Resistance to Immigration Tame Compared With Past Years
Waco Bikers Include Hispanics, Blacks; CNN Called Out
ASNE Opposes Reauthorizing Patriot Act
Man Tries to Steal News Van With Reporter Sitting Inside
Detroit’s LeDuff Nabs Suspect Who Mugged Restaurateur
Iverson’s Advice: Treat Sources Like People in Your Life
5-Part Series Tackles Mental Health in the Newsroom
Female Journalists Sound Alarm on Issues Affecting Women
Activists Call Attention to Black Women Killed by Police
Short Takes
Resistance to Immigration Tame Compared With Past Years
“No nation with a white European ethnic majority has evolved to become a nonwhite-majority nation, a shift the U.S. is on track to achieve by mid-century,” Francis Wilkinson wrote Tuesday for BloombergView. “Certainly no nation has done so after half a millennium in which white Europeans and their American kin colonized much of the (nonwhite) world, and dominated global economics and warfare.
“This is the context in which current U.S. debates over immigration take place. Given the enormity of the change, opposition to immigration among white Americans is shocking only for its lack of breadth and urgency.
“We have been here before — almost. ‘The projected shift to a “majority minority” nation with respect to the white race as it’s classified now in the U.S. has a parallel with an earlier shift,’ noted William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, via e-mail. The official response in that case was significantly more vehement.
“In the early 20th century, Congress, backed by the ‘science’ of eugenics, restricted immigration by the ‘races’ of southern and eastern Europe, which were generally viewed as inferior stock. Madison Grant’s 1916 book, ‘The Passing of the Great Race,’ argued for Nordic supremacy to maintain the nation’s stature. A 1917 law created the Asiatic Barred Zone to further curtail already limited immigration from most of Asia and the Middle East. And in 1921 and 1924 new immigration restrictions were imposed to privilege admission to the U.S. of immigrants from Germany, Ireland and the U.K. and to reduce the flow of most others.
“Current resistance to nonwhite immigration — including opposition to the legalization of undocumented immigrants who are already here — is weak by comparison. . . . “
Although Wilkinson wrote that “White fears of being overrun aren’t entirely dead, and evidence of white backlash isn’t hard to come by,” he quoted a few theories about its lack of intensity from Deborah Schildkraut, a political scientist at Tufts University and the author of “Americanism in the Twenty-First Century: Public Opinion in the Age of Immigration.”
“Schildkraut cited a few theories, including increasing acceptance of the notion that American identity has been decoupled from racial ancestry. That could be one reason that the overt white nationalism of European right-wing parties has struggled to gain stronger purchase in the U.S. Instead, Republican immigration restrictionists appear likely to be eclipsed by those who view political support from Hispanics (and Asians) as the only viable route to the party’s national success.
“On the Democratic side, restrictionists already have been routed. When Hillary Clinton recently announced her solidarity with undocumented immigrants, promising to surpass [President] Obama in the aggressive use of executive action in their behalf, there was no rebuttal from Democrats and the mainstream Republican response was strikingly muted. . . .”
Wilkinson’s piece appeared as some news outlets took note of an exhibit by photographer Tyler Shields at the Andrew Weiss Gallery in Santa Monica, Calif., that includes staged photos with racial role reversals.
- John Blake, CNN: When you’re the only white person in the room (Sept. 11, 2014)
- Ryan Buxton, the HuffPost Show: So You’re About To Become A Minority… (April 18)
- Justin Jones, Daily Beast: A Black Man Hangs a White Supremacist: Tyler Shields’s Charged Photography
- Stuart Wolpert, phys.org: Soon to become a minority in the US, whites express declining support for diversity, psychology study finds (Oct. 3, 2014)
- Lilly Workneh, HuffPost BlackVoices: This Striking Image Of A Black Man Hanging A Klansman Shows A Different Side Of America’s Racist History
Waco Bikers Include Hispanics, Blacks; CNN Called Out
It has become an article of faith on social media that the bikers arrested after the Waco, Texas, shootout Sunday that left nine bikers dead were white and that their treatment by police and the media contrasts with that meted out to black protesters.
While that is largely true, several of the 171 people arrested have Hispanic surnames, and at least two appear to be black.
Nicole Chavez of the Austin American-Statesman reported Tuesday that Juan Garcia, 45, was being held on two felony charges on a combined bond of $2 million.
Chavez reported that Garcia is an engineer with the Public Works Department and is not on any statewide lists of known gang members, according to an Austin police spokeswoman.
