Articles Feature

Writers Battle Ignorance on Reparations

by richard02622

Coates, Malveaux Testify at Historic Hearing

Ebony Reportedly Lets Go of Online Staff

How the Los Angeles Times Gained Street Cred

‘Needed Somebody to Tell Them This Is Important’

Democrat Says People of Color Will Pick Nominee

Not Exactly What Confederate Fans Were Expecting

Authorities Rescue Abducted Mexican Journalist

Coates, Malveaux Testify at Historic Hearing

Journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates and economist and commentator Julianne Malveaux emerged as the most informed advocates for the idea of studying reparations for descendants of America’s enslaved Wednesday at a packed congressional hearing on the much-misunderstood proposal.

“Yesterday, when asked about reparations, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell offered a familiar reply: America should not be held liable for something that happened 150 years ago, since none of us currently alive are responsible,” Coates said in his opening statement to the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

“This rebuttal proffers a strange theory of governance, that American accounts are somehow bound by the lifetime of its generations. But well into this century, the United States was still paying out pensions to the heirs of Civil War soldiers. We honor treaties that date back some 200 years, despite no one being alive who signed those treaties. Many of us would love to be taxed for the things we are solely and individually responsible for. But we are American citizens, and thus bound to a collective enterprise that extends beyond our individual and personal reach. . . .”

The question to McConnell was asked by Eva McKend, a black congressional correspondent for Spectrum News, a slate of cable news television channels that are owned by Charter Communications, NY1 and other outlets.

Five years ago, Coates published “The Case for Reparations” in the Atlantic, “a cover story that would reinvigorate national discussion over debts owed for slavery and discrimination against black Americans. Today, on Juneteenth, he is testifying at a House hearing on H.R. 40, a bill that would establish a commission to study reparations. It’s the first such hearing in more than a decade,” the Atlantic reminded readers Wednesday.

Two network evening newscasts, “NBC Nightly News” and “CBS Evening News,” used an exchange between subcommittee Chairman Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., and Coates. “Why should the federal government bear responsibility for the social and economic damages to the descendants of the enslaved?,” Cohen asked.

“I think the most obvious reason is because the federal government is complicit in it,” Coates replied.

CBS played its story second in the broadcast, ABC’s “World News Tonight” (video) played its fifth within its first block; NBC waited until 16 minutes in.

At the hearing, Malveaux, who writes a weekly column for the black press, elaborated on Coates’ point about contemporary relevance. “The post-enslavement case for reparations can be made by examining racially hostile public policy and government complicity to white supremacy. You all have an article that I wrote for the ACLU that talks about several cases,” she said. “Our economic success could be punished by the rope” wielded by lynching parties.

In 1921, "The fact that Black men were willing to defend one of their own, along with the rumor of a rape, incited White Tulsans to destroy over a thousand Black-owned homes and businesses and to cause the deaths of between 300 and 1,000 people," Julianne Malveaux wrote for the Amrican Civil Liberties Union. "The damages were estimated to be at least $3 million in 1921 dollars." (Credit: Library of Congress)
In 1921, “The fact that Black men were willing to defend one of their own, along with the rumor of a rape, incited White Tulsans to destroy over a thousand Black-owned homes and businesses and to cause the deaths of between 300 and 1,000 people,” Julianne Malveaux wrote for the Amrican Civil Liberties Union. “The damages were estimated to be at least $3 million in 1921 dollars.” (Credit: Library of Congress)

“Economic damage to black people post-Reconstruction can be summarized in three ways,” Malveaux continued. “One. We were denied the ability to participate in our nation’s economic growth. The Homestead Act of 1862 did not include formerly enslaved people. More than 10 percent of the continental U.S. land was distributed to recent immigrants from Europe, but not black folks.

“So the 40 acres and a mule was given to somebody else, not us. These folks were able not only to get land but then to get grants from the federal government to develop their land. Meanwhile, African American people were denied the right to these wealth transfers.

