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Asian Americans and Race: It’s Complicated

4 Tackle Identity Question at Journalists Conference

Hundreds at N.Y. Times Train for ‘Unconscious Bias’

Judge Throws Out Class Action Suit Against CNN

Cortes, Ex-Fox News VP, Sues His Former Company

U.S. Muslims Perceive ‘a Lot’ of Discrimination

Black Producers Defend ‘Confederate’ Show Idea

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4 Tackle Identity Question at Journalists Conference

When four Asian American journalists get together in public to talk about what that identity means, the conversation can veer from some Asian American men’s newfound attraction to the alt-right to how much to write about race to whether others truly consider Asian Americans to be “people of color,” as they do African Americans and Hispanics.

“Race Relations in the U.S.: Our Place as AAPI Journalists” was the title of a session Thursday at the Asian American Journalists Association convention in Philadelphia, a gathering that attracted 839 people, according to Kathy Chow, executive director. “AAPI” refers to Asian American Pacific Islander.

Participating were moderator Iris Kuo, CEO and cofounder of LedBetter, a research group that runs a database and application showcasing the number of women in leadership at the world’s top consumer brands and companies; Jay Caspian Kang, a correspondent on “Vice News Tonight” and writer-at-large for the New York Times Magazine; Jeff Guo, who writes about media, politics, data and “the unknowability of life” at vox.com, and Tracy Jan, who reports on race and the economy for the Washington Post.

In 2010, Asian Americans were 4.8 percent of the U.S. population; Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders were 0.2 percent. In newspaper and online newsrooms, they were 4.25 percent, according to the 2016 diversity survey of the American Society of News Editors [PDF]. That newsroom percentage more closely matched that of their share of the general population than the figures for African Americans, Latinos or Native Americans.

An abridged, sometimes paraphrased report of the conversation:

Jan: The Asian American voice does get lost in the fray. A lot of the hate is targeted at Muslims, Latinos and black people, though brown Asians, too, have been threatened and killed.

Kang: There’s not much in the national conversation about Asian people. I don’t even know what Asian means . . . I just don’t think there’s an identity.

Guo: It’s not a term we invented. [Some trace it to Yuji Ichioka, a pioneering San Francisco-born historian, in the late 1960s.]

You’re not black and you’re not white.

If you’re the kind of person — upwardly mobile, East Asian, who went to college, it’s easier for you to assimilate into white culture. To pay attention to that kind of [racial] stuff doesn’t endear you to the people writing the paycheck.

Asian Americans have always been a part of the fabric of America; the Chinese helped build the transcontinental railroad. The story of Asian Americans is important because it is intricately tied with the story of race in America. Asians were used to define and constrict African Americans.

Kang: It’s a very, very bad time to write about race. Everything has become so standardized. Too much of the writing is about representation in Hollywood. There’s a lot of baked-in laziness. Some just don’t know how to write about race. [Kang also mentions an anti-black history among Asians.]

From left: Jay Caspian Kang, Jeff Guo, Tracy Jan and Iris Kuo at the Asian American Journalists Association convention in Philadelphia on Thursday. (Credit: Richard Prince)

Jan: I see my work as, “if I weren’t there, it wouldn’t be told.”

Guo: We write, we speak English. I look at some of the foreign correspondents who write about China; they come out with these stories about China that are laughable. For example, recent stories about Chinese idolizing Ivanka Trump. It’s like they’re not seriously worshipping Ivanka Trump. It’s like a joke. Asian people are having fun.

Still, my parents are immigrants. I’m not equipped to write about Cambodian refugees. My parents came in a plane, not a boat.

I feel very conflicted. I do have a responsibility to tell these Asian stories, even if I don’t have (the background), because who else is going to write these stories?

