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Two Races of Blacks?

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Whatever Angle You Choose, It’s Not Good News

 

 

“African Americans see a widening gulf between the values of middle class and poor blacks, and nearly four-in-ten say that because of the diversity within their community, blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race,” according to a study released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.

Of course, the word “race” is problematic, as the study is actually speaking only of blacks in the United States, who are a minority of blacks worldwide. But Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center, told Journal-isms that that was the language that worked best in focus groups.

The conclusion about a widening class gulf was only one drawn from the survey, which was conducted with National Public Radio.

The Associated Press led its story with, “Growing numbers of blacks say they’re worse off than five years ago and don’t expect their lives to improve, a study released Tuesday shows. Black pessimism about racial progress in America, according to the study, is the worst it’s been in more than two decades.”

On her “Latina Lista” blog, Marisa Treviño chose another angle:

“The most telling piece of data sheds light on how far removed Whites are from issues that impact Blacks and Latinos disproportionately,” she wrote. “It has to do with evaluating problems in local communities.”

Almost simultaneously, the Economic Mobility Project released another troubling racial report.

“Blacks born into the middle class in the late 1960s are far more likely than whites to earn less than their parents, a new study of economic mobility has found,” Greg Ip wrote Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal.

“The study examined how children born in the late 1960s fared in the late 1990s and early 2000s. . . . ‘Economic success in the parental generation . . . does not appear to protect black children from future economic adversity the same way it protects white children,’ the study’s author, Julia Isaacs, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, writes in the report.”

Taylor said the Pew Research Center was “overdue” for a survey of African Americans, which had been on its “to-do” list. Juan Williams, senior correspondent at National Public Radio, prompted the center to proceed, he said.

 

When the survey was released, Williams wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, which appeared on Wednesday, and reported the story, including sound bites from African Americans to illustrate its conclusion, the same day on NPR’s “Morning Edition.”

“It’s really stunning, Steve,” Williams said to host Steve Inskeep. “It’s 37 percent of African-Americans say that blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race. Now, young lower-income black people are more likely to say this than upper income black people. But what you get is nearly 40 percent of lower income blacks saying that they have little or no values in common between the poor and middle class black communities in the United States. And the perception of a class divide here has grown since the question was last asked in a poll in 1986.”

“So when large numbers of black Americans say they don’t think there’s just one race there anymore, they’re not really talking about skin color; they’re talking about values and economics?” Inskeep asked.

“Exactly,” responded Williams. “What we’re talking about is things like work ethic and education.”

Inskeep alluded to Williams’ controversial book of last year, “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America — and What We Can Do About It.” Williams wrote a “news analysis” on the NPR Web site that repeated some of the themes of the book.

“Juan, this is really interesting,” Inskeep said on the air, “because of course Bill Cosby got a lot of publicity in recent years making statements that poor people in many cases— or kids in particular — should be more responsible and pull themselves up. He was criticized for blaming the victims in a sense. You wrote about that. Many other people wrote about that. It sounds like Cosby’s side seems to be winning the argument based on these numbers.”

Williams replied, “Yeah. In fact, in the poll, there is a rating of major black Americans and Cosby comes out near the top. And down at the bottom are people like 50 Cent, the rapper; you know, only 17 percent of black Americans approve of him and what he does. And it’s striking because obviously young people who are more likely to listen to rap and participate in the hip-hop culture, they’re the most critical of people like 50 Cent and highly laudatory of the Bill Cosbys, Oprah Winfreys of the world.”

On another NPR show, “Tell Me More,” with Michel Martin, Roger Wilkins, the history professor at George Mason University, former editorial writer at the New York Times and Washington Post, and publisher of the NAACP’s magazine the Crisis, said the concept of class among blacks is as old as house slaves vs. field slaves.

“Most of the academics who look at the issue of race, sociologists, geneticists, say that race is an artificial social construct. So that the idea that we’re kind of starting to get another race rather than Americans who are in a different situation that needs to be addressed, is a little alarming,” Wilkins said.

“Moreover, what they’re looking at in the poll is the divergence between blacks of different economic classes as if that’s something new.