“Secondly, we were denied the right to accumulate. The . . . paper I mentioned talks about how our accumulation was essentially stymied by lynching. The first lynching that Ida B. Wells examined was when a black man had the nerve, the utter nerve to open up a grocery store near a white man’s store. So the white man had the brother lynched, had three people lynched because of economic envy. Listen to those words, ‘economic envy.’ This is how black people have been suppressed in our ability to accumulate. Tulsa, Oklahoma; Wilmington, North Carolina; long stories that I don’t have any time to talk about.

“I want you all to look at the paper I submitted and to think about the many ways that black people tried to participate, tried to encourage, tried to be American, simply tried to be economic actors. Were suppressed because they had the nerve to think it worked. . . .

“There was public policy hostility to black people, GI Bill legislation truncated opportunity for African American veterans, Federal Housing Administration reinforced redlining and segregation, as official policy of the federal government. . . .”

(In the media, the “FCC and its predecessor, the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) outright refused to grant radio station licenses to African Americans and Jewish Americans because of their race and religion, until World War II,” as media-ownership activist David Honig has written for the Southern Journal of Policy and Justice.)

Errin Haines Whack reported for the Associated Press that the Republican witnesses for the hearing were Coleman Hughes, a 23-year-old columnist and Columbia University student”who has rejected reparations and affirmative action, and Burgess Owens, a former Oakland Raiders football player and Super Bowl champion, who recently wrote a Wall Street Journal editorial eschewing reparations. ‘Proponents of reparations act as though black Americans are incapable of carrying their own burdens, while white Americans must bear the sins of those who came before,” he wrote.

Owens also invoked Booker T. Washington, who famously said of blacks and whites in 1895, “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”

Tommy Christopher reported for mediaite.com, “The audience at the hearing booed Hughes after he said, ‘Black people don’t need another apology. We need safer neighborhoods and better schools. We need a less punitive criminal justice system. We need affordable health care. And none of these things can be achieved through reparations for slavery.’ . . .”

However, some speakers said they were seeking reparations that would address systemic issues African Americans face, not necessarily a government check for individuals.

As the hearing concluded, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, who introduced this year’s reparations bill, H.R. 40, said of Hughes, “I welcomed the disparate opinions, but I would argue to the gentleman from Columbia that you are, I think, without the historical perspective and the pain of being opposed at your very young age to affirmative action and reparations. So I would welcome a continuing debate. My door is open for you. . . .”

Danny Glover, the actor and activist, and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., were among others who testified.

Ebony Reportedly Lets Go of Online Staff

“Life comes at you fast,” Jay Connor reported Wednesday for the Root.

Joshua David
Joshua David

“Or at least if you’re on the digital team at Ebony Magazine. The Root has learned that the once-revered publication allegedly fired its online editorial staff without pay on June 7, according to two sources.

“Former social media director Joshua David and an additional source who requested anonymity out of fear of not receiving their back pay, confirm that the digital editorial staff — comprised of three writers, one videographer and David — were terminated via a call from a human resources representative, subsequently identified as Elizabeth Burnett, vice president of operations of Clear View Group, the Austin-based investor group that owns Ebony and its sister publication Jet.

“In an exclusive to The Root, David provided a recorded phone call and an email to corroborate his claim. . . .”

Michael Gibson, co-founder and chairman of CVG, messaged Journal-isms on Wednesday, “We do not comment on personnel issues.”

Separately, the National Writers Union is planning a reception in New York Thursday to launch a Freelance Writers Legal Defense Fund “to assist writers who need to take publishers to court, and for legal work related to taking on the media industry on behalf of freelancers.”

The event takes place from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Levy Ratner PC, 80 8th Ave., New York, NY 10011. “The reception will feature writers from Ebony and Pride Media who were part of successful campaigns to get writers paid,” according to an emailed version of the announcement.

