Your Black Writers: White Journalists Blow Race Coverage

White Journalists Blow Race Coverage: A Review

By: Tolu Olorunda

Staff Writer - YourBlackWorld.com

The stage theatrics performed by the corporate press in analyzing the dynamics of Race vis-à-vis Sen. Obama, has been abysmal, at best. To put it bluntly, they suck. When Barack “Hussein” Obama, a Black man, initially announced his bid for the presidency, it was clear that the predominantly White media was unprepared, to say the least, in tackling the indomitable beast of RACE. The first revelation of this reality came, early 2007, when White pundits began asking the question: “Is Barack Obama Black enough?” It took an unprecedented level of effrontery for the grossly unenlightened conglomerate of White journalists to pose such a question, but, to paraphrase Sinatra, they did it their way.

Before long, the same group of overfed self-congratulators would declare, with such temerity, the dawn of a “post-racial” era. Considering the ground-work of “post-racialism,” it came as no surprise when the White, New York Times columnist, Matt Bai, declared Obama's candidacy to be “the end of Black politics.” Upon Bai’s preposterous assertion, numerous Black bloggers/Writers asked a simple question: What the heck is going on? Unfortunately, their reluctance to curtail mass media’s long-tradition of re-defining race-discourse had begun to bear fruit.

Once upon a time, a Black scholar’s usefulness on TV was exclusively tied to race-analysis – also known as “intellectual ghettoes.” Malcolm X, in 1965, lamented the rarity of Whites, in the media, “asking any negroes what they think about the problem of world health or the space race to land men on the moon.” The White press seemed to have hearkened to Malcom’s timeless words – at least, in part. Now, they figure it tiring to entreat a Black intellectual to analyze the politics of race. Why invite a panel of Black scholars, as Charlie Rose was fond of in the ‘90s, when one can host a panel of cotton-club-like White pundits who can deliver their tortured analysis of race in the 21st century. The level of audacity which provoked Matt Bai to suggest that, “For a lot of younger African-Americans, the resistance of the civil rights generation to Obama's candidacy signified the failure of their parents to come to terms, at the dusk of their lives, with the success of their own struggle - to embrace the idea that black politics might now be disappearing into American politics,” is what accounts for today’s pitiful attempt, by Mass media, to come to grip with the reality of a Black man overseeing the affairs of the country.

White journalists covering the 2008 Presidential race have performed woefully, at best, in covering the 2008 Presidential Race. One salient example of the unsatisfactory job done is the wholesome neglect of Cynthia McKinney’s historic presidential run. In contrast, the White press has lauded Ralph Nader, Bob Barr, and other third party candidates with ample coverage in their bid for the presidency. By some unforeseen means, the mainstream media has strategically executed, in McKinney’s words, “a whitewash” of the ’08 Race. Juxtaposed with the amount of press Ms. McKinney was instantaneously granted in 2006, after an incident with capitol police, something is, surely, out of kilter.

One of the greatest lies told in history is that the White media operates as the “conscience-filter” of politics. The ’08 presidential Race has laid bare that theory and rendered it invalid. In early 2007, Sen. Obama was compelled to dispel the proliferated rumor that he was raised in a Madrassa, and hence, a practicing Muslim. In doing this, the often spineless Senator utilized the oldest trick in political playbook. DENY! DENY! DENY! In his brash attempt to debunk the “smear,” Sen. Obama made a convincing case against the humanity of Muslim brothers and sisters. His “I am not a Muslim” tour was an instant hit with White neo-liberals who saw a conflict between the name, Barack “Hussein” Obama, and their concept of the American dream. If the media were truly a source of correction and conscientiousness, such an effort to dehumanize the quality of life of Islamic and Arabic brethren would have died the death of a thousand qualifications. Regrettably, the White media saw no moral incentive in protecting the integrity of Islamic and Arabic fellows. Those who began to speak out candidly against the rhetorical atrocities committed against middle-eastern people did so at a time when it was politically, economically and socially convenient to do so.

Last week, Gen. Colin Powell gave a ringing endorsement of Sen. Obama. Amongst many of his emotional words was his displayed concern for the handling of Obama’s theoretical Islamic ancestry/identity. Powell asked, in the plainest of terms: “Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?” Sure, Powell’s morally upright comments could have dealt a bigger blow five years ago, but his politically-expedient remarks at this point still account for some ethical effect. Upon hearing this, many White neo-liberal Radio/TV talk-show hosts ran with the baton of crusading against Islamophobia.

