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The Racist Origins of Government Shutdowns

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Ex-Rebels in Congress Wanted Blacks Unprotected
J-Grant Donors Call Diversity a ‘Core Value’
Despite Allegations, Kendi Denies Mismanagement
Most Latinos Want Descendants to Speak Spanish

20% of Asian American Adults Hide Part of Heritage
‘Relentless Culture Wars’ Among Murdoch’s Legacy
N-Word Once Was Routine in Times-Picayune
Rod Beard Promoted to Detroit News Sports Editor
Congolese Leader Insists He Supports the Media

Short Takes: Kevin Powell and 50 years of hip-hop; Alicia Menendez, Sen. Bob Menendez and MSNBC; Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Adam Orduna; fast-growing ethnic groups in U.S.; Lil Kim and Ebony; Joshua Eure; students report from Civil Rights Trail; Whitney Maddox; Mumia Abu-Jamal; Chioma Nnadi and British Vogue; Afghan refugees’ monthly newspaper; preserving and archiving Nigerian newspapers; all-female newsroom in Somalia; Google and indigenous journalism in New Zealand; African carriers of Kremlin propaganda; sentencing the chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association.

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White Southerners did everything possible – including murder – to keep African Americans from the polls after the Civil War. Efforts to suppress the Black vote and resurrect white supremacy also led to the creation of hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. (Credit: Newberry Library)

Ex-Rebels in Congress Wanted Blacks Unprotected

With a potential government shutdown now less than a week away, and hard-right Republican House members refusing to fund the federal government unless their demands for spending cuts are met, a brief mention on the “PBS NewsHour” last week reminded viewers that the shutdown threat — like the filibuster — has racist origins.

“The first government shutdown in history was in 1879, when former Confederate Democrats in Congress refused to fund the government unless protections for black voters went away,” NPR told us in 2019.

Carl Hulse and Annie Karni reported Sunday for The New York Times, “Both the president and the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, made public calls for Republicans to resolve their differences before next Sunday, when federal funding is set to lapse. They noted that a shutdown would mean that members of the military would go without paychecks, air travelers could experience disruptions and a variety of programs safeguarding the public would be shuttered. Yet even after a weekend of private haggling at the Capitol, there was no sign that the G.O.P. was moving toward a resolution.”

In 1879, which was during Reconstruction or nearing its end, depending on the account, Republicans were the “party of Lincoln,” and the Democrats that of white supremacists.

Background: “In the spring of 1879, thousands of colored people, unable longer to endure the intolerable hardships, injustice, and suffering inflicted upon them by a class of Democrats in the South, had, in utter despair, fled panic-stricken from their homes and sought protection among strangers in a strange land,” reads an 1880 minority report from a Senate committee investigating the causes of mass Black migration from the South.

“Homeless, penniless, and in rags, these poor people were thronging the wharves of Saint Louis, crowding the steamers on the Mississippi River, and in pitiable destitution throwing themselves upon the charity of Kansas.

“Thousands more were congregating along the banks of the Mississippi River, hailing the passing steamers, and imploring them for a passage to the land of freedom, where the rights of citizens are respected and honest toil rewarded by honest compensation. The newspapers were filled with accounts of their destitution, and the very air was burdened with the cry of distress from a class of American citizens flying from persecutions which they could no longer endure.”

The NPR conversation focused on what was happening then in Congress. The exchange took place between host Ari Shapiro and Sarah Gonzalez of the “Planet Money” podcast.

“ARI SHAPIRO:

“This current federal government shutdown is the longest one we’ve had. Sarah Gonzalez of our Planet Money podcast tells us that the first time this sort of thing happened was over protections for black voters.

“SARAH GONZALEZ: In 1879, Rutherford B. Hayes was president, a Republican. He won after some controversial postelection negotiations.

“HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: A lot of people already are calling him Rutherfraud B. Hayes because he’s been elected by fraud.

“GONZALEZ: Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of American history at Boston College. . . .

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery. The next two amendments granted citizenship to African Americans and gave Black men the right to vote. Still, the government was not always able to protect them when they sought to exercise the franchise. (Credit: Library of Congress)

“GONZALEZ: Did they call it a shutdown?

“RICHARDSON: No, they called it the rider fight or the appropriations fight.

“GONZALEZ: A rider is a provision that gets tacked on to an appropriations bill. Now, to understand the very first shutdown, we have to go back to the Civil War. In 1861, almost all of the Southerners who were in Congress surrender their seats to go fight in the war as Confederates. But they slowly start gaining their seats back after they lose the war.

