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Racism Underplayed as Election Factor

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16% of Pa. White Democrats Say Race Matters

Tucked toward the end of an analysis of Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary, Adam Nagourney of the New York Times wrote on Wednesday:

 

 

“The results of the exit poll, conducted at 40 precincts across Pennsylvania by Edison/Mitofsky for the television networks and The Associated Press, also found stark evidence that Mr. Obama’s race could be a problem in the general election.

“Sixteen percent of white voters said race mattered in deciding who they voted for, and just 54 percent of those voters said they would support Mr. Obama in a general election; 27 percent of them said they would vote for Mr. McCain if Mr. Obama was the Democratic nominee, and 16 percent said they would not vote at all.”

The poll sampled 2,217 Democratic primary voters. The references were, of course, to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who lost the primary to Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. — the total stood Wednesday at 54.7 percent to 45.3 percent — and the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

On the Politico.com site, Mike Allen wrote:

“Once again, exit polls OVERSTATED Senator Obama’s vote, showing a 3- or 4-point margin for Clinton, when it wound up being 10. Fox called the race for her 45 minutes after the polls closed, and AP and the other networks quickly followed.”

The two items raise this question: Are the news media paying enough attention to the role of racism in the presidential election campaign?

Sure, there has been attention to race, and many stories are noting Clinton’s successes with white working-class voters and with white women, and Obama’s with African Americans, young people and the college-educated.

But that’s not the same as discussing raw racism.

Early in the campaign, there was discussion of the “Tom Bradley effect”: that many whites would say they would vote for the black candidate but choose a white one in the privacy of the voting booth, as happened in the former Los Angeles mayor’s race for California governor in the 1980s. That phenomenon was discounted this year as Obama piled up wins in majority-white states.

So what is one to make now of exit polls overstating Obama’s vote? Based on exit polls, the networks initially declared the contest too close too call. Only later was the overstatement — or dishonesty — apparent.

Those polls also showed, once again, that “late-deciding voters” chose Clinton.

A California reader to the Politico Web site wrote this a few days ago:

“I have a theory that the reason pollsters are finding so many ‘undecideds’ this late in the game in PA is that they are people who don’t feel comfortable saying to a presumed liberal PC pollster that they plan to vote for Hillary (instead of the black candidate) and so they say they are ‘undecided.’ Then when Hillary wins by a bigger margin than the polls predicted, pundits will say the undecideds ‘broke for Hillary’ on the day of the election. But the truth is they were for her all along, but not willing to say so to pollsters for fear of being looked down upon. You might call it the ‘”undecided” Bradley effect.'”

The reader was commenting on a piece by Roger Simon that noted, “An AP-Yahoo poll conducted April 2-14 found that ‘about 8 percent of whites would be uncomfortable voting for a black for president.'” That’s the percentage who actually said that to the pollster.

Simon quoted a “prominent Republican” saying that Obama’s race was the most important issue McCain had going. “Race. McCain runs against Barack Obama and the race vote is worth maybe 15 percent to McCain,” this Republican said.

Some news reports did take note of this elephant in the room.

Back in February, Tony Norman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette caused a stir when he quoted Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell’s comments at a Post-Gazette editorial board meeting.

“‘You’ve got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate,’ he said bluntly,” Norman wrote.

On Tuesday, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote about the declining town of McKeesport, Pa.

“On the river bank, Andrew Carnegie’s mills have fallen silent. The corrugated metal ones are rusting. An old brick one, from 1906, still says ‘National Tube Company.’ But the loss of industrial jobs here has turned downtown McKeesport into a place for repo lots and pawnshops (‘Cash ’til Payday’) and nonprofits caring for the elderly.

“It’s enough to make anybody bitter — and some of that is directed at Obama. ‘I think he just wants to be president because he’s black,’ said Tim Hetrick, smoking a cigarette as he waited for a bus among the crumbling structures of downtown McKeesport. A Democrat, he’s thinking about voting for McCain in November.”

Ironically, Obama’s closed-door statement that small-town people who were “bitter” over government indifference to their economic fortunes began with him denying that the resentment was racially motivated: “Because everybody just ascribes it to ‘white working-class don’t wanna work — don’t wanna vote for the black guy.’ That’s…there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today — kind of implies that it’s sort of a race thing.”

There is no doubt that racism will play an ongoing role in the campaign. The question is how much attention it will receive.

