Deconstructing Jay Glazer's Momentary Lack of Reason

By now, if you're a Kentuckian, you've doubtlessly heard about and fumed over FoxSports NFL columnist Jay Glazer's ill-advised and misinformed commentary on our great state. For those of you haven't a clue what I'm referring to, I'll have to summarize, since the Fox network, in a rare moment of sagacity, pulled the column from its website over the weekend. Essentially, Glazer toured the country over the last few weeks, reporting on the various NFL training camps. To here him tell it, his experience in Georgetown with our very own (at least in training camp) Bengals was less than satisfactory. Instead of reporting extensively on the team's onfield progress, as had been customary with the other teams he had covered, Glazer used his space to rip the locals as "rednecks," "hillbillies," and other such pedestrian insults. One would think that a writer so endowed with literary genius as Jay Glazer would have composed more innovative and lyrical invectives. Maybe they didn't teach creative writing up at "dem fancy" schools in New York, Glazer's hometown.

Quite a bit of the backlash I've heard or read about has been directed at Glazer in a vengeful spirit, and I understand the need to defend our state and our way of life against ignorant and blatantly agenda-driven journalism. However, I don't think our state needs protection. Cultured people around the country know Kentucky's numerable contributions to the greater cultural milieu. Aside from the obvious movie stars such Johnny Depp, George Clooney, and Ashley Judd, we boast one of the most vibrant literary heritages of any of the fifty states. Kentucky has given birth to names like Robert Penn Warren, James Still, Wendell Berry, Harriet Arnow, Hunter S. Thompson, Ed McClanahan and James Baker Hall, just to name a fraction of them.

What intrigues me about this whole blowup is an issue that I've pondered over for some time. It strikes me that as a society, we may be no closer than we've ever been at defeating the prejudices that fester in the hearts of men. While it has become the worst of taboos to discriminate against another in regard to race or sexuality, and sometimes religion, it continues to be acceptable in many circles to degrade and make sport of the rural American. If I were to attend some snotty cocktail party and during the course of conversation tell some racially inappropriate joke, I'd be derided as an ignorant oaf. But, if at the same party, I told a hillbilly joke, I'd likely be praised for my inexhaustible wit. This shows me that bigotry is usually not eradicated, but is instead refocused upon a group of people that society has decreed that it is okay to hate. It is like squeezing a balloon: the prejudice may disappear from sight, but it has likely manifested itself in a new way in a different arena. Perhaps that inferior part of us that wants to feel better than our fellow man simply adapts itself to the changing attitudes of society, finding a way in which it can act out yet still possess the favor of the majority. Without peace of spirit, man will continue to hate his fellows in this way, because in some twisted part of his mind, it alleviates his own sense of disenfranchisement and personal failure.