“RICHARDSON: These guys have literally been shooting at the same people that they’re going to be sitting with in Congress.

“GONZALEZ: At the time, African-American men were allowed to vote, but they tended to vote Republican. So Democrats didn’t want them voting. Sometimes, it resulted in violence at the polls. And the government would send troops. Nineteenth-century Democrats hated this. So when they gained control of Congress 14 years after the Civil War, they come up with this idea.

“RICHARDSON: Simply starve the government until they did what we wanted by holding a gun to the head of the Treasury.

“GONZALEZ: Fund the courts and the Army but only if the government stops protecting black voters.

“RICHARDSON: There are a number of cartoons in the newspapers about how the Confederates have taken back over Washington and how they are deliberately starving the United States Treasury the same way that they starved Union prisoners.

“GONZALEZ: And one guy in particular was telling the president, you cannot cave to the Democrats — James A. Garfield with the icy-blue eyes. He was the House minority leader.

“RICHARDSON: Hayes and Garfield look at what they’re doing, and they say, this is a complete perversion of the way the American government is supposed to work. A faction cannot starve the United States government to death to get its way. Once you have admitted that as [a] legitimate tactic of governance, you’ve destroyed our American Constitution.

“GONZALEZ: For months, Hayes vetoes bills that forbid protecting voters. And Democrats eventually give in on all but one very small part of the courts. It was mostly symbolic. But starving the government, shutting it down was considered so unsuccessful that no one tries it again for almost a hundred years.

“RICHARDSON: People recognized that you could not govern by extremism. There was a premium on abiding by our constitutional norms and by working things out between the different parties that wanted different things.

“GONZALEZ: There are a few small shutdowns in the 1970s and ’80s. But the return of shutdowns as a tactic really takes hold in the 1990s. Eventually, it did become so difficult for African-Americans to even register to vote. But it didn’t happen because of a shutdown.”

An addendum, from the Garfield Library: “Meanwhile, African-Americans, whose political status was at the center of the 1879 controversy, steadily lost ground in their fight for respect and civil rights, another legacy of the divisive politics of the Hayes/Garfield era.”

J-Grant Donors Call Diversity a ‘Core Value’

A coalition of journalism organizations is urging the 22 donors planning to support local news with more than a half-billion dollars to keep in mind that “Racial and ethnic diversity, equity and belonging must be among the pillars of [the project’s] foundation.”

The donors told Journal-isms they agree.

Signing the “open letter’ to the donors, who have aligned as Press Forward, were representatives of the Asian American Journalists Association; Indigenous Journalists Association, National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Maynard Institute, Online News Association and OpenNews.

The letter urged, “Align funding priorities with the demographic shifts occurring across our nation by investing in trusted leaders, publishers, journalists and organizations serving communities of color.

“Consider as a foundational criteria for all newsrooms that their organizations, including leadership, are reflective of the communities they serve.

“Break the cycle of disinvestment and the disproportionate investment in white leaders and organizations with under-representation of people of color.”

Ambar Mentor-Truppa, director of communications for the MacArthur Foundation, a lead donor, told Journal-isms on Friday, “Diversity in its many forms is a core MacArthur value and that is strongly expressed in our Journalism and Media Program.

“We are confident that our Press Forward partners share these commitments. Centering the needs of communities and ensuring equity and access are central tenets of Press Forward’s values. As we continue to listen to voices in the field, we are grateful for opportunities to restate our commitment to closing longstanding inequities in journalism practice and coverage.”

Ibram X. Kendi, at the lectern, established American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center in Washington in 2017 before launching the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University in 2020. He spoke before the Journal-isms Roundtable, held at Howard University in September 2017, along with Paul Butler, the Georgetown U. law professor who has published “Chokehold: Policing Black Men,” and become a cable TV analyst. (Credit: Sharon Farmer/sfphotoworks)

Despite Allegations, Kendi Denies Mismanagement

“One week after laying off more than half the staff of his Center for Antiracist Research, Ibram X. Kendi disputed allegations of mismanagement from former employees and said the center, which has raised tens of millions of dollars, is not in financial distress,” Hilary Burns and Mike Damiano reported Thursday for the Boston Globe.

“The layoffs, he said in an interview with the Globe, represent a strategic shift from operating as ‘a high-growth startup’ pursuing many different projects across a range of fields to becoming ‘the world’s first residential fellowship program for antiracist intellectuals.’ The fellowship model, he said, would be less costly to operate, so the funding for the center will last longer.

