Articles Feature

White Supremacy Was on the Ballot

by richard04802

Most Media Didn’t Make the Connection
‘A New Brown Belt Voting Bloc Is Developing’
How Much Do Black Lives Matter in Foreign News?
Newsroom Diversity Seen as Worldwide Priority

Short Takes

Support Journal-isms

Cartoonist Ricardo Cate had fun on Facebook with the unfortunate CNN on-air graphic with the phrase “something else” to refer to voters who were not white, Latino, Black or Asian American. The network apologized after protests by Native Americans, but Cate found grist for several cartoons mocking the graphic.

Most Media Didn’t Make the Connection

On election night four years ago, it was a lot easier to find on television what many of color were thinking.

“For a lot of people in America, this feels like their get-back,” rapper T.I. told host Marc Lamont Hill on BET at 11:42 p.m. on Election Day 2016, at least two hours before it was obvious that Donald Trump’s victory was certain. “This lets us know exactly where we stand. Don’t keep thinking that because this is 2016, we’re in a better place than we are.”

Van Jones said on CNN, “This is a deeply painful moment tonight. I know it’s not just about race. There’s more going on than that. But race is here, too, and we’ve got to talk about that.”

This year, BET relied largely on CBS’ election night programming, TV One was showing “Sanford and Son,” and Jones wasn’t in evidence at CNN’s first election night panels.

Granted that in 2020, with mountains of ballots still uncounted on election night, there was plenty for commentators to talk about.

But the fact that Trump won even more votes than in 2016 was more likely to be mentioned on social media and on niche websites than in the broadcast coverage.

“Don’t know abt you but [this is the] only place I’m seeing discussions abt the persistent scourge of whiteness ie white supremacy on this nation b/c it sure as heck is not on TV,” tweeted African American author Ronda Racha Penrice. “#TheTruth”

A survey from January.

On The Root, Terrell Jermaine Starr made the point bluntly though crudely under the headline “The Presidential Race Isn’t Finished, but One Thing Remains True…America Is Still Racist.”

In Detroit, Republican protesters shouted “Stop the Count” Wednesday as election workers were counting absentee ballots, prompting Detroit native Michael Eric Dyson, the author and professor, to voice the sentiment about racism more matter-of-factly.

“I grew up in Detroit in the 60s. This is a stark reminder of the deep hatred of blackness felt by many white folk who lived in the suburbs but who exploited the city’s services and resources before fleeing back to ‘safety.‘ ‘Stop the count’ may as well be ‘Stop the blacks.’ Sad,” Dyson tweeted.

The large vote for Trump was especially significant, some noted, because Trumpism will continue with or without 45 in the White House.

The CNN’ “something else” graphic that drew fire.

Brandon Tensley wrote for CNN what the anchors weren’t saying. “For one thing, despite four years of President Donald Trump — that is, of a man who has made White nationalism a central part of his administration and whose abject negligence in the face of a pandemic has contributed to more than 230,000 dead — millions of voters are turning out for him.”

Not to mention, as Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman wrote of Trump Wednesday in the New York Times, “if he is forced to vacate the White House on Jan. 20, Mr. Trump is likely to prove more resilient than expected and almost surely will remain a powerful and disruptive force in American life.

“He received at least 68 million votes, or five million more than he did in 2016, and commanded about 48 percent of the popular vote, meaning he retained the support of nearly half of the public despite four years of scandal, setbacks, impeachment and the brutal coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 233,000 Americans.”

When the election night voting maps turned Florida and Texas red, some thoughts went to issues of voter suppression, which likewise received short shrift in the ongoing television commentary.

Subini, who describes herself online as a “Critical Educator-Black Asian Feminist,” tweeted, “Any time someone mentions the results from Florida, All I can think about is the formerly incarcerated people who got their rights restored but then had the poll tax applied and still can’t vote.”

Michael Bloomberg, LeBron James and other celebrities launched a multimillion-dollar effort to pay off lingering court fines and fees for Florida felons. About 32% of the 4,700 felons who had their rights restored in the states four biggest counties had registered to vote, according to the Miami Herald, Tampa Bay Times and ProPublica. (video)

Nearly two years ago, Florida voters approved a landmark constitutional amendment allowing felons to vote, but a 2019 law subsequently required felons to pay off fees, fines or restitution before voting,

“The one certainty is that Florida’s Republican governor and Legislature have tamped down the felon vote, according to an analysis of state records by the Tampa Bay Times, Miami Herald and ProPublica,” Lawrence Mower and Langston Taylor wrote last month for the Herald. They added, “Like the poll taxes of the Jim Crow era, the restrictions have especially hit Black Floridians, who comprise a disproportionate share of felons and register overwhelmingly as Democrats.”

