Columnists Ask How We Ended Up Where We Are
Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald is outraged that more than 50 years after testimony in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case showed that black children thought white dolls superior to black ones, black children’s views haven’t changed.
On the other coast, at the Oakland (Calif.) Tribune, Brenda Payton asks, “How in the world did we move from the women’s liberation movement of the ’70s to the current situation in which women are not only depicted and treated as whores but they accept it, seemingly with little protest? How did we as women allow this to happen?”
Columnists have always seen their jobs as being social and cultural critics as well as as political pundits. A survey released this week about “The American Journalist in the 21st Century” showed that 31 percent of journalists of color believed “developing intellectual and cultural interests of the community” to be “extremely important,” compared with 16 percent of white journalists.
Here is what some columnists of color have been saying:
Pitts: Today’s Culture Is “Selling the Children Out”
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Leonard Pitts Jr. |
“How can this still be true? How in the hell, a lifetime after a little boy in Arkansas pointed to the black doll and said, ‘That’s a nigger . . . I’m a nigger,’ can we still have black children who think black and bad are synonymous?” Leonard Pitts Jr. asked on Monday, after reporting that the doll test still yields the same result.
“Some of us were born of the generation that came of age with a mandate to hurl that thinking back onto history’s trash heap. . . .
“What’s different now is that African Americans are, themselves, often the makers and gatekeepers. And under our aegis, the images have, in many ways, gotten worse.
“To surf the music video channels is to be immersed in black culture as conceived by a new generation, a lionization of pimps and gold diggers, hustlers and thugs who toss the N-word with a gusto that would do the Klan proud.
“A new generation, afflicted with historical amnesia, blind indifference and a worship of filthy lucre, dances a metaphoric buck and wing, eyes rolling, yassuh bossing, selling itself out, selling its forebears out. Most of all, selling the children out.
“And it’s little excuse to say we’re only buying lies we have internalized, lies that become self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Payton: Degradation Is Worse Than ’50s, ’60s
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Brenda Payton |
“We haven’t only regressed in terms of the degradation of young women, we’re worse off. During the repressed ’50s and ’60s, a ‘nice girl’ could slip up and become a ‘bad girl.’ Now, the presumption is all girls are not only bad but they’re prostitutes,” Brenda Payton wrote Thursday in the Oakland Tribune.
“In a curious distortion, the idea of women having self respect has become offensive and man-hating. (I see a parallel with African Americans. If African Americans express pride in their culture and heritage, resisting the negative stereotypes in history and popular culture, they are often accused of being anti-white. In fact I see many parallels between the position of women and African Americans in a society still dominated by white males.)”
- Jabari Asim, washingtonpost.com: Kim Could Use A Lil’ Self-Respect
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Kane: Questions I Should Have Asked Sean Combs
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Gregory Kane |
Gregory Kane, writing Wednesday in the Baltimore Sun about a visit by Sean “Diddy” Combs to a local middle school, noted that Combs’ message that “Y’all need to take responsibility for your own futures” seemed to be “channeling Bill Cosby.”
“But all good things come to an end,” Kane wrote. “Inevitably, a question-and-answer period arrived. Combs let three pupils ask questions. None asked the questions I wanted to ask, because no one wants to have fun anymore. Questions like:
“‘Mr. Diddy, Jamal ‘Shyne’ Barrow says he’s doing a 10-year bit for you as a result of a 1999 nightclub shooting. Any comment?’
“‘Mr. Diddy, do you support the efforts of Voletta Wallace, the mother of the Notorious B.I.G., to sue the Los Angeles Police Department for failing to disclose all it knows about the murders of Christopher Wallace and Tupac Shakur?’
“‘Mr. Diddy, Suge Knight says a cousin of yours killed one of his bodyguards and that you ordered a hit on him. Do you worry about reprisals?'”
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Nagin Called Blend of Farrakhan, Stepin Fetchit
“Perhaps because CBS billed it as the interview where Ray Nagin refers to Ground Zero as a ‘hole in the ground,’ there was no discernible outrage to comments made by an LSU academic who says he’s writing a book about Nagin called ‘An Oreo in Chocolate City,’ ” Jarvis DeBerry wrote Sept. 12 in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, speaking of New Orleans’ mayor.
“But there should have been outrage . . . Isn’t it obvious that mean-spirited intra-racial attacks, such as the Oreo comment, have caused ripples that even to this day threaten the city’s recovery?
“. . . Imagine Nagin not having been constantly hectored to show his racial bonafides. Imagine a certain clergyman with 20,000 parishioners not calling Nagin ‘a white man in black skin.’ Imagine the mayor not overreacting to that comment and countless others with the George Clinton ‘chocolate city’ allusion. Imagine neither New Orleans nor its mayor serving as the rest of the nation’s laughingstock.
“Unfortunately for us, all the above did happen, creating for New Orleans a mayor who somehow manages to be both Louis Farrakhan and [Stepin] Fetchit. He’s at once H. Rap Brown and Ward Connerly, a black man who simultaneously kicks and kisses The Man’s ass.”