“Back in slavery times, you know, there was the house slaves and the field slaves. And later, there was — in Charleston and other places, there were the color distinctions.

“If you were . . . darker than a paper bag, you couldn’t get into a certain social functions. But there never was a sense that somehow there were other races.”

Wilkins seemed troubled by the finding that “A 53% majority of African Americans say that blacks who don’t get ahead are mainly responsible for their situation, while just three-in-ten say discrimination is mainly to blame.”

“Well, there are two ways to look at that,” he said. “Of course, you’re responsible for your personal behavior, but if you are raised in a single-parent household that has terrible money problems, is in a terrible part of town and you go to a terrible school, it’s pretty hard to come out of that kind of circumstance with a hard, clear will that would make it possible for you to climb out of the pit that you were born into. And that’s what’s happening.

“Now, would it be better if poor people acted more like middle-class people? Yeah. But the fact is that economic circumstances do have a lot to do with things, including single parenthood.”

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Non-Journalists to Lead Pew Hispanic Center

A journalist will not succeed Roberto Suro, founding director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a leading research organization on Latino issues, Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center, told Journal-isms on Wednesday.

 

Suro, a former reporter for the Washington Post and New York Times, left the six-year-old organization for the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication, where he started in August as a professor of journalism. “We started off looking for a journalist,” Taylor, himself a former Washington Post reporter, said. But he was unable to arrange it.

Joining the organization will be Susan Minushkin, a professor with Mexico’s Center for Economic Investigation and Teaching, as deputy director, and Mark Lopez, research assistant professor, at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, as assistant director. For the time being, Taylor said he would keep the title of acting director of the Hispanic Center.

Suro was not the only journalist to depart. Gabriel Escobar, who became associate director for publications after leaving the Post, where he was city editor, became metropolitan editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer in June.

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Imus Getting Guests, Cable, but Maybe Not Ad Rates

“Many of Mr. Imus’ big-name guests from the worlds of politics and media appear ready to welcome him back with open arms, unconcerned about the inevitable charges that by returning to the scene of the crime, they’re accessories to buddy-buddy bigotry,” Felix Gillette wrote of disgraced radio host Don Imus in the New York Observer.

James Carville, the former aide to Bill Clinton, and “not a man known for turning down opportunities for publicity — told The Observer that he’s already locked in as a guest on Mr. Imus’ first day back,” Gillette wrote in Wednesday’s edition.

Meanwhile, Jacques Steinberg confirmed in the New York Times on Wednesday that, “On Dec. 3, when he returns not only to radio but also to television, it will be on RFD-TV, a cable and satellite channel that caters to farmers, ranchers and equestrians, as well as others who merely aspire to live a small-town life.”

Additionally, MediaWeek reported, “According to ad agency executives, there will likely be a [roster] of Imus advertisers if, as expected, his previous audience tunes in to his new program. But some buyers also say WABC won’t be able to command prices anywhere near as high as CBS outlet WFAN did before the host was fired” after his statement calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed ho’s.”

“‘That’s the fallout in all this,’ said Dennis McGuire, vp, regional spot director for Aegis Group’s Carat. ‘He’s being given another chance, but he’s not going to command the [price] premiums he once did.’

“Sprint had been a sponsor of the old program but pulled out after the Rutgers incident, citing the offensiveness of the comments at the time,” Steve McClellan’s story continued. “Last week a rep said Sprint would not support the new Imus show, but declined to comment further.

“General Motors, by contrast, will evaluate the new program, ‘just like we would evaluate any other media purchases,’ a company rep said.

“Nutrition company Chef’s Diet also pulled out last spring to protest the host’s comments, but is currently considering sponsoring the new program, said Daniel Taugher, the company’s assistant advertising and marketing director. ‘We believe he has redeemed himself through his apologies,’ said Taugher, and the final decision won’t be based on ‘any personal reservations we have with Mr. Imus.'”

According to Phil Boyce, WABC’s operations manager for the past couple of weeks since the deal was reached, “Imus, has been micromanaging every facet of the soon-to-launch program, from the sound of the jingles to the look of the clock, to the frequency and timing of the commercial breaks,” Gillette wrote in the Observer.