MSNBC’s Web site reported on Wednesday: “This morning, NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann reports, the North Carolina GOP will unveil a 30-second ad that attacks Democratic gubernatorial candidates Beverly Perdue and Richard Moore for their endorsements of Obama. The ad, per the party, will reference ‘controversial figures from Barack Obama’s past’ and raise the question of the candidates’ ‘judgment’ in supporting him.

“The ad will be unveiled at an 11:00 am press conference. So far, the Democratic gubernatorial campaigns say that they have not yet seen it and declined to comment before knowing the content. But it’s anticipated by Democratic bigs in the state that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright will play a starring role.”

Dann later reported that the Republican National Committee said it had been in contact with the North Carolina GOP, urging it to refrain from running the “Extreme” ad. McCain did the same. However, the ad was introduced anyway.

The North Carolina primary is May 6.

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Davan Maharaj Named L.A. Times Managing Editor

Davan Maharaj, business editor at the Los Angeles Times, was promoted Wednesday to managing editor, making him one of the highest ranking ethnic South Asians in U.S. daily journalism.

 

Maharaj, 45, is a Trinidadian whose great-grandparents came from northern India.

He assumes oversight of the foreign, national, metro, business, science and sports coverage, and will work alongside Editor Russ Stanton and newly promoted Executive Editor John Arthur in deploying journalists and resources and overseeing personnel decisions, an announcement said. He is also charged with further integrating the print and Web story pipelines, the Times said.

When Maharaj was promoted from business reporter to business editor in February 2007, the South Asian Journalists Association said he was perhaps best known for his 2004 series about the poorest people in Africa, “Living on Pennies.” He narrates a presentation about the series on the Times Web site.

“He’s such an outstanding choice, I wish I was back at the L.A. Times,” Gayle Pollard-Terry, a former Times editorial writer and real estate reporter who took a buyout last year, told Journal-isms.

The promotions of Maharaj and Arthur, who had been managing editor, are part of an editorial restructuring by Stanton, the paper said.

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6 Million Watched Cable News Channels on Tuesday

“The Pennsylvania primary steered more than six million viewers to the cable news channels on Tuesday night, lifting CNN and MSNBC to rare wins over the Fox News Channel in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic, Brian Stelter reported on the New York Times Web site.

“CNN won the night in the demographic with an average of 805,000 viewers in prime time. MSNBC had 641,000 and Fox News had 556,000. CNN’s viewership peaked during the 10 p.m. hour with 910,000 viewers in the demo.

“Overall, the cable networks saw roughly twice as many viewers as they do on normal nights.”

Most, if not all of the maps on the cable shows put Texas in the Hillary Clinton column, but as Gromer Jeffers Jr. explained Wednesday in the Dallas Morning News, “Texas Democrats are still in the process of allocating about a third of their delegates to the national convention, with a final decision to come at the state party’s gathering in June.

“Hillary Rodham Clinton won the overall popular vote in the March 4 primary, earning 65 delegates to Barack Obama’s 61. But 67 other delegates are determined by conventions at the precinct, county and state levels.

“Mr. Obama has had more delegates at each of the first two steps, putting him on track to win more delegates overall once the state convention is complete.”

Essence, Warner Bros. Team to Re-Launch Web Site

“Time Warner Inc.’s latest synergy effort capitalizes on one of the fastest-growing online markets: African-American women,” Kira Bindrim reported Monday for Craig’s New York Business.

“The company on Monday said its Warner Bros. Television Group and Essence Communications Inc., publisher of Essence magazine, are teaming up to expand the Essence brand and re-launch the magazine¹s Essence.com Web site this summer.

“The revamped site will include daily entertainment news, Essence content, multimedia applications and community boards, with contributions from Warner’s Telepictures Productions, the television studio behind entertainment-related shows such as Extra. The goal: to make Essence.com a one-stop shop for news and discussion that appeals directly to African-American women.

“Executives at Essence and Telepictures say the collaboration was not a grand design by Time Warner, but based on joint interests. The venture’s first project will be Extra on Essence, an online digital series for Essence.com hosted by Extra correspondent Tanika Ray, who will also adopt other duties for the site, including blogging. In addition, Extra will begin contributing daily entertainment news content to Essence.com.

“According to projections from the Selig Center for Economic Growth, African-Americans will spend $1.1 trillion in 2011, up from $799 billion in 2006.”

