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“Negro Cocaine Fiend” Stories Echo Today

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Author Says Articles Helped Shape Modern Drug Policy

In O’Reilly vs. Obama, Who Really Won?

Super Bowl Highest Rated Show in U.S. Television History

ABC Hires Maria Shiavocampo as New York-Based Reporter

Chronicle Staffer Tells Blacks Not to Move to San Francisco

Where Are Monuments to Black Heroes of Reconstruction?

With 2014 Hollywood Issue Cover, Vanity Fair Gets It

“Scandal” Creator “a Little Pissed Off” by Diversity Award

Al Jazeera Cameraman Acquitted in Egypt

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Author Says Articles Helped Shape Modern Drug Policy

” Negro Cocaine ‘Fiends’ Are a New Southern Menace. That was the headline of an article I came across while doing research for my PhD in 1996,” Carl L. Hart wrote for the Feb. 17 edition of the Nation. “It involved trying to understand the neurobiological and behavioral effects of psychoactive drugs like cocaine and nicotine. So I read everything that seemed relevant.

“The provocatively headlined article had appeared in The New York Times on February 8, 1914. I was surprised by the title, although I knew it was once acceptable to print such blatantly racist words in respectable papers. But what really shocked me was how similar it was to modern media coverage of illegal drugs and how, from early on, the racialized discourse on drugs served a larger political purpose.

“The author, a distinguished physician, wrote: ‘[The Negro fiend] imagines that he hears people taunting and abusing him, and this often incites homicidal attacks upon innocent and unsuspecting victims.’ And he continued, ‘the deadly accuracy of the cocaine user has become axiomatic in Southern police circles…. the record of the “cocaine nigger” near Asheville who dropped five men dead in their tracks using only one cartridge for each, offers evidence that is sufficiently convincing.’

“Cocaine, in other words, made black men uniquely murderous and better marksmen. But that wasn’t all. It also produced ‘a resistance to the “knock down” effects of fatal wounds. Bullets fired into vital parts that would drop a sane man in his tracks, fail to check the “fiend.” ‘

“Preposterous? Yes, but such reporting was not the exception. Between 1898 and 1914, numerous articles appeared exaggerating the association of heinous crimes and cocaine use by blacks. In some cases, suspicion of cocaine intoxication by blacks was reason enough to justify lynchings. Eventually, it helped influence legislation. . . .”

Hart also wrote, “Black males are no longer lynched for violating drug laws, but they are killed. (Ramarley Graham, the unarmed Bronx teen who was chased into his bathroom and shot because police officers believed he had drugs, is just one recent example.) More common is the insidious damage inflicted on black men by the selective enforcement of drug laws. Arrested, incarcerated and placed under criminal justice supervision, they wind up marginalized and deprived of an education. Incredibly, one in three black boys born today will spend time in prison if this country doesn’t alter its current approach.

“One hundred years after the myth of the ‘Negro cocaine fiend’ helped sell the Harrison Act to Congress, its legacy lives on. . . .”

In O’Reilly vs. Obama, Who Really Won?

Who “won” in Bill O’Reilly’s pre-Super Bowl interview with President Obama? Was it the public?

“Remember how much was at stake in February 2011: The GOP had just started running the House; we all knew huge showdowns were coming; and of course all of it was prelude to 2012,” Michael Tomasky wrote Sunday for the Daily Beast. “That O’Reilly interview — I remember a definite sense of drama around it — was a sort of Peoria tryout for everything the right would throw at Obama in his reelection campaign.

“This time? It was mostly like both of them were actors playing ‘Barack Obama’ and ‘Bill O’Reilly.’ Going through the motions. Oh, there were brief moments of frisson. . . .”

Tomasky noted “there was nothing about the future at all . . . And it ain’t 2011 anymore.”

Tomasky’s headline writer wrote: “The Obama and O’Reilly Interview Was a Super Snore.” But at the New York Times, the headline was, “Obama Is Tackled by O’Reilly in Pre-Game Interview.”

The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple agreed. “Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly aces Obama interview” read the headline over his blog.

O’Reilly’s topics were Benghazi, the IRS and health-care reform. African American and other websites made their headlines from Obama’s answer to O’Reilly’s question about whether a local Cincinnati IRS office knowingly targeted conservative groups for scrutiny with the knowledge of president’s team. Obama replied, “These kind of things keep surfacing because you and your TV station will promote them.”

“Obama Blames Fox News for Stirring Up Political Trouble,” headlined The Root.

On his “News One Now” show on Monday, host Roland Martin said he would have asked questions more relevant to the Super Bowl: What about the issue of football players’ concussions? What about the graduation rates of college players? How about that lawsuit by a member of the Oakland Raiders’ ‘Raiderettes’ cheer squad who says that cheerleaders’ wages, which are paid at the end of the season, are equivalent to earnings of less than $5 per hour?

Super Bowl Highest Rated Show in U.S. Television History

“In retrospect, it was over before it started, but Super Bowl XLVIII still managed to draw more viewers than any other broadcast in U.S. television history,” Anthony Crupi reported Monday for adweek.com.

“According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, Fox’s Super Bowl broadcast delivered an average 111.5 million viewers, besting the previous record holder set by NBC in 2012 by the slimmest of margins. (The Peacock’s coverage of the Patriots-Giants rematch delivered 111.3 million viewers.) . . .”

ABC Hires Mara Schiavocampo as New York-Based Reporter

“ABC News president Ben Sherwood made it official this morning, announcing Mara Schiavocampo has joined ABC News as a New York-based correspondent,” Deadline Hollywood reported on Monday.

