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Journal-isms Jan 27 2014

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Morrie Turner, Pioneer Comic Strip Creator, Dies at 90

“Morris ‘Morrie’ Turner, the creator of the Wee Pals comic strip and the first African American artist to have a column syndicated nationally, has died,” KTVU-TV in Oakland, Calif., reported Sunday. “He was 90.

“A spokesman for Turner said the Oakland-born artist died peacefully at a hospital in Sacramento on Saturday.

“Turner developed the ethnically diverse comic strip in 1965 at the urging of his mentor Charles Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts comic strip.

“He was recognized in 2003 by the National Cartoonist Society for his work with the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award. . . .”

Turner’s “Wee Pals” did not achieve national syndication until after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Three strips about black children — adults were deemed too threatening — found national audiences then: “Wee Pals,” Brumsic Brandon Jr.’s “Luther” and Ted Shearer’s “Quincy.” “Wee Pals” was the last to survive.

Joseph Hughes added for the Comics Alliance, “Turner never retired from cartooning, illustrating new Wee Pals strips even as his health declined, while also regularly visiting schools to offer art lessons to children. This bio page of Turner sums up his goal with Wee Pals rather succinctly: ‘It was Morrie’s intention to portray a world without prejudice, a world in which people’s differences — race, religion, gender, and physical and mental ability — are cherished, not scorned.’ Wee Pals was a charming strip with a diverse cast, but it didn’t go out of its way to point out its diversity. Turner created a strip that treated cultural diversity exactly how it should be treated: like it is a perfectly normal thing.”

Beating of Arts Journalist Investigated by Hate Crimes Unit

“Police are investigating the beating of an openly gay journalist in Midtown Manhattan last week as a possible bias attack,” Dray Clark reported Monday for WABC-TV in New York.

“Now, a sketch has been released of the person police are looking for.

“The hate crimes task force is investigating the attack on Randy Gener, is a Filipino-American editor, writer, and artist.

“On January 17, he was attacked in Midtown, a block away from his apartment. He had just left a party around 4 a.m. and was on his way home near 54th and 7th Avenue — that is where he crossed paths with his attackers who beat him and left him for dead in the street.

“Gener’s family and friends held a vigil Sunday at 7th Avenue and 53rd Street, and they are asking for the public’s help in finding his attacker. Another vigil will be held Monday at 7 p.m. at the Philippines Center on Fifth Avenue.

“After the attack, police were called, and Gener was found unconscious in a pool of his own blood with his head bashed in.

“Gener suffered severe head trauma and is currently in intensive care recovering from brain surgery at St. Luke’s Hospital. He’s listed in serious but stable condition.

” ‘He can’t answer the questions of what happened that night, he doesn’t really exactly know who we are or where he’s at sometimes,’ said Gener’s sister, Jessica Blair Driessler, ‘and it’s really painful to see him here the way that he is because he’s the most articulate person.’ . . .”

Jay Smooth, explains the “Moving the Race Conversation Forward” report. Smooth is the under of New York’s longest running hip-hop radio show, WBAI’s “Underground Railroad.” (Video)

Individual Racism, Not Systemic, Gets Media’s Attention

“Two-thirds of race-focused media coverage fails to consider how systemic racism factors into the story, instead typically focusing upon racial slurs and other types of personal prejudice and individual-level racism,” according to Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation.

The center Wednesday named “Seven harmful racial discourse practices, which reinforce the common misconception that racism is simply a problem of rare, isolated, individual attitudes and actions: Individualizing Racism, Falsely Equating Incomparable Acts, Diverting From Race, Portraying Government as Overreaching, Prioritizing (Policy) Intent over Impact, Condemning Through Coded Language, and Silencing History . . . “

Race Forward publishes the Colorlines website. Researchers analyzed nearly 1,200 newspaper articles and transcripts from cable TV outlets.

Fusion Network Covering State of Union With Puppets

“When President Obama delivers his State of the Union address Tuesday evening, NBC News will trot out Brian Williams to anchor its coverage,” Brian Steinberg reported Monday for variety. “Fox News Channel will rely on Bret Baier. PBS will feature Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill. But Fusion, the upstart news-and-lifestyle cable outlet, will make use of two bickering crabs and a talking hot dog.

“In a maneuver sure to raise eyebrows, Fusion, a joint venture of Univision and ABC News that launched in October, will veer from the traditional when offering coverage of the President’s annual agenda-setting speech. Rather than give the spotlight to Jorge Ramos or Leon Krauze, two veteran news anchors who occupy important slots in its primetime schedule, Fusion will instead count on the talents of a group of puppets, and the comedic minds who fill their mouths with speech. . . .”

Imprisoned Journalist Says Egypt Wants to Stifle Dissent

“Australian-born Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste, who has been imprisoned in Egypt for four weeks, says his arrest is designed to send a message to all journalists covering Egypt that dissent will not be tolerated,” Anne Davies reported Sunday for Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald.

“In an emotional letter which he sent from Tora jail, on the outskirts of Cairo, where he is being held, Mr Greste said he had decided to speak out in defence of the fundamental right of freedom of the press, having realised that his arrest was not due to a mistake but a deliberate campaign by the government.

“Greste and two producers, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, are accused of collaborating with a terrorist organisation [the Muslim Brotherhood], of hosting Muslim Brotherhood meetings in their hotel rooms, of using unlicensed equipments to deliberately broadcast false information to further their aims of defaming and discrediting the Egyptian state.

“Mr Greste said the Egyptian Government had presented no evidence to support the allegations and he had not been formally charged with any crime. . . .”

Reporter Barely Escapes Alive After Posing as Sex Worker

“For four months last year, Tobore Ovuorie, 33, senior investigative reporter with the PREMIUM TIMES Nigeria, went undercover in that country’s human traffic circles. Before taking that step, she had researched the rise and causes of human traffic in Nigeria for years,” the Premium Times reported on Friday.

” ‘Six out of every trafficked persons arriving in the West are Nigerian’, she says. ‘So we need to look at what causes all these, mostly young, people to put their fate in the hands of these criminals.’ What she noted throughout is that many women will go willingly into prostitution hoping to escape from poverty. To many of these women, leaving Nigeria for sex work elsewhere seems a beckoning prospect. Going abroad is known as ‘the next level’ Ovuorie pretended to be desperate for the trip as documented in her report, published in her own paper, PREMIUM TIMES, as well as ZAM Chronicle.

“Ovuorie decided that to go undercover inside such a transport destined for this ‘next level’ was the missing piece of the puzzle. She wanted to tell the story of the many women who leave, often never to return. What happens to you after you cross the border? What do the traffickers do once you decide to ‘sign the contract’ with them?

“Ovuorie found that out in the most horrific way: by witnessing two fellow trafficked ‘products’ being beheaded and slaughtered in front of her. She herself barely escaped alive from the ‘training camp’ where her group was taken to be sorted into a group for travelling onwards and a group of ‘unsuitables’. The ‘unsuitables’ were deemed to be possessed by demons: they were sent to be treated by voodoo doctors and beaten.

“Ovuorie was one of them. . . .”

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