Juan Williams Fired from NPR Is Simply Poetic Justice

It wasn't a terrorist attack, but there was an explosion. The explosion occurred in my e-mail inbox when a slew of associates forwarded me e-mails about NPR firing Juan Williams for his disparaging remarks about the Islamic community. Many of my friends remembered two years ago, when Juan and Bill O'Reilly went through a lot of trouble to have me fired from Syracuse University.

Their ridiculous stunt stretched over several shows, as they worked to paint me as the most racist black man in America. The attack was a personal retaliation by O'Reilly for the fact that I asked the Your Black World Coalition to boycott O'Reilly's corporate sponsors, after we grew tired of their attacks on Michelle and Barack Obama. I stand by every single word I said about both Juan Williams and Bill O'Reilly, so to put it in layman's terms, "Ain't a damn thing changed."

In his "infinite wisdom," Juan let the world know that seeing Muslims on an airplane makes him nervous, implying that he suspects that they might be engaging in a terrorist attack. This led to NPR pulling the trigger that should have been pulled long ago, leaving Juan plenty of free time to fulfill his love affair with Fox. In fact, Fox is the only network that rewards its black commentators for consistently attacking the poor and minorities, with Juan Williams serving as their lead attack dog.

Juan Williams hasn't been a good fit for NPR since he gave up his commitment to serious and dignified journalism. Instead of doing the high-quality work that landed him with NPR in the first place, Juan decided to sign on with the Bill O'Reilly, Fox News' money machine, allowing himself to be used as a hired gun to promote the most unabashed racism in the history of televised news.

Attacking black people wasn't enough to get Juan removed from NPR, but his first major slur against Muslims got the job done. Either way, I wasn't surprised to hear that Williams was fired, and I sincerely hope that a little time on the unemployment line will help him to connect with the experiences of other black people he enjoys insulting.

As for myself, I worked through "The Juan Williams/Bill O'Reilly/Syracuse University Incident of 2008" (there was another in 2007) quite well. I learned who my friends were, and I found out who was truly committed to academic freedom. Strong black scholars and public figures (Julianne Malveaux, Michael Eric Dyson, Cornel West, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson) came to my defense against Syracuse, and I was willing to go down bloody and burning if necessary.

I also learned a lot about media and free speech, concluding that in this world, free speech doesn't really exist. So, while I am sympathetic to my colleague Paul Shephard and his concerns that Williams' firing violates his freedom of speech, the truth is that Williams has spent years working to violate the free speech of others. If you live by the sword, you will die by it. So the death of Juan Williams' job with NPR is nothing less than poetic justice.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.