Meanwhile in Texas, “Republican leaders and activists have furiously worked the levers of power, churning out lawsuits, unsubstantiated specters of voter fraud and official state orders in their bid to limit voters’ options during the pandemic,” Jolie McCullough reported Monday, updated Tuesday, for the Texas Tribune.

The voter intimidation issue drew the second highest number of calls to its hotline, Tatiana Anderson of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights told listeners Wednesday on Washington’s WPFW-FM. Anderson is spokesperson for the national, nonpartisan Election Protection coalition.

Latinos and Native Americans had their particular concerns with the coverage.

The good news was that six Native Americans were elected to the House of Representatives on Tuesday – a record-breaking number.

The Native American Journalists Association elicited an apology from CNN Thursday after CNN’s election night coverage featured an on-air graphic with the phrase “something else” to refer to voters who were not white, Latino, Black or Asian American. “This type of language continues the efforts to erase Indigenous and other voters who don’t neatly fall into the race categories listed in the graphic,” NAJA said.

Asked for comment, a CNN spokesperson replied to Journal-isms, “Our exit poll results included a poor choice of words and in no way did we intend to minimize the importance of indigenous communities and the Native American vote. We have corrected it for any of our coverage moving forward.”

Juan Gonzalez, co-host of “Democracy Now!,” analyzed the vote on the air Thursday. He said “a false narrative” is taking root that Latinx voters were primarily to blame for the weak Democratic result.

“The main story is that people of color, especially Latinos, flocked to the polls in numbers that far exceeded what the experts had expected, while the total number of votes cast by white Americans barely increased from the last presidential election. How come none of the experts are asking why white voters underperformed [for] the Democratic Party?” (more in next item.)

Jose A. Del Real and Arelis R. Hernández explained Wednesday in the Washington Post, “The key to making sense of those trend lines, political experts and community organizers say, is to throw out the idea that Latinos compromise one single electorate.

“Although in the aggregate they tend to lean Democratic, the political calculations of Latinos are shaped by where they live, their ancestry, age, education, income and faith, among other factors in a group of approximately 32 million citizens, all with distinct political inclinations.”

MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki pointed out differences among Latinos.

Courtland Cox, the chairman of the SNCC Legacy Project who assisted this year with the NAACP’s project to increase voter participation in battleground states, messaged Journal-isms Thursday, “No detailed analysis is being undertaken during this tense period; however, I would note that if the Black community voted for [Joe] Biden in the same percentages as the white community we would be having a different discussion today. The clear view and concentrated vote of the Black community in the battleground states are making a tremendous difference.”

But the Black turnout wasn’t always acknowledged.

Amy B Wang, Vanessa Williams and Reis Thebault wrote Wednesday for the Washington Post, “In public remarks Wednesday, Biden asserted that when all the votes are counted, he will have won Wisconsin and Michigan by more than Trump won them in 2016, and that he was on track to earn more votes overall than any candidate in history. Absent, however, was any mention of the Black votes that would have comprised a significant portion of that support. Trump has vowed to legally challenge votes in several battleground states, signaling a long, drawn-out battle ahead.”

On social media, some Black journalists linked faults in the coverage to diversity in newsrooms.

“When you realize that Donald Trump is the very embodiment of the U.S., not some outlier, you will lower your expectations and not be surprised by what’s unfolding,” Washington Post reporter Darryl Fears wrote on Facebook.

“Deception, bigotry, hypocrisy, denial of voting rights, whiteness, the pursuit of capital at any cost are the core foundations of this country. Attempts to rise above this nation’s base instincts are only aspirational.

“I’m black, 60, and exhausted. Journalism is a noble profession that means well but it’s also one of the reasons we are where we are.”

The Post’s Eugene Scott tweeted, “These days, I am reminded quite often that you do not have to be white to support white supremacy.”

Alicia Montgomery, executive producer, podcasts at Slate magazine, tweeted, “If newsrooms were meritocracies, there wouldn’t be such a need for diversity programs. Too many White media leaders who blew the story in 2016 survived to do it again in 2020. The Black, brown and yes, some young white journalists, who got it right would have had those jobs.”

Asked by Journal-isms to elaborate on his comment about journalism, Fears cited history. “For this racial reckoning we’re in, journalism shifted, and every move it made on behalf of African Americans and Latinos revealed what hasn’t [been] done for more than a half century.