Unfortunately, their epiphany comes too little, too late. Two months of amendment can hardly alter the damage done after 19 months (in the context of the ’08 Presidential Race) of continual attack. Many White neo-liberal hosts have been just as culpable as their neo-conservative counterparts in rendering paralyzed the voices who speak truth to power. Their inability to speak up candidly against injustice is leaving an indelible stain on the concept of democracy and equality. Speaking only when profitable to their cause, they blow with the cultural wind and remain steadfast in an illusory state of progressivism. White newscasters such as Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow frequently “defend” the plight of Black voters, but almost always is their defense directly tied into the objective of electing their candidate, Sen. Obama. Such acts of political profit are an immoral waste of time and energy.

HBO Host and Comedian, Bill Maher, who has deemed Obama the “Jackie Robinson of American politics,” appeared on Larry King Live a couple of weeks ago. In a discussion on Race, Maher spoke of Obama’s meteoric rise as emblematic of the country coming “a long way in a relatively short period of time – relatively.” The self-described “crazy-liberal” hopes that society would “move faster,” in addressing the enormous racial disparities between Black and White. Maher, who once referred to Sen. Obama has “our boy,” must be living in a state of grand-delusion. Coming a long way – with Sen. Obama’s candidacy as the yard stick – would connote a starting point of inequality. But most Blacks are immediately suspicious of such inference – as it would suggest that any step away from inequality is improvement. Malcolm X had a philosophical answer to that: “You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches, and then pull it out six inches, and say you’re making progress.” Mass media, however, seems overtly hesitant to pay homage to that blurb.

A few weeks ago, CNN hosted a segment in which they attempted to make Whites feel comfortable with their bigotry – or in the words of BlackCommentator.com publisher, Peter Gamble, “the white curtain of racism.” Banking on the wisdom of a New York Times Op-Ed column, CNN noted how possible it was to be discriminatory or hateful toward a certain group, without knowing it! In a manner similar to a child therapist, the host explained, with much detail, the logic of “subconscious-racism.” With rage ricocheting through my entire body, I wondered: “Dr. Goebbels must be feeling real good with himself right about now.” Perhaps he’s thinking: “I’m a good man, after all. It wasn’t my fault. The Devil (my subconscious) made me do it!” CNN and the columnist’s excuse was that certain factions of society have inbred perceptions of ethnic groups, but cease to act upon those sentiments. The Holy Bible, which most Whites accept as irrefutable, informs that, “As a Man [or Woman] thinketh in his [or her] heart, so he [or she] is.” A recent AP/Yahoo poll, which found one-third of White Democrats to harbor racist resentments toward Blacks – costing Sen. Obama at least 6 percent in the polls – demonstrated how ridiculous it is for CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and other media conglomerates to tout the absurd claim that a “reverse Bradley effect” might be at work – the premise of which mysteriously causes more whites than expected, to vote for Sen. Obama on election day. With the likes of Pat Buchanan, the – in Tavis Smiley’s words – “racial arsonist,” who employed Klansman on his woeful presidential campaigns, working as paid analysts and consultants with major networks, one can definitely see how inexcusably narrow-minded race-discourse has become within the last 20 months.

White journalists’ analysis of race has often paled in sharp-contrast to that of their Black counterparts. In an effort to assuage the incongruity, White pundits often recruit Black pundits/scholars/buddies/consultants who lend credence to their attempts to rewrite history. Two perfect examples of this arose in the cases of Sen. McCain’s description of his opponent as “that one,” and Ashley Todd’s fabricated account of being robbed and mutilated by a menacing Black man. In the case of John McCain, most Black bloggers condemned his racially-hostile comments, but certain White pundits never believed it to be worthy of scrutiny, to begin with. Following McCain’s debate remark, Comedy Central Host, John Stewart, was swift in refuting any malice involved in McCain’s characterization of Obama. “I don’t think McCain was referring to him as a boy... I don’t think that when he said that one, that it was a racial thing,” Stewart opined. At this point, one of Stewart’s few, and rarely seen, Black correspondents had come out to affirm his boss’s take: “You’re right, it wasn’t,” the correspondent noted.