Garcia was one of three motorcycle gang members released from jail Tuesday after mistakenly being given reduced charges, resulting in lower bond amounts. They made arrangements later in the day to turn themselves in to authorities, Tommy Witherspoon reported for the Waco Tribune-Herald.
In the San Antonio Express-News, Mark D. Wilson and Guillermo Contreras reported Tuesday that “Martin Lewis — the retired San Antonio police detective with ties to the Bandidos Motorcycle Club who was arrested at the biker brawl in Waco this weekend — has been fired from his job as a bus driver for Northside ISD.” Lewis appears to be African American.
Wilson and Contreras also wrote, “He served 32 years with SAPD until his retirement in February 2004 and was most recently in the vice unit. He was charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and still being held on $1 million bond, according to McLennan County jail records. . . .”
Meanwhile, Erik Wemple wrote Tuesday in the Washington Post, “Waco Police Sgt. Patrick Swanton, the department’s public affairs officer, just finished a briefing that brushed back a certain news organization. ” ‘If you don’t know that it’s a fact, please come to me and I will give that information if I can,’ said Swanton, in what he called the ‘brutally honest’ phase of his briefing about Sunday’s biker-gang violence at the Texas city’s Twin Peaks restaurant.
“He continued at scolding length:
” ‘There was a media outlet that was reporting that law enforcement killed four of the individuals at this scene Sunday afternoon. I will tell you, whoever told you that, that person belongs on ‘CSI’ because the autopsies have not been completed and it is impossible at this point to determine that fact. I will tell you, is it possible? Yes. Is it a fact? No. Not until the autopsies are complete and we get the final results.
“Will we tell you how many we shot and how many were possibly deceased by police rounds? Without a doubt we will. You will know that when we know that. The information that is out there right now — if you got lucky and guessed that number, congratulations. If you didn’t, shame on you for putting that information out there that may have been incorrect.
“What ‘media outlet’ is Swanton singling out here?
“CNN maybe? The 24-7 news outlet cited a ‘law enforcement source’ as saying that ‘preliminary information indicates that four of the bikers killed were killed by police gunfire. The investigation continues and the ballistics will be analyzed to determine for certain who was responsible for each shooting.’ . . .”
- Brittney Cooper, Salon: White America’s Waco insanity: The shocking realities it ignores about racism & violence
- Jenée Desmond-Harris, vox.com: Media coverage of gang violence sure looks different when the perpetrators are white
- David Edwards, Raw Story: CNN’s ex-cop defends not calling white bikers ‘thugs’: ‘This thing started with the black community’
- Josh Feldman, Mediaite: CNN’s Don Lemon to Panel: ‘Bull’ to Say Media Has Racial Double Standard on Saying ‘Thug’
- Sam Fulwood III, Center for American Progress: Choosing Our Words Carefully
- Jesse J. Holland, Associated Press: Some see difference between perceptions of Waco, Ferguson, Baltimore
- Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times: Biker gangs no different than street gangs
- James Warren, Poynter Institute: Waco paper’s big challenge on biker gang shootout: learning about biker gangs
ASNE Opposes Reauthorizing Patriot Act
The American Society of News Editors, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press are among 52 organizations signing a letter to House and Senate leadership that opposes a straight reauthorization of Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, ASNE announced on Tuesday.
“Signed by a wide spectrum of organizations, the letter opposes S 1035, which would reauthorize the Patriot Act without affecting the controversial Section 215. That section, which allows the government to compel the production of certain ‘tangible things’ in relation to terrorism investigations, has provided the basis of many of the bulk surveillance programs that have been in the news lately and has resulted in the issuance of subpoenas to communications companies for the phone and email records of reporters.
“With the USA Patriot Act up for renewal this year and the recent ruling by a United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that the bulk surveillance programs violate the Constitution, we urge Congress to take a hard look at Section 215 rather than rubber stamp its renewal.”
- International Press Institute: Media groups express concerns over Trinidad and Tobago cyber crimes bill
- Katie Zezima, Washington Post: Rand Paul speaks 11 hours against Patriot Act renewal
Man Tries to Steal News Van With Reporter Sitting Inside
“An 18-year-old man tried to steal a KPIX news van parked outside Oakland City Hall — not knowing that the reporter was sitting in the back — and was quickly arrested by an armed security guard, authorities said Tuesday,” Henry K. Lee reported Tuesday for the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Marshawn Daniels jumped into an idling 2010 Ford Transit van parked on 14th Street at about 3:50 p.m. Thursday, apparently not realizing that the unmarked vehicle was a KPIX news van and that reporter Da Lin was sitting in the back working on a story, officials said. The van’s ignition was on to power the equipment inside.