Marketplace's Kimberly Adams, left, moderated a June 10 panel at the National Press Club on the Los Angeles Times' coverage of the shooting death of Nipsey Hussle. Reporter Angel Jennings, center, and assistant metro editor Erika D. Smith were in Washington, while writer Gerrick D. Kennedy participated by telephone in Los Angeles. (Credit: Melissa Lyttle for the National Press Club Journalism Institute)
Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams, left, moderated a June 10 panel at the National Press Club on the Los Angeles Times’ coverage of the shooting death of hip-hop figure Nipsey Hussle. Reporter Angel Jennings, center, and assistant metro editor Erika D. Smith were in Washington, while writer Gerrick D. Kennedy participated by telephone from Los Angeles. (Credit: Melissa Lyttle for the National Press Club Journalism Institute)

How the Los Angeles Times Gained Street Cred

How often does this happen?

In April, filmmaker Ava DuVernay accepted a Free Expression award at the Newseum in Washington, and she used her time to praise her local newspaper. It was shortly after the shooting death of rap artist and community organizer Nipsey Hussle.

“This week, I’ve been motivated and deeply moved, by the press coverage of this brother from South Central Los Angeles, specifically, an area in South Central L.A. that we call the 60s,” DuVernay said. “His life has galvanized a press response that has become a powerful moment for me and so many people who so rarely see that kind of attention given to people like him.

“The L.A. Times, our city newspaper in a [Calendar section] front page spread with huge, beautiful headline. The headline wrote ‘A legend in his city.’ It published a tribute article about Nipsey’s murder, written by a black reporter, Gerrick Kennedy, profiling the totality of Nipsey’s talent and intention. Great insight, understanding and sensitivity. I gasped when I saw it. The layout, the words, the way they honored him on the page.” It appeared April 2.

“It was another black journalist, Nikole Hannah-Jones of the New York Times, who tweeted that the layout and the love shown by the L.A. Times was ‘such a profound example of why it was so critical to hire journalists who are of the culture that they are writing about, as often as possible. The depth of knowledge, the intuitive gravitas is so important. Gerrick did Nipsey justice. Salute.’ That was her tweet.”

The National Press Club’s Journalism Institute showed that clip in Washington last week as it presented a panel of black L.A. Times journalists who discussed how that coverage happened. C-SPAN was present and posted a video of the hour-long discussion on Sunday.

Readers saw only one part of the story. The panelists — Erika D. Smith, assistant metro editor, reporter Angel Jennings and Kennedy, by telephone from L.A., with Kimberly Adams of public radio’s “Marketplace” as moderator — provided the other. That story was about the difference black journalists can make, the frustrations they must overcome and the success their efforts can bring.

Norman Pearlstine, the veteran editor who took the top editorial job of the Los Angeles Times a year ago this month, promised to make diversity a priority as he expanded the staff.

The L.A. Times reported these newsroom diversity figures for the most recent survey of the American Society of News Editors (PDF): Native American 1; Asian American, 63; black, 21; Hispanic, 66; Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, none; white, 271, for 36.08 percent people of color.

Louise D. Walsh covered the session for the National Press Club.

Walsh wrote, “In covering Hussle’s death, ‘We reached people we don’t normally reach, to subscribe — that’s a win for us,’ said Smith. ‘Our subscription base is white and wealthy,’ but Jennings’ stories brought in readers who were ‘younger, and black, and skewed more female.’ Diversity also means hiring people who live in the communities you cover, she added. . . .”

A recollection from Kennedy follows.

A Nipsey Hussle mural at 1547 Estudillo Ave., Los Angele,s by artist @leviponce in an industrial section of the city. (Credit: Erwin Recinos/L.A. Taco)
A Nipsey Hussle mural at 1547 Estudillo Ave., Los Angeles, by artist @leviponce in an industrial section of the city. (Credit: Erwin Recinos/L.A. Taco)

‘Needed Somebody to Tell Them This Is Important’

An excerpt from Gerrick D. Kennedy’s recollection of how his Nipsey Hussle appreciation came to be:

“I have been at the paper for 10 years (video). The entire time I have been the only black reporter on the music team. I am the only queer person on the team. I am one of three black writers in all of the entertainment section.