CNN News anchor, Campbell Brown, was less ambiguous. “Give me a break,” the White pundit hollered. “I can hear my grandfather talking about one of his kids or grandkids as ‘that one.’ He used it a lot. Maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe it wasn’t a term of endearment the way it was when my grandfather used it. Maybe McCain did mean to be disrespectful. But racist? I don't think so.” Following Ms. Brown’s logic, Barack Obama would have to be a grandchild for McCain to successfully call him “that one,” and be devoid of any racist or pejorative intent.

Last week, when a Pittsburgh white lady, Ashley Todd, lied about an encounter with a six-foot Black man – who had allegedly robbed and engraved the letter, “B,” into her face, White pundits rallied around to protect Todd from any charges of racial animosity. Black pundits were immediately summoned on CNN to “control the atmosphere.” On MSNBC, Obama-supporter and author, Melissa Harris Lacewell, went as far as proclaiming the initial skepticism surrounding the case to be a sign of distinctive racial progress. The political-science professor suggested that while the Ashley Todd fiasco is not “the end of American racism,” the “measured response” by law enforcement marks the dawn of a new racial era, and displays how “different” the “country is now than… it was 50 years ago.” Sean Bell, Troy Davis, Amadou Diallo, Mumia Abu Jamal, Michael Tarif Warren and Evelyn Warren might argue otherwise.

The hubris of White corporate media structures has played itself out extensively in the 2008 Presidential Race. Saturday Night Live is an explicit example of this reality. Last season, when SNL sought a perfect match to impersonate Democratic Presidential Nominee, Sen. Obama, it seemed quite odd that the SNL executives picked a White man to play the part. The inability of SNL to enlist a talented Black comic is a birth child of the White media’s decision, early last year, to arrogantly host all-white panel discussions on race. To hide this reality, certain tokens are dipped into the political slot. But when a Black man is granted a show, on a national stage, to confront the role of Race in the presidential election, certain prerequisites must be at play. The host must display a knack for Stepin Fetchit-like characteristics, or be an unabashed despiser of Black Women. White media executives understand the devastating effect serious-minded Black talk-show hosts would have on the truncated version of race-discourse hosted by White journalists. It is in this vein that, till this day, no Black personality hosts a nightly newscast on any of the major TV news networks.

Author and Journalist, Tavis Smiley’s All-American Presidential Debates, last year, legitimized this truth. The top GOP front-runners, at the time, were nowhere to be found – as they last wished to answer the “hostile” and “unreceptive” questions from people of color/culture around the world (One Republican would rather share a meal at IHOP, than answer questions the debate textbooks don’t cover). With this logic in place, it came as no surprise when the Presidential debates, all hosted by White men, were devoid of any mention on the specific plight of people of color/culture in the U.S. and beyond.

Does anybody believe that if Black journalists were in control, the dehumanization of Arab souls would have operated unimpeded, bigots like John McCain and Sarah Palin would retrieve a free pass in their nonchalance toward peoples of culture/color, the illusion of “post-racialism” would pass the smell-test, the folly-imbued concept of “race-transcendence” might be entertained as anything other than wishful-thinking? The simple answer is: NO! BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Dr. Lenore Daniels, had some choice words for the half-witted White pundits last week: “[I]t’s not just Racism! It’s white supremacy! You can’t wake up one day and be absolved of racism in an atmosphere of white supremacy. Racism seeps out every day in every way and you know it if your life is devalued by the continual reiteration everywhere of white privilege.” It would behoove White journalists, who hope to analyze race in the future and maintain their credibility, to meditate on her sobering caution.

Originally Appeared In Black Commentator

Your Black Scholar: Economic Equality and The Myth of “Free Markets”

F*** Joe the Plumber: Economic Equality and The Myth of “Free Markets”
By: Tre Baker
dangerousNEGRO.com

Now I’m no expert economist, so like Levar Burton used to say on Reading Rainbow, “You don’t have to take my word for it…” However, there are some commentators in the media, who claim to be experts, telling outright lies. Maybe it’s intentional or maybe they’re just
ignorant, but let me tell you what I think about so-called “free” markets.