“Lin, who is small in stature, had moved the driver’s seat close to the steering wheel. Daniels, who is 6 feet 4 inches tall, had trouble adjusting the seat, officials said.
“Lin told co-workers that he looked over from the back of the van to see if the suspect was armed. Not noticing a weapon, Lin yelled at the suspect, asking him what he was doing in the van.
“Surprised, Daniels jumped out of the van, authorities said. An armed security guard assigned to shadow Lin emerged from his sport utility vehicle and chased Daniels to the entrance of City Hall and held him at gunpoint. . . .”
Detroit’s LeDuff Nabs Suspect Who Mugged Restaurateur
“American Coney is a Detroit institution. So is Charlie LeDuff,” Charlie Langton reported Tuesday for Detroit’s WJBK-TV. “So when the owner of the restaurant was mugged in broad daylight, FOX 2’s own was on the scene to take the bad guy down.
“Grace Keros owns American Coney Island. She said it all happened in the blink of an eye.
” ‘I had my cell phone in my back pocket,’ Keros said. ‘He came right up to me, leaned in, it happened so quick. He pulled the cell phone out and I was like ‘he took my cell phone!’
“Grace said it happened on Monday in broad daylight, in front of the American Coney Island. But the hero who nabbed Orlando Thomas, the alleged cell phone thief, is Charlie LeDuff.
“She said the guy grabbed her cell phone, ran across the street and is tackled by LeDuff.
“LeDuff is no stranger to taking people down. He’s brought down shameful judges and county executives, but now Charlie LeDuff can add cell phone robbers to his resume. . . .”
Langton also reported, “According to the Wayne County prosecutor’s office, Thomas pleaded guilty to unarmed robbery from an incident in January of this year was sentenced to probation. He absconded, until LeDuff got him.
” ‘Yeah we need more cops!’ LeDuff told Langton. ‘I’m being told we have more cops but I certainly didn’t see any. The guy is wanted, he’s wandering around, he’s got warrants. Come on now. That’s bull s***.’ . . .”
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| Retired NBA superstar Allen Iverson wants journalists to think, “What if this happened to my daughter, or my son? Or my mother? Or my father?” (video) |
Iverson’s Advice: Treat Sources Like People in Your Life
“After years of sparring with the media, Allen Iverson has finally made peace with the people who for years have taken his words and broadcast them to the world, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse,” Maxwell Strachan and Jon Strauss reported Tuesday for the Huffington Post.
“In a video interview with The Huffington Post last week, the retired NBA superstar said that these days, he better understands why the media works the way it does, why reporters ask such probing questions and why journalists sometimes bypass ambiguity and complexity in favor of a more simplified story — one easily packaged with a salacious headline atop it.
” ‘Doing this for so long, I realize that the media — you have a boss. And your boss wants you to provide the best material that you can,’ Iverson said. ‘And he might put pressure on you to do it a way that you feel is unconstitutional. You might not like it. But you still gotta feed your family. You gotta do what you gotta do. And I had to figure that out and I used to — I couldn’t stand the media, but I realized they have a job. They gotta do what they have to do.’
“Iverson has sparred with the media throughout his playing career, and many journalists are guilty of taking Iverson, a complex and multilayered man, and turning him into a simplified caricature, a useful device to be written about for little more than his love of tattoos and his dislike of practice.
“But while Iverson no longer despises the media, he does have one very simple wish for all the bloggers, reporters and analysts that write about people like him for a living: Treat the people you spend your lives covering like, well, people in your life, not characters in your story.
” ‘I wish the media and people that work in media would realize sometimes — and I know it doesn’t pay your bills — but sometimes just sit back and think, like, “Man, what if this was my child? And somebody was doing this to them? And they had to go through it? If somebody bashed them like this?” ‘he said. ‘[Just] because their boss told them to do it. “What if this happened to my daughter, or my son? Or my mother? Or my father?” ‘ . . .”
- TMZ: Allen Iverson: Tom Brokaw Was Key … In My NBA Career (May 15)
Female Journalists Sound Alarm on Issues Affecting Women
“Women and children often fare the worst during conflict and in refugee situations,” Internews, an international nonprofit organization created to empower local media worldwide, says on its website.