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Ousted Rebecca Aguilar Takes Case to EEOC

Dallas television reporter Rebecca Aguilar, dropped http://www.maynardije.org/columns/dickprince/080306_prince/by Fox station KDFW-TV in March after complaints that she was too

 

 

aggressive in an October interview, has filed a discrimination charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, her lawyer announced on Wednesday.

“I’m confident the EEOC will uncover what our investigation has unveiled. Fox 4 wanted my client to advocate change in the community through her reports, but to keep silent in improving working conditions in the newsroom,” attorney Steve Kardell said in his announcement.

He said his investigation showed that Aguilar did nothing wrong when KDFW management suspended her in October. He said Aguilar conducted more than 6,000 interviews in 14 years at the Fox owned-and-operated station.

Aguilar was named 2007 Broadcast Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

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Luther Jackson Dies, Pioneer at Papers, J-School

Luther P. Jackson Jr., the first African American professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and one of the first black journalists at the old Newark Evening News and at the Washington Post, died in the Bronx, N.Y., on Tuesday at age 83. He had Parkinson’s disease.

“A community activist wherever he lived, Luther followed closely in the footsteps of his parents: Luther Porter Jackson, head of the history department at Virginia State and Johnnella Frazer Jackson, assistant professor of music at Virginia State and organist at the Gillfield Baptist Church of Petersburg. Both parents were civil rights activists,” a son, Luther P. Jackson III, executive officer of the San Jose Newspaper Guild, wrote.

 

 

“A life member of the NAACP and a leader in the New York chapter of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Luther also researched and wrote about historical black towns in the U.S. including Boley, Oklahoma, and Mound Bayou, Mississippi. He also shared with everyone his passions for education, history, community service, social justice, integrity and jazz (especially Duke Ellington).”

Veteran journalist Dorothy Gilliam, a board member of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, recalled that Jackson and Wallace Terry were the only two black journalists at the Post when she arrived in 1961. Jackson covered housing.

“We were so few in the newsroom at the time, and there were issues. We would talk together. He was one of the few people I felt I could share with. He was just a really good, solid reporter. Some of his takes on issues were not always understood, but he worked hard and persevered.” Jackson left the Post in 1963.

After a stint at IBM in Armonk, N.Y., and a Russell Sage Fellowship at Rutgers University, Luther moved on to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he served as professor until his retirement in 1992.

Journalist Lena Williams, who left the New York Times in 2005 after 30 years, said of Jackson, “You couldn’t find a more gentle soul. I had so much respect for this brother.” But Williams, a member of the class of 1973, said Jackson did not always receive the respect he deserved from white students and faculty members. Other faculty “would always look at Luther and say, ‘What were your credentials?’ He had his life experiences. They couldn’t tell me that in an interview it’s good to begin with a smile and say ‘It’s a great day’ ” as a way to break the ice. “He could give you the practical part of journalism. I remembered that. That’s what he did for his students.”

Among other students were Gayle Pollard Terry, who recently retired from the Los Angeles Times; Reginald Stuart, veteran journalist and recruiter, and Karen Gray Houston, reporter at WTTG-TV in Washington.

Born in Chicago, Jackson graduated from Virginia State University and attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina before graduating from Columbia’s School of Journalism in 1951.

Another son, Lee Jackson, U.S. executive director of the European Bank and a former San Francisco investment banker, died in 1996 with Commerce Secretary Ron Brown when their plane slammed into a Croatian mountain. The men were on a mission to bring their business and government expertise to rebuilding the war-torn Balkans, news accounts said at the time.

Visitation will be 9 a.m., Saturday, April 26, followed by a 10 a.m. funeral service at Lee’s Funeral Home, 160 Fisher Ave., White Plains, N.Y.

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Short Takes

 

 

 

 

R. Kelly

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Feedback: Smiley-Obama Dispute Has Precedent

The so-called Tavis Smiley vs. Barack Obama dispute is similar to W.E.B. DuBois vs. Booker T. Washington.

One wanted to acknowledge and accept the power of blackness. The other wanted to quietly become a power, not necessarily black.

How long do we as black folks in America have to quiet our blackness to achieve? It’s a practice we readily assume on our jobs as method to success. I once had a co-worker to tell me to “Stop talking that black stuff.” Everyone else in the world can stand up for and be proud of their herritage but us.

By distancing himself from meetings, events and commitments of the black community, Obama is simply “not talking that black stuff.” Tavis seems to think that he should, and to get our vote I agree with Tavis. Tavis begs the question, “What about us?”

Zedrick D. Barber
West Palm Beach, Fla.
April 22, 2008

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