Burns and Damiano reported Wednesday that Boston University, which houses the Center for Antiracist Research, said it would conduct an “inquiry” into the center after complaints emerged about its culture and financial management.

“Since its announced launch in June 2020, just days after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the center has raised tens of millions of dollars from tech entrepreneurs, Boston-area corporations, and thousands of small donors,” they wrote.

“At the time, Kendi, the author of the bestselling 2019 book ‘How to Be an Antiracist,’ said the center would ‘solve these intractable racial problems of our time.’

“The money was meant to finance a range of ambitious projects: a database to track racial disparities nationwide, a graduate degree program, a media enterprise, and research teams studying the effects of systemic racism on health and society.

“Some of these projects have come to fruition, including The Emancipator, a digital publication launched with the Boston Globe’s opinion staff in 2021. The publication’s operations shifted to BU in March, although it continues to be hosted on the Globe’s website.

But others have not, including the Racial Data Tracker, which one former staffer described as a ‘centerpiece’ of the organization’s goals.”

University spokesperson Rachel Lapal Cavallario “said Wednesday that the center ‘has been developing’ the Racial Data Tracker. She referred follow-up questions to the center itself, which did not respond.

“She also provided a list of the center’s achievements, including: funding for numerous research projects, collaboration in a project launched by journalists at the Atlantic magazine (where Kendi is a contributing writer) to track racial disparities in COVID data, and organizing two ‘policy convenings’ on antibigotry and data collection related to race and ethnicity. . . .”

When a speaker said at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention that it was easier for him to switch to Spanish, an audience member shouted, “Don’t you ever apologize for speaking Spanish.” The organization presented some Spanish-only sessions.

Most Latinos Want Descendants to Speak Spanish

“Most U.S. Latinos speak Spanish: 75% say they are able to carry on a conversation in Spanish pretty well or very well. And most Latinos (85%) say it is at least somewhat important for future generations of Latinos in the United States to speak Spanish,” Lauren Mora and Mark Hugo Lopez reported Wednesday for the Pew Research Center.

“But not all Hispanics are Spanish speakers, and about half (54%) of non-Spanish-speaking Hispanics have been shamed by other Hispanics for not speaking Spanish.

“At the same time, 78% of U.S. Hispanics say it is not necessary to speak Spanish in order to be considered Hispanic.

“We asked U.S. Latinos about their views, attitudes and experiences with the Spanish language. Here is what we found.

“Key findings:


20% of Asian American Adults Hide Part of Heritage

“One-in-five Asian American adults say they have hidden a part of their heritage – cultural customs, food, clothing or religious practices – from non-Asians at some point in their lives,” Rachel Chen, Sono Shah and Neil G. Ruiz reported Sept. 11 for the Pew Research Center.

“Fear of ridicule and a desire to fit in are common reasons they give for doing this, according to a Pew Research Center survey of Asian adults in the United States conducted from July 2022 to January 2023.

“Birthplace and immigrant roots play a role in who is most likely to hide their heritage: 32% of U.S.-born Asian adults have done this, compared with 15% of immigrants. Among those born in the U.S., second-generation Asian adults (in other words, those with at least one immigrant parent) are more likely than third- or higher-generation Asian Americans (those with U.S.-born parents) to have hidden their culture from non-Asians (38% vs. 11%).

“Second-generation Asian Americans make up 34% of the U.S. Asian population, at approximately 7.9 million people, according to a Center analysis of the 2022 Current Population Survey. The majority of this group (66%) is under age 30. And according to our survey, they also primarily speak English.

“Aside from generational differences, here are other survey findings about who is most likely to have hidden their heritage from non-Asians:

‘Relentless Culture Wars’ Among Murdoch’s Legacy

“CNN host Abby Phillip tore into Rupert Murdoch and ‘the mess left behind,’ describing the legacy of the 92-year-old Australian billionaire who announced Thursday that he is ending his run as chairman of Fox News’ parent company, Fox Corporation, as ‘outrage porn, partisan red meat, stoking relentless culture wars,’” William Vaillancourt reported Friday for the Daily Beast.

“What followed was a six-minute compilation of cringey video clips of current and former Fox hosts like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Brian Kilmeade spouting off about a variety of topics. In one Fox & Friends clip from 2010, for instance, Kilmeade says, ‘Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.’

“The montage also includes several instances of bogus election-related conspiracies being floated on the network after the 2020 presidential election — comments for which Fox paid dearly, as the network ended up shelling out $787.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems earlier this year.

“ ‘That is Fox News—25 years of it,’ Phillip summarized. . . .”