“After the terrible earthquakes in Nepal this month, Viviane Fluck, who is conducting a post-earthquake humanitarian information assessment for Internews, noted that violence against women has been on the rise during the disaster. Fluck recommends leveraging Nepal’s vibrant community radio sector to help mitigate this situation.
“On the other side of the world, in Chad, journalist Houda Malloum reported for a community radio station set up by Internews to serve refugees from Darfur. She focused an episode on the problem of attacks on Darfuri women and girls who were leaving the refugee camps to gather firewood. The episode helped alert local authorities to the problems of violence against women, and at the same time gave the women alternatives so that they could avoid areas where they might be attacked.
“Women’s issues need to be heard so that humanitarian organizations can respond to their particular needs. Women journalists can help drive the debate beyond guns, troops and tents. Local women journalists can provide a better understanding of what women need to take better care of their families and safeguard themselves. . . .”
- International Center for Journalists: Pioneering Cuban Blogger, Indian Investigative Reporter Win Premier International Journalism Award
Activists Call Attention to Black Women Killed by Police
“Weeks after Trayvon Martin was killed in Sanford, Fla., in 2012, a Chicago police officer fatally shot an unarmed 22-year-old black woman in the head as he fired into a group in the early hours of a March morning,” Marcia Davis wrote Wednesday for the Washington Post.
“Not long after Michael Brown, 18, was killed in Ferguson, Mo., last summer, a 21-year-old black woman was found dead in a Pagedale, Mo., cell after being picked up on warrants over a dispute she allegedly had. She had hanged herself with her T-shirt, authorities said, adding that they had video because of cameras in the facility. The case is now closed.
“And in February, before Freddie Gray died from injuries sustained while in the custody of Baltimore police in April, a 37-year-old black female inmate just down the road in Fairfax County, Va., died several days after being shocked with a stun gun. At least six officers were present as the mentally ill woman — hands cuffed, feet shackled and head hooded in a spit mask — was Tasered four times. A medical examiner’s ruling that ‘excited delirium’ was the cause of death has been controversial.
“Rekia Boyd. Kimberlee Randle-King. Natasha McKenna.
“Their names and their stories — as well as those of other black women who have been killed by police or died while in their custody — are the focus of several days of activity this week meant to highlight what some activists say has been missing from the national discussion on race and criminal justice: Black women are dying, too, not just black men. . . .”
- Michael H. Cottman, BlackAmericaWeb.com: Black Cops: Part Of The Solution Or Part Of The Problem?
- Courtland Milloy, Washington Post: Black women’s lives matter, too, say the women behind the iconic hashtag
- Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Police brutality can’t be fixed this way
- AJ Vicens and Jaeah Lee, Mother Jones: Here Are 13 Killings by Police Captured on Video in the Past Year (video)
Short Takes
- “Fusion is getting a cash infusion,” Claire Atkinson reported Tuesday for the New York Post. “The news and pop-culture multiplatform outlet has received commitments from its owners — Disney and Univision — for $30 million in additional financing, sources told The Post. Fusion declined to comment. . . .”
- “The latest example of the sort of crime story that would be huge news if the perpetrator were Muslim — rather than, in this instance, someone who hates Muslims — is the case of Robert Rankin Doggart, a former congressional candidate from Signal Mountain, Tennessee, who was caught on tape and on social media talking about wiping out a Muslim community in upstate New York,” Jim Naureckas wrote Tuesday for Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting. “According to a plea agreement reached in US District Court in the Eastern District of Tennessee, Doggart told an FBI informant that he was planning to attack the residents of a Muslim community known as Islamberg near Hancock, New York. . . .”
- “The attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 shed light on the grave dangers confronting those who draw satirical and political cartoons,” the Committee to Protect Journalists reported Tuesday. “But threats against cartoonists are a global phenomenon and are as diverse as the content of the cartoons themselves. . . . In one case examined in the report, political cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, known as ‘Zunar,’ faces more than 40 years in prison if found guilty of sedition during a trial that is due to begin in Malaysia on May 20. . . .”
- The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters said in its May newsletter that it had asked Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, to crack down on pirate radio stations. “NABOB pointed out that many of these illegal operations focus their programming towards minority communities. Although a small number of these pirates have gained recognition for providing quality service to minority communities, such pirates are by far the exception, not the rule. Many pirates garner audience by playing music and other material that would violate the Commission’s indecency rules if aired by licensed stations. . . .”
