. Rick Warren had agreed to give the Inaugural Invocation. Each noted as well the divisive nature of the pick, at least in the eyes of the gay community.
NBC's Brian Williams asked during the Nightly News broadcast “Is it disrespectful to some Obama supporters?” CBS' Katie Couric reported that “Obama is drawing anger from gay rights' advocates upset that he's chosen evangelical minister Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.” ABC devoted a “Close Up” segment during World News with Charles Gibson to the controversy, complete with quotes from Joe Solmonese, president of the gay-activist group, Human Rights Campaign.
Amidst all the furor from gays and the left, it's easy to see how the networks failed to give the same attention to Obama's selection of his friend, poet Elizabeth Alexander, to write and recite a poem at his inauguration ceremony. But as a Dec. 18 Investors Business Daily editorial pointed out, Alexander could be more divisive than
First, there's Alexander's use of language. Her poem The Venus Hottentot is about black female exploitation and contains the line, “her genitalia will float inside a labeled pickling jar.” Let's hope she refrains from such imagery during a televised ceremony.
More importantly, there's her view of race. The IBD editorial noted:
In an essay on the Rodney King beating that made a big splash in radical circles, Alexander contended that “a language of black male bestiality and hypervirility, along with myths of drug abuse and 'superhuman strength,' was deployed” by lawyers for the police officers in King's first trial. But as brutal and inexcusable as King's videotaped pummeling was, attorneys for both sides agreed that King's intoxication was no myth.
The Associated Press and Washington Post coverage of Alexander's role in Obama's inaugural ceremonies focused on the story of Alexander's attendance at Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream” speech as a toddler.
Tree Swenson, executive director of the Academy of American Poets, told the AP that Alexander “is a superb choice for the Obama inauguration: She is from Washington, she represents Obama's generation, and she has written about the civil rights conflict and other historical events that have shaped the character of this country.”
But AP and Washington Post ignored her writings on race, the graphic imagery of her poetry, and critiques of her work.
Colleen Raezler is a research assistant at the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the