- Lawrence Aaron, the Record, Hackensack, N.J.: Katrina victims deserve compensation, too
- Tammy L. Carter, Orlando Sentinel: Rebuild New Orleans — it’s nation’s duty
- Angela Tuck, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Ongoing Katrina coverage vital for survivors, areas
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Columnist Shocked by Smiley’s Call Berating Her
“It’s hard out there for a pimp,” began a column Tuesday by Kerra L. Bolton in the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times.
“That’s the message I got in a voice mail from Tavis Smiley, a national radio and television talk show host.
“He criticized a recent column about the culture of victimhood in the African-American community.
“The verbal spanking consisted largely of: promoting his book, ‘The Covenant with Black America’; criticizing rival Juan Williams, whose book ‘Enough’ I featured in my column; and haranguing me for ‘not doing your homework.’
“Williams said Monday this was the first time he heard of such criticism from Smiley.”
Bolton, who said she was shocked by the call, told Journal-isms, “Smiley said a number of striking things. He criticized me for not mentioning his book, ‘The Covenant’ in my column. He reminded me that it was number one on the NY Times Bestseller List. He also said that his book . . . was the ‘best self-help book for black folks, ever, certainly in modern times.’ Smiley said that Juan Williams’ book, which I briefly mentioned in my column . . . wasn’t going to make it to the top of the NY Times list because ‘Enough’ ‘demonizes black people’.
“I did not return Smiley’s phone call,” she continued. “I thought it unprofessional of him to call me on a Saturday, leave a negative message on my voicemail and expect me to call him back. I answered Smiley in my column because that’s where his problems with me originated.”
Smiley’s paperback, published Jan. 1, has sold almost 10 times as many copies as Williams’ hardcover, out only since Aug. 1. The authoritative Nielsen BookScan, which tallies sales from a network of retailers, reports sales to date of 151,000 for Smiley’s book and 16,000 for Williams’.
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New Buffalo Mayor’s “PR Tool”: A Gag Order
“It’s as if the Dalai Lama‘s visit has inspired a new PR tool: If a body falls on a street corner and police won’t talk about it, is there a sound?” Buffalo News columnist Rod Watson wrote on Thursday.
Watson was referring to two developments there: a visit by the Dalai Lama, and an order by Buffalo’s first black mayor, Byron W. Brown, that only top-level city officials be allowed to release information to reporters.
“It’s probably no coincidence that the new procedures have had the most impact in the public safety arena as the city battles image-sullying arsons and a potentially record-setting pace of homicides,” Watson wrote. “Information about murders has been delayed or reported without police insights because cops who could be contacted weren’t allowed to talk.”
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Ask This: “What Would God Think About Torture?”
“We shouldn’t have to talk about the practicalities of torture, because the real question is moral: What kind of nation are we? What kind of people are we?” Eugene Robinson wrote Tuesday in the Washington Post.
“What do you imagine God might think about torture, Mr. President?”
- Stanley Crouch, New York Daily News: U.S. must rise above the enemy’s barbarism
- Bob Herbert, New York Times: The Kafka Strategy
- Bob Herbert, New York Times: The Torture of Liberty
- Ana Menendez, Miami Herald: Detainee plans undermine ideals we hold dearest
- Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Fear, not terror, threatens our way of life
- DeWayne Wickham, USA Today: McCain knows firsthand need to limit torture rules
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Columnist Sees “a Sorry Situation for the Pope”
Pope Benedict XVI‘s apology for his comments on Muslims “wouldn’t satisfy any woman I know,” Tony Norman wrote Tuesday in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “That’s why it doesn’t surprise me that hundreds of millions of Muslims have cast aside the peaceful dictates of their religion to shake their fists at someone who knows as little about them as they do about him.
Benedict had quoted Manuel II Palaeologus, a 14th-century Byzantine emperor, as saying that the prophet Muhammad brought “only evil and inhuman” things to the world.
“Without arguing the merits or demerits of Palaeologus’ text, Pope Benedict would have been better off if he’d simply done what every husband who wants to stay married does when an argument escalates—grovel. Say you’re sorry without qualifying the apology with weasly rationalizations.”
His column was headlined, “A Sorry Situation for the Pope.”
- Deborah Mathis, BlackAmericaWeb.com Before Riling the World, the Pope—and Bush—Should Consider Choosing Words Wisely
- Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Getting reasonable about faith
- Rose Russell, Toledo Blade: Pope’s intent is to foster civility
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Researcher Unhappy With Piece on Sex Vacations
Jewel Woods, a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan, isn’t happy with the way his work was used in an article in the September issue of Essence magazine on black men who take sex vacations in Brazil, according to Sam Fulwood, writing Thursday in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
“As a part of his studies examining the attitudes and behaviors of middle-class men, Woods learned that an estimated 2,000 professional black men go to Brazil annually to have sex with native women. Some even organize groups for sex vacations,” Fulwood wrote.
“The Essence story is more about sex, and my work is about the men and why they do what they do,” Woods said in Fulwood’s column. “That’s the difference between an academic study and a sensational story.”