- “The Congressional Black Caucus this week kicked off a new effort to boost the number of African-Americans working in the tech industry,” Renee Schoof wrote Wednesday for the McClatchy Washington Bureau. ” ‘America has yet to unlock the full potential of innovation because of the lack of African American representation in the technology industry,’ Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said on Tuesday at the CBC Tech 2020 launch in Washington. . . .”
- In the Washington suburb of Arlington, Va., “The Arlington County Board on Tuesday joined the call for the Washington Redskins to change the team’s name, calling it a ‘objectionable … a racist slur and derogatory, ‘ ” Patricia Sullivan reported Tuesday for the Washington Post. The Native American Journalists Association is planning its National Native Media Conference in Arlington from July 9 to 12.
- Byron McCauley, content coach of the Cincinnati Enquirer’s 26 Community Press and Recorder publications that ring the city, has joined the Enquirer editorial board, the Enquirer announced on Friday. “The past year has been a time of turnover at the Cincinnati Enquirer — and it’s not over yet,” Anna Clark reported Tuesday for Columbia Journalism Review.
- An NPR story that aired Monday quoted Cleveland City Councilman Kevin Conwell as saying he planned to lead a Glenville “riot” if Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo is acquitted in the shooting death of motorist Timothy Russell and passenger Malissa Williams, Phillip Morris wrote Wednesday in the Plain Dealer. But Conwell never said “riot.” “An error in the report resulted from a misunderstanding between what Cleveland City Councilman Kevin Conwell said (‘riding/ride’) and what the reporter/producer heard (‘rioting/riot’),” Mary Grace Herrington, chief development officer for ideastream, a nonprofit organization that includes Cleveland broadcast outlets, told Journal-isms by email. “As soon as ideastream and NPR were alerted to the mistake, steps were taken to correct it on air, online and via social media. An updated version of the story aired in subsequent broadcasts of Morning Edition that day and is available online at npr.org. ideastream regrets the misunderstanding and the error.”
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“Ana Mendez enrolled in Columbia’s Journalism School last fall after already making a mark as an investigative reporter in her native Panama,” Walyce Almeida wrote May 14 for Columbia University. “Some nights, because of intimidation she received, her father would follow her home from the newspaper office to ensure her safety. Now, after winning a Magic Grant from the school’s David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation, Mendez plans to return home once a month to develop Tabulario, a digital platform for journalistic collaboration and data mining . . . Although Panama’s military dictatorship ended in 1989 with the U.S. invasion to topple Gen. Manuel Noriega, the government still censors or pressures media outlets. . . .”
- “An anti-Muslim movie trailer that set off protests in 2012 returned to the spotlight on Monday when a federal appeals court ruled that YouTube should not have been forced to remove the crude video from its website,” Brooks Barnes reported Monday in the New York Times. “In a victory for free speech advocates, an 11-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco rejected a copyright claim by Cindy Lee Garcia, an actress who appeared unwittingly, she said, in the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ trailer. . . .”
- ” Brazilian police are investigating the murder of investigative reporter Evany José Metzker, who was found decapitated earlier this week in the town of Padre Paraíso, in Minas Gerais state, authorities said Tuesday,” the EFE news service reported.
- “Egyptian authorities today released on bail the editor-in-chief of the privately owned weekly El-Bayan after arresting the journalist on Monday and accusing him of publishing false news, according to news reports,” the Committee to Protect Journalists reported on Tuesday. “Police arrested Ibrahim Aref at El-Bayan’s offices in the Dokki neighborhood of Giza. . . .”
- “Mexico’s attorney-general’s office has alleged that three students and three bystanders were killed on Sept. 26, and 43 students were taken away at gunpoint, according to news reports,” David Agren reported Tuesday for the Committee to Protect Journalists. Six reporters who covered the case said the slow reaction from authorities “reflects control over the media, press bias against groups protesting against the disappearance, and self-censorship through the widespread use in the region of convenios — agreements between media outlets and governments. . . .”
- Black Women’s Health Imperative, which calls itself “the nation’s leading health and wellness advocacy organization for black women,” welcomed Amy L. Alexander as its director of communications on Monday, the organization announced on Tuesday. Alexander is author of several nonfiction books examining cultural and political affairs, including 2011’s “Uncovering Race: A Black Journalist’s Story of Reporting and Reinvention.”
- C-SPAN3’s coverage of the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War includes an edited look at a re-enactment last Sunday of a parade along Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue by the United States Colored Troops, who were not allowed to march in 1865 with other Union soldiers. The 28-minute program debuts on Monday, Memorial Day, at 6:30 p.m. ET. (video)
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