“I have had to reside in this space, not necessarily because I would want to, but because I have to . . . a lot of my job is explaining these things and why they are important to the audience. It was something that, early in my career, I was resistant to . . . because my voice was being suppressed until it was time to come explain this gay thing or this black thing to people.

“It has been a shift in the past five or six years when the paper has started to hire more people of color, even if they are not always black or not always Latino. We’re still getting more diversity in these papers, but it has allowed me to take that step back and really kind of see an opportunity to now be a voice before I have to be the voice, if that makes any sense.

“So when it comes to something like Nipsey, I’ll be very frank, if I had not written that first story, I do not think there would have been the interest that there was. . . . I think they needed somebody to tell them this is important. [Reporter] Angel [Jennings] and I had been there the same amount of time, but we both had to convince editors that this is something that mattered. We still had to do so much work convincing editors that it is something that matters . . .

Gerrick D. Kennedy
Gerrick D. Kennedy

“We know that a celebrity death is always going to move the needle, but I do think that this is an opportunity to show that this is not just a simple — not just a celebrity death.

“It hits a little harder. I moved to South L.A. last October, but Nipsey is someone I spent a lot of time with. I spent time with them socially, we had dinners together. We shot the s—, excuse my language, a bunch of times. I had just seen him Grammy weekend. We dabbed each other. You know, there was just excitement in the room that he was finally nominated after all of these years of putting the music. . . . so this was all very personal to me.

“I did not care about being first or any of that, but what mattered to me most was . . . I wanted to illustrate what this actually means. So it does mean taking a step back to say that I know I have to explain a little of rap culture in the piece, but I’m going to explain what he meant in the context of where he was in rap right now but also what he meant to the city because in a city this big, a lot of people are not going to know who he was. That’s just the reality of it.

“Even in his death, a lot of people did not know him, and a lot of people got really turned on to him, probably not even because of the music, but because of the things they were learning when they were reading Angel’s story and they were seeing what he meant to the community. They were starting to hear all of these stories come out of South L.A., a place they were not paying attention to if it wasn’t about crime.

“To be frank, it is still weird that we’re still in this space, but that is where we are. We have been this way [in] how we look at South L.A. for 25, 30 years now. So it does not change. But what does change is having reporters in newsrooms who understand it. And I think that is what really put us apart from anyplace else, and I looked (at) all the coverage. Nobody was even close to what we were doing and that was because of the fact that you had somebody like Angel writing about South L.A., who’s writing about Inglewood, who’s writing about these pockets of the city where black life was really affected by the changes and by gentrification. All these things have coalesced. . . .

“And then you had me, somebody who — I live and breathe hip-hop. I have been in this world for a decade, and I have been in every room you can think of, so they understand that I am writing something, coming from a place of, ‘oh, wow, he does not cover every single rap, R&B artist, or pop-up artist, so when he writes an appreciation, maybe this is something we should be considering.’ . . .”

Democrat Says People of Color Will Pick Nominee

“CNN commentator and Democratic strategist Paul Begala offered some advice today to the candidates running for his party’s nomination in 2020: people of color are going to decide this thing,” Josh Feldman wrote Monday for mediaite.com.

“Begala and the rest of the CNN panel were talking about Joe Biden’s candidacy so far, with Begala noting how the former veep is probably being reined in a bit. . . .

“’ The Democratic nomination will be chosen by people of color. Too many of these candidates are running for the pain-in-the-neck over-educated over-caffeinated white liberals on Twitter! I suppose I’m one of them. But the real people who will pick the nominee of my party will be people of color.’ ”


(Credit: Montgomery Advertiser)

Not Exactly What Confederate Fans Were Expecting

“Today the state of Alabama marks the birthday of Jefferson Davis, who served as president of the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1865,“ Brian Lyman wrote June 3 for the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser.