Jan: A good story is a good story. I recall being the only Asian American on a fellowship to China last month.  There was so much negative coverage of the EB-5 visa program, [which grants green cards to foreigners who invest $500,000 in the United States. “The nearly three-decade-old program has come under new scrutiny in recent months, in part because of a sales pitch to Chinese investors by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s family real estate business,” Jan would write July 7 for the Post.] However, hardly anyone was writing about why the program was attractive to middle-class Chinese. So I did. We’re missing a bunch of different stories.

Guo: There is an assumption that there can be some neutral perspective. Isn’t the “neutral perspective” often the white perspective?

Kuo: I used to work in a foreign bureau in Hong Kong. A pet peeve of mine is how the stories were written as if to say, “Look at how weird these people are.” What frustrates you about race coverage?

Guo: That is also a pet peeve of mine; when people approach coverage strictly from a cultural perspective, not considering the historical and economic background — such as stories about Japanese growing square watermelons that don’t mention why.

Kang: It’s preoccupation with pop culture. I thought people would stop caring about how many Oscars were awarded.

Deportation stories. Every deportation is exactly the same. It’s like deportation porn. . . .

Jan: The sad white working class, with a photo of a sad white person looking out the window. What about poor black people? I’m not going to write about poor white people without writing about poor black people. It’s a trope.

Guo: There are sympathetic narratives. You are writing about situations that these people of color are embedded in, and at some point they’re not human any more.

Kuo: A question arises about whether Asians are “people of color.”

Kang: Asians have been granted “conditional whiteness.” I don’t think we are people of color if you ask the New York Times. When people talk about race and say “people of color,” they don’t mean Asians. . . . “people of color” have been black and Latino.

I’ve been going to Asian masculinity forums. These guys seem to be concerned about their lack of identity. They know about the alt-right touting the idea of Western civilization. If I were black, I would have certain cultural touchstones. They have nothing [comparable, they think], so they go back to the death march of Bataan in World War II.

[The white nationalist group] Storm Front actually recruits Asian people. For a lot of people it’s going to end up being very appealing. My story is coming out next week. I’m also doing a podcast.

Guo: For NPR, Sarah Goo wrote about letters from grandfather to her grandmother. They were love letters, but are also about America and family history. A lot of Americans today have a lot of immigrant roots, but the Asian story is not just an immigrant story.

Kuo: How can one’s Asian American background be used to advantage?

Kang: I was able to get into spaces the white reporters could not because I spoke a little Korean, but there are so few spots to use that advantage.

Jan: Just your understanding of being an outsider can help when interviewing other “outsiders,” such as evangelicals. There are certain ways you ask questions; the way you carry yourself. Everyone uses what they have as a reporter.

When I was at the Boston Globe, I think it helped being an Asian reporter in some black neighborhoods. I have had people explicitly tell me, “I wouldn’t talk to you if you were white.”

Guo: Being Asian, we experience a variegated privilege in America. It’s patchy.

In writing about race, there are so many things you can’t know. I don’t feel qualified to write about race. All I have is my very narrow personal experience.

And yet, it’s the first step to anything else. Until people are sick of seeing Asian doctors, they’re not going to see [Asians as] anyone else. Same with journalists. Until we have more Asian journalists, we’re all going to be [asked to write those stories].

The New York Times newsroom. (Credit: New York Times)

Hundreds at N.Y. Times Train for ‘Unconscious Bias’

“Several hundred” employees at the New York Times Co. have taken training in “unconscious bias,” the Times says, resulting in “a huge cultural shift” in hiring and recruiting efforts.

Unconscious biases are defined as “social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness,” according to the University of California, San Francisco. “. . . Unconscious bias is far more prevalent than conscious prejudice and often incompatible with one’s conscious values. . . . ”

Staffers at the American Society of News Editors and the Radio Television Digital News Association said they did not know of other media companies conducting such training, although Al Tompkins, senior faculty for broadcasting and online at the Poynter Institute, said some might use other terms for the concept in their diversity training.