Fulwood continued: “For most of the decade after graduating in 1993 from Oberlin College with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, Woods has worked as a community organizer to help troubled men – mostly black and often physically abusive men – to turn their lives around.
“He said he returned to college for dual doctorates in sociology and social work because he realized he needed the academic tools to do critical analysis on issues affecting black professional men.
“Those issues, he said, include explaining why there’s such a paucity of black men on college campuses and why there seems to be a growing tension between professional black men and black women.
“‘The most pervasive and insidious trend in black male professional life is the total erasure of black professional male identity in American society,’ he said. ‘If an agenda aimed at getting black men more connected with the mainstream is to happen, what exactly are we asking black men to become?’
“Since serious questions like that went untouched in the Essence article, Woods feels compelled to rescue his scholarship from the distracting maelstrom of media and pop culture.”
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Short Takes
- A federal judge said Thursday that ordering San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams to prison for as long as a year and a half was his only hope of pressuring them into revealing their sources of confidential grand jury testimony about star athletes’ use of steroids, Bob Egelko reported today in the San Francisco Chronicle.
- “The Tribune Company said last night that it would consider selling any or all of its 11 newspapers and 25 television stations, a move that could reshape the media landscape. The properties include The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Baltimore Sun,” Katharine Q. Seelye reported today in the New York Times. Columnist Stan Simpson wrote today in the Tribune-owned Hartford Courant, “The best way out of this mess is to sell the Times and – gulp – most of its newspapers, including The Courant.”
- E.J. Mitchell, transferred this week from editor of the Nashville Tennessean to executive editor of the Courier-Post in Camden/Cherry Hill, N.J., “presided over what was perhaps the most prolific era of defection in the history of the newspaper,” according to Liz Garrigan, writing Thursday in the alternative Nashville Scene. “Though he was known for his amicable and good-natured newsroom involvement elsewhere, it wasnâ??t his hallmark in Nashville. He didnâ??t endear himself to staffers at 1100 Broadway, many of whom never even met him during his 21 months there,” Garrigan wrote.
- “Today Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will sit for an exclusive conversation with television and radio host Tavis Smiley,” Public Radio International announced today. “Itâ??s the only interview Mr. Chavez is granting with the U.S. English speaking broadcast media. The conversation will air on ‘Tavis Smiley’ on PBS on Friday night, as well as this weekend on ‘The Tavis Smiley Show’ radio program distributed by PRI.”
- Askia Muhammad wrote from the Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana Thursday that “the ‘Black Power’ Movement in the United States is conspicuously absent! . . . There was one Black American television network correspondent [Russ Mitchell of CBS], and another Black American freelance TV camera operator working for a satellite news channel, and there was our contingent of reporter, photographer, and video camera operator, representing the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhanâ??s newspaper, The Final Call. Thatâ??s it. Period. No other Blacks from the United States. Period. Although 118 countries were represented, 55 by heads of state, heads of government, or prime ministers,” Muhammad wrote in the Washington Informer.
- A 4,237-word piece by Max Blumenthal in the Oct. 9 edition of The Nation portrays the Washington Times and its leaders as racist. Of Managing Editor Francis Coombs, it says, “Countering the ‘feel-good perspective’ on race appears to be Coombs’s passion. George Archibald told me that when he showed Coombs a photo of his nephew’s African-American girlfriend, Coombs ‘went off like a rocket about interracial marriage and how terrible it was. He actually used the phrase “the niggerfication of America.” He said, ‘Not in my lifetime. If my daughter went out with a black, I would cut her throat.’ Marlene Johnson, the former Times arts section editor and an African-American . . . told me, ‘That just shows what a racist Fran is.’ . . . Johnson said that while at the Times, she was given an order from [editor Wesley] Pruden, delivered to her by Coombs, to stop doing ‘so many black stories.'”
- “In an age when minorities are gaining positions of power throughout American culture, the ranks of head coaches in intercollegiate football remain an enduring bastion of racial separation,” the Boston Globe’s Bob Hohler wrote Thursday in a “Globe special report.” The story ran a day before the Black Coaches Association annual hiring report (PDF).
- “On Sept. 19, 2005, I surrendered to total sobriety,” columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. wrote Thursday in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “Tuesday was my one-year anniversary. The journey hasn’t been easy.”
- An exhibit of the work of Mpozi Mshale Tolbert, the Indianapolis Star photographer who died in July at the newspaper, will be on display from Saturday until Oct. 21 at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art. Determination of Tolbert’s cause of death is still awaiting a toxicology report, the Marion County coroner’s office told Journal-isms on Thursday.
- Lovell Beaulieu is in his sixth week as opinion page editor of the Hattiesburg (Miss.) American, which has a one-person opinion section. Beaulieu, 51, was North Lake bureau chief of the Gary (Ind.) Post-Tribune.
- “The Miami Herald, which fired three reporters who took money for appearing on the anti-Castro broadcasts Radio and TV Marti, is feeling a backlash for its actions,” Greg Allen reported today on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”
- For those who were wondering, Dori J. Maynard, president of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, is keeping her name. Maynard, 48, was married Sept. 11 to Charles Lewis, 58, an architect.