Marc Lamont Hill: For democracy's sake, suffer the knuckleheads

THE PAST FEW weeks have been a busy time for media critics. Recently, several high-profile people and organizations have been swept into media firestorms because of offensive remarks made in public.

Conservative MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan was fired for making anti-Semitic and anti-black comments in his bizarre new book, Suicide of a Superpower, an apocalyptic lamentation on the death of white-male Christian hegemony. Hip-hop magazine XXL was blasted for posting a video on its website by rapper Too Short offering advice to young boys about how to sexually exploit and abuse young girls. ESPN came under fire after unnamed editors used the word "chink" in a headline about Jeremy Lin, a Taiwanese-American point guard for the New York Knicks. And CNN commentator Roland Martin was suspended after GLAAD became upset at his comments on Twitter that people should "smack the ish" out of any man who was excited by a David Beckham underwear ad, as well as a comment that a man in a pink suit should be visited by "TeamWhupDatAss."

While I understand the need for media activism, sometimes we go too far.

Don't get me wrong: Some things are clearly over the top and worthy of our outrage. In the case of ESPN, someone used a job as a space to hurl a hurtful racial epithet in full public view. Under such a circumstance, a firing seems necessary. Similarly, in the case of XXL magazine, posting a video advocating sexual violence against our daughters should result in the firing of the responsible parties, as well as other forms of restitution by Too Short and the parent company.

But things aren't always so simple.

Take Pat Buchanan, for example. There's no doubt that Buchanan has a long history of making bigoted and divisive comments. Personally, I have frequently found myself infuriated by his anti-Semitic and anti-black racism, as well as his paleoconservative politics. Still, despite my deep disagreement with Buchanan's politics, there's something deeply dangerous about firing people just because we don't agree with them.

If MSNBC wants to fire Buchanan because it wants to be an all-liberal all-the-time network, then fine. As a private company, it has every right to make such programming choices, even if it makes for boring TV. But to hire someone as a controversial pundit, only to fire him when his opinions cause controversy, is a wrongheaded strategy.

This strategy is even more problematic in the case of Roland Martin.