“We usually come at it as challenging assumptions,” Tompkins said Friday by email. “We see it in who people interview and what images they use in stories.” Bill Church, senior vice president of news at GateHouse Media, which says it operates in 555 markets across 36 states, said by email that his company “hasn’t done diversity training with a focus on ‘unconscious bias,’ but it’s a smart approach.”

Carolyn Ryan, assistant editor of the Times, mentioned unconscious bias training Thursday during “Normalizing Diversity: How to Create a Culture of Hiring and Retaining Journalists of Color in Your Company,” a panel at the Asian American Journalists convention in Philadelphia. Ryan said afterward that the Times training took place in March and April.

Craig Robinson, executive vice president and chief diversity officer for NBCUniversal, and Sudeep Reddy, a managing editor at Politico, with Ryan at the session, said they favored diverse interviewing panels as a way to counter hiring bias toward people who “seem like me.”

They also said they were guarding against efforts by celebrities and/or well-connected executives to short-circuit the hiring process to the detriment of less well-connected people of color.

Ryan called one such tactic “side door hiring,” which “leads to people being part of the staff almost invisibly.”

“I’ve known people who’ve gotten jobs because they were at a dinner party,” Ryan said. The job was to last three months, but the person managed to join the staff permanently by entering through the “side door.” Robinson, meanwhile, said he was “keeping an eye” on “executive referrals.”

The unconscious bias training sessions were conducted by Paradigm, a Silicon Valley-based consulting group. “They were well attended by managers across the company,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, vice president, communications for the New York Times Co., said Friday by email.

“Later this summer we plan to offer a virtual version of the sessions for our offices and bureaus outside New York. . . . We have instituted various practices aimed at improving our recruiting methods and our inclusion efforts. Those include making sure that candidates meet with diverse interview panels and mandating more neutral language in job descriptions to attract a broad range of applicants.”

The Paradigm website includes a testimonial from Erin Grau, the Times’ vice president, operations. “We first chose Paradigm to design our unconscious bias training because their workshops are action-oriented and grounded in social science research. Their training received an overwhelmingly positive response (99% of employees understood the concept of unconscious bias, 97% intended to engage in behaviors to reduce bias, and 90% would recommend the workshop to a colleague) . . .

“With Paradigm’s help, we have seen a huge cultural shift, and data proves the programs, processes and frameworks we’re putting in place are moving the needle. Our biggest success story to date has been a double-digit increase in the share of women in technology. . . .”

DeWayne Walker, a plaintiff in the suit against CNN.

Judge Throws Out Class Action Suit Against CNN

A federal judge has thrown out a racial discrimination class action suit filed by current and former black CNN employees against CNN, Turner Broadcasting and New York based parent company Time Warner,” Rodney Ho reported Wednesday for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“ ‘This discrimination represents a company-wide pattern and practice,’ the lawsuit asserted back in December, 2016, ‘rather than a series of isolated incidents.’ Attorney Daniel Meachum at the time said the company has been discriminating against blacks for more than 20 years.

“Although only two people were named plaintiffs in the original case, he said he had found many more people who qualified for the class-action suit. In an interview today, he said he has now more than 190 people willing to attach their names to the lawsuit.

“U.S. District Court judge William Duffey Jr. didn’t buy the argument, saying it ‘is fraught with conclusory claims, unsupported by factual allegations sufficient to support the inferences claimed by Plaintiffs.’ . . . ”

“Meacham, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said he plans to address Duffey’s issues with the initial lawsuit and re-file sometime in the future. . . .”

Francisco Cortes started at Fox as an apprentice, then rose through the ranks to become Fox News Latino’s first director.

Cortes, Ex-Fox News VP, Sues His Former Company

Roger Ailes’ reign at Fox News engendered numerous discrimination and harassment claims upon 21st Century Fox, but on Tuesday, the Rupert Murdoch company got hit with a different kind of lawsuit,” Eriq Gardner reported for the Hollywood Reporter. “This one comes from a television executive accused of sexually assaulting an on-air contributor.

