Al Jazeera America allowed me to ‘speak whatever must be said’

[parkerdivine]

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/2/al-jazeera-america-allowed-me-to-speak-whatever-must-be-said.html

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I am loath to write this piece, one that commemorates a closing — a death that in some ways endangers my ability to speak what must be said. As I write these final words commemorating AJAM, the notion that commentary and critique are still the provenance of privilege and the virulent rhetoric of a rabid election campaign rages around me. Caucuses and primaries present with a flourish the workings of the weights and pulleys of the American democratic machine, its commitment to inclusion and participation. Muslim Americans are everywhere in the rhetoric but already invisible in the critique and commentary.

Republican front-runner Donald Trump's call to bar Muslims from entering the United States whets his supporters' appetite; Democratic presidential candidates occasionally remonstrate against this, but only if pressed and pushed to do so. Even when televised debates pivot on the bombing of yet another Muslim country and candidates make false but popular conflations of Muslims and terrorists, no need is perceived to include American Muslims in the conversations. Pundits and panelists, mostly white men, discuss and dissect and repeat the same harangues about an invisible Muslim enemy. The result is an acceptable form of xenophobia that is readily used to appeal to nativist instincts and create an imagined us-them binary.

Much has been said about AJAM's demise, and a new trickle of obituaries will undoubtedly emerge between now and when the network goes off the air in April. However, too little is being written about what AJAM's failure says about American media's commitment to diversity and inclusion in the mainstream and what it says about the oasis in which Al Jazeera tried to grow and about the inviolability of keepers of the status quo who refuse to ration the power of critique to a select few, the privileged, the white and the male. AJAM's demise is a victory for them.

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I was a fan of AJAM on TV. They gave stories that corporate media would hide from us; hence their being removed from our air waves. 

Have you lamented the death of the press holding government and the rich accountable? 

Have you yet lamented the death of free speech in this nation and the right to have the press as the 4th arm of government, exposing their crimes and failures?