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

Dr. Christopher J. Metzler Interview With YBW On Obama & "Post-Racial" America

Interview with Georgetown University dean and author, Dr. Christopher J. Metzler, by Tolu Olorunda.

Dr. Chris Metzler is associate dean at Georgetown University and the author of The Construction and Rearticulation of Race in a Post-Racial America. In his new book, Dr. Metzler makes the case that Sen. Barack Obama’s meteoric rise to political stardom is an inclination of racial progress, however, not an indictment on racism in the U.S. and beyond. Dr. Metzler is also a political analyst and a full time advocate for diversity at higher institutions and global organizations. I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Metzler on issues including diversity, the role of a disproportionately white media in the 2008 presidential election, Sen. Obama, and the concept of “post-racialism.” Dr. Metzler was poignant in dissecting the politics of “racial-exceptionalism,” which has aided Sen. Obama immensely in his historic bid for the White House:

Thanks for joining us, Dr. Metzler. Can you describe what your educational background entails of?

Well, I have a Masters degree in Human Rights from Columbia University, and a PhD in Law from University of Aberdeen. I am also a member of Oxford University and Kellogg College.

What preceded your deanship at Georgetown?

I was on the faculty at Cornell University for 8 years, and at Cornell, I headed the equal opportunity and diversity program. There, I did a fair amount of reach into issues of Human Rights, diversity and equal employment opportunity. At Cornell, I created the nation’s first certification program for diversity management professionals. In addition to academic, I also do a fair amount of work in the private sector.

Based upon your lengthy work in the field of diversity, do you sense a substantive improvement in diversity vis-à-vis College, Universities and the academic world at large?

There is an improvement, but I wouldn’t call it substantive. There is an improvement with regard to the number of students of color being recruited into Ivy League Universities. However, in some respects, a number of faculties still don’t know how to work effectively with students of color. A number of faculties don’t take enough time to think about having classrooms which are inclusive of students of color. So while I think there has been a numeric improvement, I don’t think there has been a sustained improvement.

In a recent interview, you said, “If diversity is the right thing to do, frankly everyone would have done it already… The difficulty is that we have not been able to define that with any specificity what we mean by diversity.” Can you expound on that?

In most organizations, there is a stated “commitment” to diversity, but for most of those organizations, that simply translates to activities centered on diversity; for example, Martin Luther King Holiday or Black History month – the shortest month of the year. Very few organizations want to actually focus on looking at the institutional racism, which is still rampant in these organizations, and address them. It is far easier to participate in activities, which don’t substantively change the organizations. Some of them now have a definition of diversity which is so broad that it makes it meaningless and, therefore, renders no one accountable.

What is incumbent upon the corporate structures as well as the peoples of culture to bring about that diversity?

Well, a number of things: First of all, an acknowledgement that we are not living in a post-racial America. We have gotten to the point where discussions suggest that racism is no more an integral issue in every organization in America. Secondly, as it relates to people of color in organizations, we must step up to the plate to speak on issues of racism/diversity in these organizations. In a way, we are complicit because we, often, don’t want to have that discussion. We would rather participate in these useless ethnic food and dress days. It’s what I refer to as “Taco Tuesday, and Soul Food Wednesday.” So we have to participate in a practical way. Thirdly, what we need from organizations is a demonstrated commitment to diversity.

In you new book, The Construction and Rearticulation of Race in a “Post Racial” America, you break down the dynamic of Race in an alleged post-racial America. How significant is that to the emergence of Sen. Barack Obama?

It is extremely significant for a number of reasons. First of all, what the book does is put into historical context the genesis of Race in America. We know that Race is not biological, rather social. So we have to ask ourselves this question. Does Race matter? It certainly does. So if we look at the number of caricatures of Race throughout our experience, we see that in the 60s for example, there were always two choices: Dr. Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. For a number of white Americans, the more palatable choice was Martin Luther King, because he was viewed as more “acceptable.” With regard to Sen. Obama, he is not the first Black individual to run for public office. Before him, there was Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Shirley Chisholm. But all three of them were considered, by a number of White people, to be “maddening” Negroes, while Senator Obama is a more “acceptable” Negro. And thus, they can consider themselves to be non-racist in voting for Sen. Obama. A number of people in the media have been silent on this issue because they don’t want to be viewed as racist, and also because they have neither the language nor the sophistication to talk about it.

Do you think that the media, being disproportionately white, makes them inept and devoid of the necessary intellectual faculty to deal with this issue proportionately?

Yes. Let’s look at who is covering Race in this election. You had Soledad O’Brien supposedly host this discussion about being Black in America. From my perspective, that was one of the biggest wastes of time – relative to race. The folks who she got to speak about race did nothing. The conversations were empty and did not advance the conversation in any way. Then you look at the political commentators. The vast of the American media does not have the language to talk about Race. They all want to speak of Obama as “transcending Race.” But how do you transcend Race when you live in a society whose very foundation was built on Race. So they then recruit a few Black Commentators to speak on Race. And, in fact, with a few exceptions, none of them have been able to talk about it in any significant format. So you might have Roland Martin analyzing the dynamics of Race, but he is clearly an Obama supporter, and that is identity politics. That only provides a reaction to Race, instead of an analysis of it. In my book, I also analyze the issues of White privilege because a lot of people (Black & White) have a problem discussing it.

There has been a lot of talk within the Black Community by Black scholars and activists – a la Dr. Cornel West, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, and Earl Ofari Hutchinson – about Sen. Obama running away from his race, in order to appease white delegates. But it also seems inevitable when put in the context of our society. In your assessment, how do you analyze that dynamic, and what will be the outcome of this historic 2008 presidential race vis-à-vis Race vis-à-vis Black people.

It’s a catch-22, but I don’t think he had to do it, or be the messenger. I think he could have employed surrogates to act independently in analyzing the issue of Race. But he didn’t do that, and it ended up where he was the one essentially speaking out about it. I also think you’re right, because he boxed himself in, and at that point he could not be seen as the “Black candidate.” I have had White colleagues who admit to me that they would vote for Obama because he seems to transcend Race. What those white people don’t understand is that thinking that way exposes the fact that a number of white people are still trapped into the kind of racial thinking that got us to where we’re at presently. Now, there are a couple of scenarios. Number one, if he is not elected, we’re going to see a significant number of hand wringing in the Black Community; because, to them, if this “acceptable Negro” couldn’t even get elected, who can? So there might be a disengagement from politics for the Black Community. Number two, if he wins, he cannot be a “Black president.” He’s going to have a very delicate balance relative to how he governs. We have to ask, “What are the kinds of policies he puts forth that affect Black folks disproportionately?” He has already started talking about the issue of affirmative action in terms of a more class-based system. Also, if he wins, a number of White folks would begin beating the drum that suggests racism is finally over because of the fulfillment of a Black president.

And how do you suggest Black people ‘play the hand they’ve been dealt’ with regard to a potential Obama presidency?

Black folks of conscience must look at the policies he would be able to influence and figure out how they would affect people who have been historically disenfranchised (people of color). We must also figure out a way to advocate for the historically disenfranchised in such a way that the problems they are experiencing are alleviated in an Obama presidency.

This interview was conducted by Tolu Olorunda, Staff Writer for YourBlackWorld.com