Francisco Cortes, a former vice president at Fox News Latino, states in a complaint filed in New York federal court that he ‘served as a useful “scapegoat” for Fox to demonstrate that it aggressively handles sexual harassment complaints, as part of a carefully orchestrated plan to permit the Murdochs to eliminate concerns in the U.K. regarding their $15.2 billion acquisition of Sky in the U.K., and to protect the identity and shelter the reputations of the two unknown persons who, it must be assumed, were, unlike Mr. Cortes, not Latino, and not financially insignificant to Fox.’

“In March, The New York Times’ Emily Steel reported that Fox had reached a $2.5 million settlement with Tamara Holder to resolve claims that Cortes had forced himself upon her. It was added that Cortes was close to Ailes.

“According to Cortes’ new $48 million lawsuit, Holder’s settlement in February included not only him but two other unnamed individuals. The deal is also said to have had a mutual non-disparagement provision.

” ‘Nevertheless, a mere two weeks later, Tamara Holder and Fox delivered a previously planned and carefully negotiated joint statement to The New York Times regarding the allegations, in violation of their obligations,’ continues the complaint.

“Cortes alleges that statements to The New York Times destroyed his reputation and irreparably damaged his career opportunities. . . .”

U.S. Muslims Perceive ‘a Lot’ of Discrimination

The early days of Donald Trump’s presidency have been an anxious time for many Muslim Americans,” the Pew Research Center said in announcing a new survey on Wednesday. “Overall, Muslims in the U.S. perceive a lot of discrimination against their religious group, are leery of  Trump and think their fellow Americans do not see Islam as part of mainstream U.S. society.

“At the same time, however, Muslim Americans express a persistent streak of optimism and positive feelings. Overwhelmingly, they say they are proud to be Americans, believe that hard work generally brings success in this country and are satisfied with the way things are going in their own lives — even if they are not satisfied with the direction of the country as a whole. . . .”

In February, the Asian American Journalists Association established a task force to aid journalists covering Muslim American communities. On Thursday at the AAJA convention in Philadelphia, the task force presented a panel on “Covering Muslim Communities & Islam” that was critical of American media coverage.

Some of the panelists’ points:

Black Producers Defend ‘Confederate’ Show Idea

It may be the most explosive response ever to a TV show that hasn’t shot a frame, doesn’t have a script, or even a plot written yet,” Eric Deggans reported Thursday for NPR.

“All we know is HBO’s Confederate will be a TV show set in a modern America where the Confederacy never lost the Civil War and slavery still exists. After days at the center of the controversy, Executive Producer Nichelle Tramble Spellman says the experience has been like getting ‘a crash course in crazy.’ ” She and her husband, Malcolm Spellman, are black.

“That painful education began last week, after HBO issued a press release announcing Confederate as the next series under development by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the two executive producers of the cable channel’s hit series Game of Thrones. . . .”

Deggans also wrote:

” ‘First thing to tell everybody is what the project is not,’ says Malcolm Spellman. ‘The project is not antebellum imagery, it’s not whips, it’s not plantations, it’s not a celebration or pornography for slavery. And, most importantly, it’s not an entire nation of slaves.’

“Instead, the couple says, the series will likely feature an America divided, where the South has a system which looks like Apartheid-era South Africa. The goal, they say, is to show how today’s problems with racial issues — over-policing of black people, disenfranchisement through voter I.D. laws, lack of representation at the highest level of power — is rooted in the nation’s legacy of slavery. . . .”

Short Takes

A celebration of the Anderson Monarchs baseball club for underprivileged youth in South Philadelphia, past, present and future, was held on June 10. Sportswriting legend Claire Smith, second from left, threw out the honorary first pitch. Smith traveled with the Monarchs in 1997 while working for the New York Times. (Credit: Charles Fox/Philadelphia Inquirer)

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