While the New Yorker’s Ken Auletta, Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page and Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review, are quoted as saying they would return to Imus’ show if asked, a spokeswoman for Newsweek confirmed that the magazine’s policy against participating in the Imus show, announced in April, remains.

“Over the years, a number of Newsweek staffers and contributors — including [editor] Jon Meacham, editor-at-large Evan Thomas, and columnists Jonathan Alter and Anna Quindlen— have been regular Imus guests,” Gillette reported.

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Fox D.C. Station Starts African American Web Site

WTTG-TV, the Fox-owned station in Washington, on Monday launched a Web site devoted to African American issues, the first station in the Fox chain to do so.

“We’re looking to deepen the amount of Internet-driven content that we produce,” Duffy Dyer, WTTG vice president and general manager, told Journal-isms on Wednesday, “and not necessarily duplicate what’s already out there. What makes our local community unique and different is the sizable, highly educated African American community in this region, and when you see what local Web sites are targeting that particular” demographic, “We didn’t come up with any at all,” Dyer said.

The Washington Post reported in September that, according to census figures, “when compared with other affluent major metropolitan areas, Washington ranks first in median income among blacks and non-Hispanic whites, and the region’s Hispanics and Asians rank second.

“In the Washington area, the overall median household income is $78,978. Non-Hispanic whites in the region have a median household income of $94,290, but the figure drops to $83,908 for Asians, $58,945 for Hispanics and $55,547 for blacks.”

Dyer said Fox stations in other markets are appealing to particular interests in their communities: Milwaukee has a Harley-Davidson motorcycle site and others are targeting faith-based viewers.

Down the line the station might pay for articles, Dyer said. It might also target other ethnic groups, though he said developing a site for Latinos, who come from a number of countries, would be more problematic.

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Minn. Web Site Aims at Serious Local Journalism

“The first lead story on MinnPost.com, a new daily news site, is a 1,400-word report on the Minnesota Democratic Party’s finances,” Patrick Condon wrote Sunday for the Associated Press.

“It’s not the kind of flashy tidbit guaranteed to goose online traffic. But flash isn’t the idea at MinnPost, a venture staffed mostly by recent casualties of newspaper downsizing.

“MinnPost, led by a former Minneapolis Star Tribune publisher and editor, Joel Kramer, is aiming at the small audience they believe is thirsting for substantive local journalism. The site’s staffers say that kind of work is on the decline, and they blame it on cost-cutting as the industry faces dwindling circulation and ad revenue.”

 

Kramer told Journal-isms that all the writing on the site is by freelancers. Three men and three women, all white, serve as editors, but two black journalists, Roxane Battle, former anchor and reporter at KARE-TV, and Delma Francis, a features reporter at the Star Tribune who took a buyout in June, are among the four dozen who have contributed pieces, he said. The site says Francis “will report on education, children and families, faith and values, and other topics.” and that Battle “covers the various communities within the Twin Cities area.

“A paper version of MinnPost is being distributed free in select areas of Minneapolis and St. Paul, as Kramer said focus groups showed some older readers were more likely to read it on a printed page.”

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Social Network to Accompany Beat Reporters

“Maybe a beat reporter could do a way better job if there was a ‘live’ social network connected to the beat, made up of people who know the territory the beat covers, and want the reporting on that beat to be better,” Jay Rosen of New York University announced on his Presslink blog on Nov. 1.

On Wednesday he had this update: “Two weeks ago I said that NewAssignment.Net’s third major project— after Assignment Zero and OffTheBus.Net— will be Beatblogging.org.

“My idea was to run parallel experiments to see whether ‘beat reporting with a social network’ is a viable pro-am method in journalism? or just an attractive concept.

“I said I was trying to recruit at least 12 beat reporters and get their editors on board with a simple proposition . . .

“I felt the only way to find out was to try it for a year, with different beats in different locales and different editorial settings. Now I’m back to announce that twelve beat reporters— and their editors, plus the bosses above them— have agreed to do just that.”

Among the 12 are Keith Reed, who just joined the Cincinnati Enquirer from the Boston Globe, reporting on Procter & Gamble; and Tawnell Hobbs of the Dallas Morning News, who will be on the Dallas public schools beat with Kent Fischer.

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