The point of this article is to make you aware of the tactics that are being used to distract people from the fight for economic, political, and social equality for all human beings. As soon as the government steps in to do something, you get these self-proclaimed capitalists bitching and raising hell. Now this is not in defense of the bailout, which is an example of when the government goes too far, but it’s more in reference to “Joe the Plumber.” He’s upset because after he buys his business and starts making over a quarter-million dollars a year, he’s going to have to pay more taxes. Poor f’ing Joe. Even when the government taxes half his money, he’ll still be making over 3 times more than the average working American. So while the media is distracting you by worrying about Joe the Rich Plumber, you need to be worrying about the countless other people (plumbers included) barely making it paycheck to paycheck. F*#& Joe the Plumber and McCain’s tricky ass for distracting people from the real issues.

I believe the natural result of free markets and uninhibited, individualistic capitalism in the current context is perfect inequality, in other words, one ring to rule them all. Like the saying goes, “It takes money to make money.” Therefore, the more money you have, the more you can invest, and the more money you can make. Think about the inventor that has a great idea but no start-up capital and no friends and family to finance her until she can attract more capital. Think about the recent graduate that can’t get a mortgage because they have too many student loans to pay off. Meanwhile we’re in the worst financial crisis in many of our lifetimes and people like Warren Buffet are just getting richer by buying distressed assets at historically low prices. McCain might as well say, “My friends, the rich get richer and to hell with all you poor bastards.”

The more money you have, the more money you have to invest in buying or creating businesses/assets that generate even more money for you and create more wealth. When your pockets are deep, like Microsoft, you can afford to overpay for some of these assets (e.g. Facebook) just to keep other people out of the game (e.g. Yahoo). You can buy up the best companies, the best real estate, and the highest performing assets. In a purely free market there are no regulations against monopolies, so the only way to stop this cycle is to kill the people doing it.

Innovation, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship will only take you so far because the fat cats with the big wallets will always attempt to claim most of the value generated by your creativity. In corporate strategy theory there’s something called Porter’s Five Forces. Three of them are Buyer Power, Supplier Power, and Barriers to Entry. Basically, the bigger the buyer or supplier, the more power they have usually due to economies of scale or being one of the only providers of a product or service. (There are cases of dis-economies of scale, when being bigger actually hurts a company, but those are usually temporary anomalies in supply-constrained markets). For example, Wal-mart can offer you low prices because they’re so huge and they buy such large quantities that they get large bulk discounts…that’s Buyer Power. So if you’re a start up company trying to sell your products, eventually you’re going to run into one of these behemoths that will squeeze your margins and claim most of the value from your product or service unless you’re content staying small and limiting growth. Barriers to entry are just what they sound like. It’s a measure of how hard it is to start a business. A graphic design company has low barriers to entry. Any kid with a computer and Photoshop can start one. A car company however, has high barriers because it takes a lot of upfront investment to start one. If you ain’t got it, you ain’t gettin’ in, but if you’re rich, the world is your oyster.

Let’s not even get started on venture capitalist or private equity firms that are masters at claiming value. I’m not saying any of this is necessarily bad because the big companies and the private equity players do create significant value as well, not just claim it. Without them many companies wouldn’t even have a chance to get started. I’m just saying that eventually more and more money will end up in fewer and fewer hands because the best venture capitalists raise the most money, charge the highest fees, and do the most deals, and the biggest companies have insatiable appetites for continued growth for growth’s sake, asset grabbing, and centralizing power (and compensation) towards the top of the org. chart. I’m over-simlifying things here, but you get the main point.

In a completely free market, there is also freedom from government. This means there is no government interference and there are no corporate taxes because taxes stifle growth and negatively affect investment returns, while the goal of a soulless company is to maximize returns or so-called economic “value.” Obviously this is an extreme case, but it illustrates that there is a role for government in the economy, and you should be skeptical any time some finance guy or economists starts raising hell when the government interferes in business and the economy talking about letting the market work itself out. The market has no compassion for the economically disadvantaged.

While they have you worrying about Joe the $250,000/year Plumber, you should be worrying about how it is possible for one man to have 50 billion dollars while Joe the college graduate is still paying off his loans 15 years later, or Joe the teacher can barely make ends meet even though he’s instrumental to improving the future of our society by educating the next generation. Our current priorities ensure the eventual displacement of our country as a so-called Super Power.