“The issues being protested now date back to the 1870s. Every new beat focusing on social justice, every data reporter hired to dig into statistics showing police mistreatment of black citizens, every deep dive into redlining and its impact on wealth and crime are jobs and stories that were relevant and necessary decades ago. Suddenly leadership roles were created and lower tier journalists of color elevated to them.

“Given the speed at which this all happened, any observer should ask why the quality of these new jobs and the quality of the people hired to fill them wasn’t recognized before. As you know, African American journalists have complained about workplace discrimination for decades.”

Juan Gonzalez analyzes the vote. (Credit: “Democracy Now!”)

‘A New Brown Belt Voting Bloc Is Developing’

From an analysis of the returns Thursday by  “Democracy Now!” co-host Juan González:

“So, the bulk of the increase of the vote in this election came from people of color, largely Latinos. So, now people say, ‘Well, but there was a slight percentage increase among African Americans and Latinos for Trump.’ Well, percentages don’t win elections. Votes win elections. Right? And that’s what you’ve got to understand. Would you rather have 70% of 12 million votes, or would you rather have 68% of 20 million votes?

“The increase has been so large, whereas the percentages have stayed roughly the same, that there has been — there was enormous increase in the vote by Asian Americans, Latino Americans and African Americans for Biden and the Democratic Party.

“Why was this? And I think the enthusiasm and the turnout of the Latinx community was fueled by four years of constant Republican scapegoating and attacks on Latinos, from the disastrous response to Hurricane Maria for the Puerto Rican community, to family separations, and also to the terrible response of the Trump administration to the coronavirus.

“And it is why Arizona and Nevada and Colorado are likely, it seems, to go for Joe Biden. And what has happened now is that there is a new Brown Belt voting bloc that is developing in the Southwest, that includes Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and very soon Texas, as well.

“So, the real underperformers in this election were white voters, who not only did not have a qualitative increase in their vote totals — they dropped from 71% of the electorate to 65% of the electorate — but they voted in an even higher percentage for Trump this time than last time or than they did for John McCain in 2008. And this is especially true among white women.

“So, now, how is this possible, given the years now of sexual — of allegations of sexual assault against Trump, his denigrating of women, his family separation policies, that white women increased the percentage of the vote that they gave to Donald Trump? What’s up with that? Why are all the commentators not dissecting what the heck is going on in white America and with white women in America? Unfortunately, it seems to me, looking at the numbers, there is no gender gap. There’s a racial gender gap, in that African American and Latino women are voting so overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party, but not white women. And I think that needs to be analyzed more.”

  • Mauricio J. Quijano, Mississippi Free Press: ‘Media Is a Battlefield’: How Local Latinos See Coverage of Trump, Biden, Issues
  • Mary Annette Pember, Indian Country Today: ‘Something else’ may make all the difference this election


Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s regional director for East and Southern Africa, describes Ethiopian massacre. (Credit: YouTube)

How Much Do Black Lives Matter in Foreign News?

At least two gruesome events took place during Monday’s news cycle: In Vienna, four people were killed in a shooting rampage, and it was reported that the bodies of 54 men, women and children were found in western Ethiopia, mowed down in a school field.

Which one made the U.S. networks’ evening news?

We know the answer. For all the talk of Black lives mattering, when it comes to newsworthiness, in too many cases Black lives abroad don’t meet Western news standards.

Why? A spokesperson for CBS News, where Kim Godwin (pictured) is about to receive the Ida B. Wells Award from the National Association of Black Journalists, did not respond. Neither did Godwin, who is the network’s executive vice president of news.

Andrew Tyndall, who tracks network news coverage for his Tyndall Report, told Journal-isms, “I am sorry to tell you that the nightly newscasts have all but thrown in the towel on international reporting in general. Africa was always low on their agenda. It is now virtually invisible. This link shows the sum total of all International reporting for the whole of September & October. You’ll see just one African story. And that was because Beyonce was interested in it. Tough times indeed.”

The co-chairs of NABJ’s Global Task Force had a different take.

“iI’s quite clear: American News organizations have been cutting back on their foreign coverage for decades now and have never dedicated the kinds of resources to covering the continent of Africa as they need to,” messaged Damaso Reyes (pictured), a free-lancer based in Barcelona, Spain.

“Americans, and American journalists and news organizations are no exception, have struggled with the concept of Black Lives Matter. The relative lack of coverage of this atrocity so far compared to what happened in Vienna is another indication that American journalism has a long way to go before it can truly claim to fairly and accurately cover the world.”