On the “PBS NewsHour” Thursday, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik, author of “Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires,” was asked, “Do you think anything is going to change then about the approach, the tone, the political slant of particularly FOX News and the other FOX News outlets, newspapers?”

Folkenflik replied, “I don’t. I think that Lachlan [Murdoch] is, if anything, slightly more conservative than his father, a little less politically engaged, to be sure, and a little less corporately engaged, and less sort of ceaselessly ambitious than his father to keep expanding and maneuvering.”

Folkenflik told Journal-isms earlier this year, “I think that racially inflammatory and even racist rhetoric has been part of the company’s DNA going back to [Rupert Murdoch’s] British tabloids. Needless to say this is not true of everyone, every title or every program. Many Fox and Murdoch journalists are appalled by such things. But it is a notable and consistent feature.

“When things get extreme enough, rebukes are handed out. Sometimes. And then we find ourselves right back in it.”

A graphic in The Nation illustrates the 2021 article, “American Journalism’s Role in Promoting Racist Terror.”

N-Word Once Was Routine in Times-Picayune

“The News Orleans daily newspaper the Times-Picayune, since its founding on January 25, 1837, and throughout 1914, when it merged with the Times-Democrat, regularly referred to African Americans as nigg*rs,” Bala Baptiste, chair of communications at Miles College, wrote Sept. 8 for the African American Intellectual History Society.

“As a result, the newspaper’s journalists demeaned, insulted, and trivialized the existence of Black people in their news and commentary. In the process, the Picayune reinforced supposed notions of Black ‘inferiority’ and white supremacy. The white editorial staff attempted to reduce African Americans to a perverted caricature that white people need not take seriously.”

In one of several examples, some articles using the word in reporting on atrocities, Baptiste (pictured) wrote, “on May 6, 1911, a Picayune editor inserted the racial slur in a subhead of a long news story concerning a campaign speech by Mississippi Governor James K. Vardaman, who sought a seat in the U.S. Senate. The subhead read: ‘As to the “Nigg*r Question” and the Fifteenth Amendment.’ “

Baptiste concluded, “an overview of this abbreviated study, the Picayune casually published stories historically that callously referred to Black people as ‘nigg*rs.’ The news organization’s leaders apparently believed that Black people were ‘inferior.’ The use of the term ‘nigg*r’ suggested that the referent should not be taken seriously. If the Picayune generalized ‘nigg*r’ to all Black people, an explanation exists of why it waited 133 years from its founding in 1837 until 1970 before it hired its first Black journalist. Nevertheless, further study is needed to explain whether relationships existed between white exclusivity in the newsroom and the portrayal of Black people as ‘nigg*rs.’ ”

Rene Sanchez returned home to New Orleans last year to become editor of the Times-Picayune after nearly a decade as editor of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. Asked to comment on Baptiste’s finding, he told Journal-isms, “That practice was horrible, so pernicious, so dehumanizing. And it reminds us more than a century later why a racially diverse newsroom is so essential, given the unique power of the press.”

Rod Beard Promoted to Detroit News Sports Editor

Rod Beard (pictured) has been promoted to sports editor at The Detroit News, joining a handful of Black sports editors at U.S. newspapers.

“It’s been a long journey — which technically started as a paperboy for The News in the early 1980s,” Beard wrote Thursday on social media.

“I’m truly blessed to get this opportunity and for those who have helped me get here.”

Gary Miles, editor and publisher, and Kevin Hardy, managing editor, said in a note to the staff Thursday, “Rod has done an exemplary job in his 21 years at The News in various positions, most recently as an assistant sports editor. Previously, he covered the Pistons for seven years and the Michigan basketball beat for five years. Prior to that, Rod also worked in our online department, where he produced and edited. He has a bachelor’s degree in communication and English from the University of Michigan. He will report to Managing Editor Kevin Hardy.”

Beard succeeds Daren Tomhave, who “requested to take a step back from the role,” the editors’ note said, adding that “we’re more than pleased that he has agreed to stay on as an assistant sports editor.”

[Sept. 27 update:

[Miles adds:

[“Nicole Cook recently joined The News as Opinion Editor

[“Mark Hicks was recently appointed Breaking News Editor

[“Jakkar Aimery recently moved from web producer to breaking news reporter.

[“Chris Rizk, an Arab American, recently was named Deputy Metro Editor/Nights.

[“We’re happy that the appointments put these outstanding journalists in position to play even more significant roles covering our community. These moves, coupled with our innovative and industry-leading initiative, the Rosa L. Parks Detroit News Internship program, help improve the diversity of our staff and our coverage.

