I always liked Rick Sanchez on CNN and felt he was given a great chance to move up in his career at CNN by hosting his 3-5 p.m. anchor show. He was conversational in his style of journalism, many times injecting his own opinion into the news story and not being as objective as he perhaps should have been, but basically he came across as a "nice guy" with compassion and curiosity, seeming to ask questions that the man or woman on the street might ask if they were told of a news event. His casual verbal style unfortunately led to his demise at CNN when he went off track on a radio interview with Pete Domenick complaining about the "Jews controlling the media," and declaring that Jon Stewart was a "bigot."
How long these time bombs were ticking in his brain, no one knows. But for someone who was able to overcome adversity against Hispanics to become a role model as an anchor, it was sad to hear his own personal bias against Jews.
As someone who is a child of survivors of the Holocaust, I always marvel that here we are 65 years after World War II, where 6 million Jews were slaughtered only for the "crime" in the Nazis' minds of being born Jewish- that was quickly adopted by collaborators throughout Europe and the Ukraine- and yet anti-Semitism is still being displayed here in the U.S. and in many other parts of the world.
It makes me worry about the future for Jews in the world.
The Germans were the ones who blamed all the economic ills of the world on "the Jews."
In this era, despite the increases in education in the schools, and the mandatory history classes in Germany on the Holocaust (and in many classes throughout the world), anti-Semitism is still alive and well.
For someone like Rick Sanchez who attained great success in the most competitive arena in journalism - television broadcasting - to come out with his bigoted and anti-Semitic views, just like Oliver Stone did recently, and Mel Gibson as well, hurts not only Jews - it hurts all of humanity.
To me it shows that education is no panacea for bigotry. Where Rick got his bias against Jews, only he knows. But unless we draw attention to it, discuss it in classes and with our co-workers and friends, it just gets swept under the rug until the next ugly display. Frankly, I don't think enough is being done to counter these ugly and venomous thoughts in our schools.
To me, education is the ONLY key to banishing bigotry and the schools and colleges should foster an environment of open discussion and knowledge - of history, Children should be taught early in their lives of the horrible things that were perpetrated against an innocent population of men, women and children, all in the name of anti-Semitism.
Maybe early education is the only way to stop the ongoing bigotry that seems to be handed down from generation to generation, from parents to their children.
Meanwhile, Rick, it's too bad you had to display your vitriolic hatred on air, but maybe as they say, this could become a "teachable moment."