You saw how the conservatives jumped on Obama for talking about “spreading the wealth.” Because of our bad history with Socialist and Communist countries we incorrectly assume that most forms of socialism or wealth redistribution are bad. Meanwhile, most of us are the recipients of wealth redistribution in some form or another (e.g. public schools, libraries, roads, parks, public and private scholarships, grants, subsidized loans, progressive taxes, etc). Let me tell you a secret…”socialist” is not a bad word. If you think redistribution of wealth is bad, you haven’t thought about the alternatives and the American Dream will remain just that….a dream for the masses of people. If inequality is a by-product of individualistic, uninhibited capitalism, then without any redistributive or socialistic policies the end state is all the money/resources in the hands of one person or a small group of people. There’s another word for this…slavery.

I actually am a big supporter of capitalism and free markets because they motivate people to create, invent, and potentially advance technologically to a point where we can eliminate poverty and satisfy the basic needs of everyone, but our society is too primitive to achieve a truly free market right now. The main flaw with the current state of capitalism is that we do not know how to accurately place a value on public goods and certain other externalities.

An externality is something that indirectly affects any party not involved in an economic decision. For example, pollution is a negative externality that benefits a few people, but hurts everyone. On the other hand there are positive externalities associated with public education that benefit society as a whole, but would not be possible if it was left up to private individuals or institutions. These positive and negative externalities are hard for our primitive brains to value. Hell, we can’t even value real assets correctly, which is why housing prices were allowed to run up and cause this disaster we’re in right now. If we could value these tangible and less tangible things correctly, we would understand that there is an actual value to wealth re-distribution because the probability of revolution and political, social, and economic meltdown increases as a function of several variables, the most important of which are inequality and the faith people have in society to protect citizens and property rights. Once people lose faith in government/society or lose hope for a better future or a reason for living, explosive situations arise. Think about the major revolutions in modern history, and try to find one that wasn’t caused by inequality or perceived inequality. Even if the chance of revolution is small, if you multiply it by the value of the destruction it could cause, the current value of a future revolution is still significant. Joe the Plumber won’t care about taxes when his business is burned to the ground because of riots. Money is only valuable in people’s minds based on the society and the government that supports its value.

A good example currently being played out is the value of climate change and the debate on the price of carbon. Governments are attempting to “tax” carbon based on the belief that it causes global warming, which could cause a disaster in the future. If the polar ice-caps melt, or we cause another Ice Age, then we will wish we had spent a little more money protecting the environment. It is not fair to our children for us to borrow against their future by recklessly destroying the environment now.

This same reasoning should be used to combat inequality and oppression. White people in America borrowed against future generations for 400 years by taking advantage of free labor. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH. You cannot force people to work for 400 years and expect the debt to go away. It is not fair to white people today because they did not make the decision, but they’re going to have to pay for it one way or another. And it’s not going to happen by making white folks feel guilty or forcing them to be PC and inhibiting honest discussion. It will even happen if Black people remain ignorant and clueless regarding the debt they’re owed. They will pay whether the Reparations Movement succeeds or not. Either the masses of Black people cause so much destruction to themselves that they bring down the rest of society, or they wake up and start attacking their oppressors directly via civil disobedience or outright violent aggression. You can’t continue to allow oppressed people to suffer and think it’s not going to spill over into your streets. Just like you can’t keep emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and think it won’t come back to haunt us all. I suggest you fork over that pay check before either of these things happens to all of us, our children, or our grandchildren. Like Dr.King Said:

“We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

Unfortunately, our government is inefficient, so we need to come up with another way to combat inequality and protect the politically, socially, and economically vulnerable in our society. Maybe instead of leaving it to government and higher taxes to take care of those that can’t take care of themselves or give people a little boost in hard times, we should leave it up to social enterprises and have mandatory philathropy “taxes” that go directy to companies/ organizations that provide direct benefit to the people. Consider the taxes an investment in revolution prevention. Social enterprises can be for-profit or non-profit companies that are self-sustaining and provide social (and sometimes financial) benefits. These organizations would have to compete on standardized platforms for business just like regular companies. The government would just be responsible for oversight and prosecuting fraudulent behavior by these organizations. I haven’t really researched this concept much yet, so feel free to make comments telling my why this won’t work.