Case in point this morning, as I'm driving to work twice (since I forgot the power cord and mouse for my laptop).  That's 45 miles of rush-hour traffic between my house and my office to listen to NPR.  

Today's stories struck me so clearly about the emphasis in so much of news today on pointing out the offense of America and Americans.  So often we are informed matter-of-factly about how we aren't good people.  No shock there - if you can show me any good person (let alone a collective of millions of them) that is implicitly good, I'll be shocked.  But the emphasis all too often is on showing America and Americans in a bad light, and three stories this morning illustrated that perfectly.

The first story (which you can listen to yourself here) is about the fictitious but very popular literary & cinematic character Charlie Chan.   The introduction to the story notes that the movie character was "the not politically correct Chinese-American detective played by an actor who was not Chinese".  Linda Wertheimer's voice inflections leave no doubt that this is clearly a no-no and a violation of the tenets of political correctness, thus relegating watching Charlie Chan movies to the realm of a "guilty pleasure".  

Towards the end of this interview with Harvard professor Yunte Huang, Huang talks about this issue - of a non-Chinese person playing a Chinese character.  At the 5:50 mark in the interview, Huang states, having been prompted on the topic by Wertheimer:

Wertheimer then notes with some surprise that the Charlie Chan movies were extremely popular in China.  The inference is that since the idea of a non-Chinese American playing a Chinese character reeks of racism, and since Huang himself has stated this outright, it would be odd for the subjects of said racism to enjoy the movies.  Huang continues:

So when an American plays someone of another race, it's racism.  But if a Chinese actor plays someone from another culture, or even another gender, it's part of the artistic culture?  It's something that is treasured?  Fascinating double-standard.

Almost as fascinating as back-casting the judgments of one's own time onto another period, thereby discrediting another  entire period and casting the people of that time into the role of bigots or racists or whatever, simply because they did not see the world the way you do.  

A little later, another story came on, this time highlighting the role that Mexican labor played during World War II when so many American men were off to war.  The US solicited laborers from Mexico to come and fill in, whether in agriculture or other arenas.  I haven't been able to find a transcript of this story or an audio link.  But basically, it talked about how thousands of Mexican men came up at the United States' invitation to work.  Work was seemingly non-existent in Mexico, poverty was rampant, and these men made the decision - albeit a difficult one - to come and work in the US for months at a time in order to support their families.  

All well and good.  What jumped out at me as I listened was that the focus of the story was not on what a wonderful opportunity this presented, or how many families and children were provided for because of the program.  The correspondent talked about the hardships the men were "forced" to endure (the one word I am confident enough was actually said so I could put it in quotes), and how they were sometimes the victims of fraud and abuse and mistreatment.  They interviewed a gentleman who explained (in Spanish) how intimidating it was, to leave their homes and come to a foreign country.  The translator went on to add quite a bit more to the man's words than the actual quote from the man in Spanish, all focusing on the negative aspects of the arrangement.

It infuriated me that rather than saying anything positive (which might be an exaggeration), the story really focused only on the negative.  Americans sometimes mistreated these workers.  Sometimes cheated them or intimidated them or abused them.  All reprehensible things to be certain, and in no uncertain terms unacceptable and shameful.  However, there were thousands of people who participated in this program.  By choice.  They weren't "forced" to do this, other than by the situation of poverty or unemployment in their own country, or perhaps even by the opportunity to get ahead or improve their situations on a longer term basis.  

But if we're trying to paint our people and country once again as the perpetrators of injustice and racism, talking about how many lives might have been saved because of paychecks coming home from our employers doesn't really get you very far.  

The last story that caught my ear deals with the $100 million dollar donation of 80-year old billionaire George Soros to the organization Human Rights Watch.  Throughout the interview, Soros laments the fact that Americans have lost the "moral high ground", and therefore our legitimacy in making demands regarding human rights issues has been marginalized and other countries will need to step into that role more and more.  

Again, rather than note the contributions of America to human rights around the world, the focus is solely negative.  Despite the fact that nearly 3/4 of Human Rights Watch's 2009 budget comes from North America, and the headquarters are located in the United States.  I'm not attempting to ignore the fact that there have been unethical or immoral decisions made by Americans and the American government.  What I'm decrying is that the emphasis is solely here, on failures, rather than noting the great amount of good also done by Americans and America on the issue of human rights.  

All this in the span of half an hour on a news program on the radio.  Rather disheartening, considering that at least one of the stories was more entertainment oriented and the last one should have been a very positive and uplifting story.  The net effect seems to be perpetuating this idea that America and Americans are by and large problematic people in need of a great deal of repentance.  This is without a doubt to be true in the theological sense.  It is also true to a certain extent in the political and social sense.  But I wonder at a philosophy of reporting that must accentuate the fault and guilt of the our nation in every situation.  Why must offense be given and taken in every situation, without any attention paid to benefits that are also perpetrated?  Rather than exhorting America to better emulate our finest moments, we are simply condemned and dismissed for our failures.  

As a sinful people, there is much we need to repent of and receive forgiveness for.  We have much to learn about the dangers of pride and holding double standards.  But not every situation demands evidence of some offense of ours - whether  real or imagined.  Along with the inevitable abuses and miscarriages of justice that are part of our broken, sinful nature, a lot of good gets done as well.  Pity that it's not considered nearly as newsworthy.