In a recent retrospective on Walter Cronkite, Time crowned the news-star “The Man With America’s Trust”. Some have since said that that trust died with Cronkite. I may risk being cynical here, but I’d like to agree.
Almost exactly three months ago, I received an e-mail forward from a Great Aunt with a link to a video on YouTube. Stunned enough by the fact that my 80-something Great Aunt knew what YouTube was, I checked it out.
The video has made its rounds on the internet — first on YouTube and then in low-res through direct e-mail. There’s no known source for it, nor are reports cited visible to verify its claims.
Let me say first here that I am a cynic. I grew up in the era of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. My parents talked about Nixon like he had personally killed their dog. They knew the reality and they taught it to me—people—all people—even preachers and Presidents — are NOT to be trusted.
My Great Aunt didn’t grow up in that generation. She grew up in the age of Eisenhower and Cronkite — where people told you the truth — at least they were supposed to. There were cigarette ads everywhere and in the movies —they said nicotine wasn’t as bad for you, or that higher quality tobacco wasn’t as toxic.
Every Sunday I sit in church in chairs with people from this generation, everyone within 2 or 3 years of being my grandparents. By osmosis they’ve gotten some of the cynicism of their boomer children, but nothing on the wikipedia and snopes.com level of my own age.
The X-Files was our Walter Cronkite— the truth is out there somewhere beyond the veil — beyond governments and big business, politicians and fat-cats. And the internet only fueled our fire.
Within thirty minutes I had resourced enough references to de-bunk the odious “film” presentation. Without Google, it would’ve taken longer.
Without getting into the semantics, the video made terrible claims, claims that Muslims were taking over the world and that if *quote* they *unquote* didn’t get the white majority first, then the Latinos would. Per the grainy video, the only responsible thing to do would be to have 12 or 14 babies.
I wish this was just about the people who made this video — that it could just go away as a nut-job effort to scare people to being afraid of people and ideas that are somehow “other” than what they’re used to.
But there’s a lot more happening here. I’m willing to bet that there’s something more sinister at work. The truth is, this video wasn’t made for my eyes—the tech-savvy, Google-happy, myth-busting Gen X-er who doesn’t trust the system.
It was made for my Great Aunt. And for that matter, everybody else’s Great Aunt.
So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised when I’m typing away at the computer and I hear a Grandmother in the Senior Adult Sunday School class that meets in the Sanctuary say “Speaking of people, have ya’ll seen that video about the population growth?”
I remember biting my lip — hard. I remember sighing and feeling as though I visibly shrank behind my laptop. As she described the content I could see the wrinkled faces contort in shades of fear and disgust. And I could feel my inner Scully and Mulder rise up from my gut.
“It’s not true.” I said, shocked as they all turned my direction. “It relies on a lot of ‘facts’ that don’t bear out in reality. It’s an effort to scare us—to scare you—to keep us afraid from who is moving in next to us or across the street. It doesn’t have anything to do with Jesus or the Gospel.”
The looks were a mix of shock and relief — I may be the young kid in their eyes, but I’ve got enough learning to be somewhat authoritative. No one said any different and I followed up with the Grandmother who brought it up. “I didn’t mean to say anything.” I stammered. “I just got the same thing from my Great Aunt and I did some digging…I just couldn’t let you and others be tricked into something that wasn’t true.”
“Well, that’s alright.” she said. “I mean, someone just sent it to me and I thought ‘Boy if that’s true, than things are a lot worse than I thought.’
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I mean, things may be bad, but they’re not bad.”
“I guess not” she said.
I wish trust hadn’t died with Walter Cronkite. I wish that my Great Aunt and all the other Great Aunts out there could trust everything they read on the internet.
I wish the tobacco people would have been more honest—or at least that people would have known they couldn’t trust them. It would have been nice to have met my Grandfather.
Sometimes I even wish I had the same trust they have—that I could trust something like I trust Google.
Speaking of which, I checked my e-mail last week. One of our church members sent me an e-mail “these *quote* demographics *unquote* don’t really surprise me, but it’s scary to see them all together in this video.”
He goes to a different Sunday School class.
Oh, and here’s what I wrote to my great aunt:
Dear Aunt “E”,
I agree, as Christians we have fallen down on our job, but the content presented in this video is troubling to me, and not for the same reasons as it may be to you.
There are any number of fact-checking errors with this video — the sources are unviewable in detail, and when they are discernible, they refer to journals that have no scholarly backing. There is no German Office report suggesting they will become an “Islamic state by 2050”, only a few sociologists and cultural experts suggested that, not the “German Department of Statistics, but Deutsche Welle, which is a newspaper in Germany that published the opinions of these cultural anthropologists.
There are any number of errors regarding what has been documented as a decline in pregnancies/child births among women in the Muslim world that can be read here.
Notwithstanding the fact that both Germany and France’s constitutions and letters of Parliament prohibit a political insurrection that would establish an “Islamic state”.
Yes, immigration, specifically Muslim immigration, in Europe is a large, real issue—London is still trying to sort it out—but many have fled to London as political refugees from oppressive, militant state such as Iraq and Iran.
And then there’s the US — the suggestion on the number of Latino births is, as far as a I can tell accurate, however, they author of this video doesn’t mention that migrant Latinos are over 90% Christian!
And the quote from Momar Qaddafi? no where to be found on the whole internet, except in blog posts quoting this video—there’s too many news sources out there, if he’d said that, it would be all over the place.
Again, I’m not saying that Christians don’t have a task before them, but considering Muslims (or Latinos, or immigration, or anything else for that matter) to be an opposing, crusading, warring force isn’t carrying the Gospel, it’s an agenda.
I don’t have a problem sharing the Gospel, but I’d rather let Jesus’ own instructions be the impetus, not fear of another that I was too afraid of to take the time to understand.
Again, I’m not assuming we’ll agree on these things, but I do find the video inaccurate and offensive to the good Muslim friends and neighbors I know.
As always, all our love to you and Uncle F— we miss you guys and hope to see you again soon.
Love,
Trey