“A state holiday, state offices are closed throughout Alabama. Davis, who at one point owned more than 100 slaves, led a government resting on the principle of white supremacy. The Confederate Constitution contained a provision explicitly prohibiting any law ‘impairing the right of property in negro slaves,’ and his vice president, Alexander Stephens, said the ‘cornerstone’ of the new government ‘rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.’ . . . .

“Below, the testimonies of nine African Americans held in human bondage, all interviewed in Alabama in 1937. The transcripts have been edited for length and clarity. . . .”

The Advertiser piece continues a contrast with the often-recalcitrant history of Southern newspapers during the Jim Crow era.

When the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum opened in April 2018, the Advertiser ran a series of stories titled “Legacy of lynchings: America’s shameful history of racial terror.”

“Between 1877 and 1950, more than 360 African-Americans were murdered by mobs in Alabama and more than 4,000 were killed nationwide,” Lyman wrote then. “The acts of racial terrorism, conducted in the name of white supremacy, were almost never punished; created untold human suffering, and helped contribute to the Great Migration out of the South.

“The series looks at the victims of lynching and the aftermath of their murders, the Advertiser’s indifference to the terror and the potential impact of the memorial, both on the city and in the long process of reconciliation. . . .”

Asked about reader reaction to the publication of slave narratives on Jefferson Davis’ birthday, Executive Editor Bro Krift messaged Journal-isms Monday, “It was largely positive. In fact I didn’t receive any emails or phone calls that were negative. Online it was 98 percent positive. I found one negative post from what you would characterize as an ‘internet troll.’ Outside that, nothing negative.”

Authorities Rescue Abducted Mexican Journalist

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists — the sixth this year was gunned down last week — but rarely do we hear of a journalist who was abducted but then saved by authorities.

“A Mexican journalist from Veracruz was rescued by members of the Secretariat of Public Security after being abducted on June 12,” Teresa Mioli reported the next day for the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

Marco Miranda Cogco
Marco Miranda Cogco

“Marco Miranda Cogco reported via Noticias A Tiempo, the Facebook news page which he founded, that he was making statements to the public prosecutor. He expressed thanks to God, his family, friends, fellow journalists and other supporters.

“In a video in which the journalist is initially wearing a neck brace, he said he was rescued at 1:30 a.m. during a confrontation between security forces and the people who abducted him.

“According to Miranda, the security forces stopped the van he was in after it went along an unpaved road in those early morning hours. He said the people who abducted him were moving him to another house, but he thought they might kill him.

“The journalist said he threw himself to the floor of the vehicle once the shooting started.

“Miranda said he was hit repeatedly on the back of the neck, and that he was held naked in a room and that photos were taken of him, which they would use against him. . . .”

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said June 14, “While Miranda was still missing, his wife told local media that he had been threatened by Veracruz interior minister Eric Cisneros Burgos, who had offered him bribes in return for positive coverage and told him ‘you know what will happen to you’ if he refused. Miranda had nonetheless refused, his wife said.

“Miranda had just published compromising information implicating Veracruz government officials. His safety and his family’s safety must be a priority for the federal and local authorities, RSF said. . . .”

Norma Sarabia Garduza
Norma Sarabia Garduza

Miranda said in a Facebook video, “I’m back… in veracruz neither exists nor guarantees the rule of law.. useless government that of veracruz, not only is the wave of violence, there is no job, there is no economic development, much insecurity… What happened to me I don’t wish anyone. …”

Meanwhile, “Crime reporter Norma Sarabia Garduza, 46, was gunned down in cold blood outside her home in the town of Huimangillo, Tabasco state, on the evening of 12 June,” RSF reported. “She was with a relative on the veranda when masked men pulled up in a car, opened fire and then drove off. . . .

“Tabasco Hoy editor Héctor Tapia said she had received threats in connection with her articles. After a series of stories implicating Tabasco police officers in a kidnapping, she filed a complaint with the federal authorities against Huimangillo police chief Héctor Tapia Ortíz and deputy police chief Martín Leopoldo García de la Vega, and requested protection.

“The ensuing investigation was closed in 2016 without any action being taken. . . .”

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