[“Much work remains across the industry to Increase the diversity of newsrooms, but we continue to make it a high priority because more contributions from people with differing backgrounds make for a richer and more complete news report for the people we serve across Michigan each day.

[More about the innovative Parks internship program, which we hope could be replicated in some fashion elsewhere, here].

Separately, “Dozens of New York Times sports staffers and guild members marched through the Times offices Monday afternoon [Sept. 18] to protest the end of the Times’s stand-alone sports desk,” Ben Strauss reported Tuesday for The Washington Post. “They stopped near the main atrium and read the names of some 150 sports staffers past and present, starting with Red Smith, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and sportswriting pioneer at the Times.

“Staffers called the march a vigil for a desk that was a staple of the newspaper’s report for decades. Starting on Tuesday, the Times will rely on the Athletic for the majority of its sports coverage, both in print and online.

“The Times announced in July that it would disband the desk, and it has spent the ensuing weeks relocating around 40 sports staffers to different departments around the newsroom.”

One of the latest is Emmanuel Morgan (pictured), “who on Sports has covered the N.F.L. and combat sports with dogged reporting and a sharp eye,” and now “will focus on pop culture news and the intersection of sports and culture,” the Times announced Sept. 18.

(Credit: Amnesty Eastern Africa)

Congolese Leader Insists He Supports the Media

Heads of state are not asked often enough about how journalists are treated in their countries, but with world leaders gathering at the United Nations last week, reporters had a chance to question President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo on the subject.

Tshisekedi’s country ranks 124 of 180 countries on the Press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders.

On Sept. 8, authorities arrested Stanis Bujakera, a journalist in the DRC. “The officers took Bujakera to the local police station, confiscated his two phones and laptop computer, and accused him of ‘spreading false rumors’ and ‘disseminating false information,’ according to those sources,” Amnesty International reported. Bujakera was transferred to prison on Sept. 14.

Amnesty said, “It is yet further evidence of the full-scale attack on human rights, including the rights of journalists, on the part of DRC authorities under President Tshisekedi, especially in the run-up to the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for December.”

Other press-freedom groups, such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists, echoed Amnesty. So did Congolese journalists and their supporters, who marched, signed petitions and took to social media.

Last Tuesday, Washington Post columnist Joe Davidson and others questioned Tshisekdi (pictured) at a press luncheon at the U.N. staged for the international media.

“When it comes to press freedom. I’ve always been a great supporter of press freedom through a number of measures,” Tshisekdi replied.

“One, I’ve always been on the side of the media whenever they have a world day for the media. I have always made sure that I’m with the media in the collection. But also, we organized, we had a general review of the media in my own country, which led to the adoption of a law that was much more progressive, a law that was much more progressive than the past 27 years. That law enabled us to bring into the focus new media, which was not there, enabled us to reinforce the freedom of the press and other aspects.

“That’s why when the organization called Reporters sans frontières did its review, in four years, DRC gained 30 seats. It went from 154 out of 180 to 124 right now. So, of course, there have been violence, violations of media in the eastern part of the country. Had it not been for that violation, maybe it would have been in a better place. I’ve always made sure that wherever I am, that the special place is given the relationship with the media, because through reporting violence, reporting from the media, this will enable us to govern our country in a balanced manner.”

Manon Laplace of Africa Report adds more complexity and detail, quoting Tshisekedi as declining to interfere with Bujakera’s case because it is the courts.

In any case, the press-freedom advocates have not been persuaded. The day Tshisekedi spoke at the U.N., Reporters Without Borders announced an “urgent referral of the case to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.”

Short Takes

Students and advisers from the University of Florida and Florida A&M University who traveled the Civil Rights Trail for a reporting project. From left, Brianna Luberisse, Jennica Clerveaux, Gabriela Rodriguez, Taylor Mayer, Peryonna Sylvester, Mira Lowe, Paris Coughlin, Sydney Johnson, Herbert Lowe, Kalisha Whitman, Sandra McDonald, Akiva Bell, Serra Sowers, Aiyanna Summerlin and Stanley Johnson.

Te Rito Journalism Project cadets, class of 2023, on their first day of induction, May 1.

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Richard Prince’s Journal-isms originates from Washington. It began in print before most of us knew what the internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a “column.” Any views expressed in the column are those of the person or organization quoted and not those of any other entity. Send tips, comments and concerns to Richard Prince at journal-isms+owner@groups.io

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