“Schiavocampo, who’d been with NBC since 2007, becoming Early Today anchor in ’10 and also anchoring MSNBC’s First Look, left that network in December. At ABC News she will be a New York-based correspondent reporting on all platforms. . . .”

Schiavocampo was the National Association of Black Journalists’ “Emerging Journalist of the Year” in 2007. Shortly afterward, she was hired as a digital journalist for “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.”

Chronicle Staffer Tells Blacks Not to Move to San Francisco

“It’s officially Black History Month. Not that you’d know it if you live in San Francisco,” Caille Millner wrote Friday for the San Francisco Chronicle.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. For years, I’ve actively discouraged the smart, ambitious African Americans I know from moving to San Francisco. This may come as a surprise to many local residents, most of whom are possessed of the unshakable belief in the superiority of the city above all others, but not everyone thinks so — and that includes many well-educated African Americans. . . .”

Millner also wrote, ‘While city officials claim to wring their hands over San Francisco’s shrinking black population (6 percent in 2012 and dropping like a stone), obvious steps to mitigate the decline go unnoticed and unheeded. Maybe they can’t do anything about the cost of living — which is probably the No. 1 reason why African Americans, along with everyone else, leave San Francisco — but they could do things to make people feel welcome. Here’s an obvious suggestion: Would it really be that hard for San Francisco to acknowledge its black history? . . .”

Millner, an an editorial writer and Datebook columnist at the Chronicle, told Journal-isms by email, “It seemed like Black history month would be a timely moment to talk about these things. But of course I’ve been thinking about them for a while . . . .”

The Chronicle did not participate in the latest diversity survey of the American Society of News Editors.

Where Are Monuments to Black Heroes of Reconstruction?

As reported in this space in November, Southern newspapers are reluctant to disturb monuments to those who fought to perpetuate slavery, tributes erected in reaction to emancipation and later to the struggle for equal rights for African Americans.

But Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Eric Foner, the DeWitt Clinton professor of history at Columbia University, has another idea that newspaper opinion writers might consider.

Foner wrote in Sunday’s print edition of the New York Times Book Review, “Monuments to Confederate heroes, including leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, dot the Southern landscape, but virtually none to black officials of Reconstruction. It took South Carolina until 1998 to install a portrait of the black justice Jonathan J. Wright in its Supreme Court building, along likenesses of the other members of the court in the state’s history.

“The Denmark Vesey monument,” which would commemorate the plotter of an unsuccessful slave insurrection in 1822 in Charleston, S.C., “remains unfinished. So, in many ways, does Reconstruction.”

Asked to elaborate on who might be honored, Foner told Journal-isms Monday by email:

“I wrote an op-ed about this question in the NY Times some years ago . . . It had to do with not taking down Confederate monuments but adding new ones to go with them.

“There were perhaps 2000 black officials in Reconstruction — US Senators, Congressmen, state officials, local officials, members of legislature. One or two of them may have a monument (Robert Smalls in Beaufort, SC for example). But many deserve them — the two black Senators ([Hiram] Revels and [Blanche K.] Bruce of Mississippi), other congressmen and others. I wrote a book, Freedom’s Lawmakers, with brief sketches of about 1500 of these black officials.

“An interesting point is that there are few if any monuments to General James Longstreet, not because of any failures as a Confederate general, but because after the war he joined the Republican party and supported the rights of blacks. On the other hand, there are more monuments in Tennessee to Nathan B. Forrest, a slave trader, commander of troops who massacred black soldiers after they surrendered at Fort Pillow, and a leader of the Klan, than to the state’s two presidents, Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson.

“James Loewen’s book Lies Across America talks a lot about monuments and issues surrounding them.”

“Scandal” Creator “a Little Pissed Off” by Diversity Award

“Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal creator Shonda Rhimes managed to score the Diversity trophy at this year’s Directors Guild of America Awards and school her peers on the importance of cultural inclusion,” Camille Travis wrote Jan. 27 for centrictv.com.

“On Saturday, she and production partner Betsy Beers took the stage to accept their honor, but not without the 44-year-old showrunner expressing her slight disappointment in being given the award. During her speech, Rhimes stated:

“‘When I heard I was getting an award I was really, truly, profoundly honored. I began to get calls from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, etc., and I was asked to comment on the award. Asked how good I felt about the award. Asked if it made me feel like I was doing the right thing. Asked if it had been a struggle making diversity happen on my cast and crews. While I’m still really and truly profoundly honored to receive this award, but I was also a little pissed off. So was Betsy. So over many, many, many bottles of wine we discussed this. Betsy and I are being applauded and given an award for something that we should all be doing. There shouldn’t need to be an award!’ . . .”

Al Jazeera Cameraman Acquitted in Egypt

“An Al Jazeera cameraman who has been in detention in Egypt has been acquitted along with 61 other defendants, the channel’s lawyer has said,” Al Jazeera reported on Sunday.

“The lawyer said on Sunday that Mohamed Badr was not held on any other charges and should be released, although that must be ordered by the court.

“Badr had been held since July accused of involvement in rioting in Ramses Square, Cairo, during protests against the army’s removal of the former president, Mohamed Morsi, from power.

“Al Jazeera repeatedly denied the accusations and called for his release since he was arrested. . . .”

The story also said, “Correspondent Peter Greste and producers Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed have been held in custody for more than a month without charge. Another Al Jazeera staff member, Abdullah al-Shami, has been in custody since August. . . .”

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