Stacey Samuel (pictured), Reyes’ co-chair, added, “I have to agree with Damaso’s assessment, given my experience at 3 of the largest nets in the US (CNN, CBS, NPR). Naturally, Al Jazeera did cover it.

“But, the largest global story right now is the US presidential election — it’s the sexiest headline, and made-for-tv, unfortunately. And US elections are when networks make their money in ad sales. The premise of a terrorist attack in a largely white European city is still more attractive to US mainstream newsrooms. Period. The editorial deciders still look at all the countries on the continent (as they do with US ‘inner cities’) as given to violence. I share all of this from my opinion and professional observations.

“I would suggest we hold a panel for newsroom editorial leaders demystifying persistent myths.”

Al Jazeera wasn’t alone in providing coverage. So did the Associated Press, the BBC, the Guardian and the New York Times.

In the Washington Post, the Vienna attack received a separate bylined story Tuesday on Page A17 in the print edition.

Another attack in Kabul, which “left at least 23 dead and 22 wounded” also had a bylined story on Page A17.

The Ethiopia story, written by the AP’s Elias Meseret, was placed in the unbylined “Digest” of briefs.

If a reader suspected the coverage might be tied to the diversity of the foreign news staff, he or she might be onto something. Post spokeswoman Kris Coratti said the Post does not provide staff demographic information at the desk level. Foreign Editor Douglas Jehl (pictured) did not respond, but an internal staff directory shows no Black journalists on the Post’s foreign desk.

The view was different at The New York Times. “The story you mention was written by Abdi Latif Dahir, who is Kenyan, based in Nairobi for us and covers East Africa,” Greg Winter (pictured below), international managing editor, messaged Journal-isms Wednesday.

“He wrote the story about Uganda today as well. Another one of our correspondents who has written about Ethiopia is Selam Gebrekidan, particularly after the Ethiopian Airlines crash. She is Ethiopian and based in London (her regular beat is global investigations). Declan Walsh is the other reporter who writes about Ethiopia regularly. He is an Irish citizen and covers East Africa for us.

“Other than that, we have several African American editors on the International desk, including myself, Kelly Virella, Lauretta Charlton (who used to run Race Related for The Times) and Yonette Joseph,, to name a few.”

As for the significance of the Ethiopian massacre, Winter said, “The Times has always taken the very active stance that life takes precedence above all other editorial concerns, and it did so many years — decades, actually — before the Black Lives Matter Movement emerged in the United States.

“The belief that life matters above all else, whether in Africa or anywhere else, has been a prime factor in determining stories from around the world and has certainly always guided our coverage decisions in the two decades I’ve been at The Times. So that has not changed.

“But having a diverse reporting and editing staff is especially critical in deepening our understanding of events in communities and helping reduce the possibility that newsrooms, in executing that commitment, do not unwittingly stumble into tropes, misrepresentations or faulty depictions of people of color and the issues confronting them, whether here in the United States or elsewhere around the globe.”

Newsroom Diversity Seen as Worldwide Priority

“More than four out of ten newsroom employees believe ethnic diversity is the highest diversity priority in the next year, according to a new study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism published” on Oct. 29, Hanaa’ Tameez reported Oct. 30 for Nieman Lab.

“On the heels of the Black Lives Matter movement during a global pandemic ahead of an election in the United States, the Reuters Institute surveyed 136 news industry leaders from 38 countries between September 21 and October 7, 2020. The goal was to better understand how the external challenges of doing journalism in 2020 has impacted news organizations internally.

“The survey respondents were mostly from the United Kingdom, the United States, India, France, Denmark, Germany, and Spain but responses also came from Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Finland, Indonesia, Kenya, Lithuania, Malaysia, Nigeria, Poland, and Thailand. Respondents hold senior positions in the editorial, business, and product departments of their news organizations.

“One respondent emphasized that improving diversity in newsrooms isn’t about numbers, but about how diversity leads to well-rounded coverage.

“ ‘It is about allowing staff from diverse backgrounds to tell stories that are important to that group through the lens of that background and for people from that background in a way that resonates with them vs a homogeneous approach,’ the CEO of a digital publication in Asia said.”

Short Takes

 

At Black Lives Matter Plaza

Related posts

NAHJ President Rebukes Its VP

richard

Why So Many Black Women Have Hair Stories

richard

Belafonte Wanted More From Black Journalists

richard

Leave a Comment

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.