[BRIGADE] PJB: Whitey Need Not Apply
Published: Fri, 08/01/08
By Patrick J. Buchanan
"Will race be an issue in this campaign?"
Hearing the cable talk-show host solemnly pose the question, I
could not suppress a belly laugh.
For the anchor was fearful that some white folks might reject Obama
because he is African-American -- even as a Rasmussen poll was
reporting that Barack is beating McCain among black voters 94 to 1.
What, other than race, explains how Barack rolled up 90-10 margins
among black voters while running against Hillary Clinton, wife of
the man novelist Toni Morrison dubbed "our first black president"?
Indeed, so one-sided was the primary coverage in favor of Barack as
the first African-American with a real chance to be president, even
"Saturday Night Live" took to mocking the mainstream media.
As for black radio, on "The Tom Joyner Morning Show," "Michael
Baisden Show" and "The Steve Harvey Morning Show," which together
may reach 20 million folks, there is "little pretense of balance,"
writes Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times. "More often than not
the Obama campaign is discussed as the home team."
Black Entertainment Television plans to carry Barack's speech to
the Democratic convention live, but has no plans to carry McCain's.
Barack's speech "is an historic occasion," says BET Chairman Debra
L. Lee, "so that demands some special treatment from us."
As the mainstream media have moved left and talk radio right, and
cable is breaking down along political and ideological lines, there
is something else afoot now -- the racial Balkanization of the
newsroom.
Consider. On Sunday, 6,800 folks showed in Chicago for the 2008
quadrennial convention of UNITY: Journalists of Color. McCain
declined an invitation. Bush had been booed at UNITY 2004, while
John Kerry got a standing ovation. Featured speaker: Barack. Major
concern of the journalists running the show: that their colleagues
would lift the roof off the McCormick Place convention center when
Barack arrived.
Said Luis Villareal, a producer of NBC's "Dateline," "I don't think
it's such a bad thing if for 15 minutes you take off your reporter
hat and respond to (Obama) as a human being at an event where
you're surrounded by people of color and you're here for a united
cause."
And exactly what "cause" might the 10,000 members of UNITY be
united behind? The hiring and advancement of journalists of color
in all major news organizations in America.
For, as its emblem depicts, UNITY comprises four alliances: the
Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of
Hispanic Journalists, the Native American Journalists Association
and the National Association of Black Journalists.
"A New Journalism for a Changing World" is UNITY's motto. And the
title of its July 22 press release reveals what the "new
journalism" is all about. "Aim of New UNITY Initiative Is More
Diversity in Top Media Management."
"With more than 50 percent of the population projected to be people
of color in less than a generation," says UNITY President Karen
Lincoln Michel, "the nation's news organizations continue to
generate dismal diversity numbers year after year. ... 'Ten by
2010' is a significant step in the right direction."
What is Ten by 2010?
UNITY is demanding that 10 major U.S. news organizations, by
mid-2010, elevate to a senior management position in the newsroom
at least one journalist of color and provide "customized training
to help prepare them."
The journalist may be Asian, African-American, Native American or
Hispanic, which rules out journalists of Irish, English, Polish,
Italian, German or Jewish ancestry, since they are white.
Is this what we have come to 50 years after the triumph of the
civil rights movement? Flat-out demands, by American journalists,
for the hiring and promotion of colleagues based on race and color?
Is there any evidence major news organizations in this country have
engaged in systematic discrimination to keep out men or women of
color this last half century? The reverse seems true. They have
bent over backward to advance minority journalists.
And if journalists have been hired and promoted based on ability
and merit, why in the 21st century should these criteria be thrown
out as the standards for advancement -- in favor of race and color?
Isn't this what they did in the days of Jim Crow -- hire and
promote based on race? What UNITY is calling for is a return to the
old rules but with new beneficiaries -- blacks, Hispanics, Asians
and Native Americans -- and new victims, all of whom will be white.
On Sunday, McCain came out in favor of an Arizona civil rights
initiative that would outlaw any state discrimination either for or
against folks, based on race, gender or national origin. Barack
said he was "disappointed" with McCain and told UNITY he favors
affirmative action "when properly structured."
The Arizona referendum banning preferential treatment based on race
is also on the ballot in the swing state of Colorado. It won in
California in 1996, in Washington in 2000 and in Michigan in the
great Democratic sweep of 2006. It has never lost, and may just win
McCain Colorado, and with it the nation.
SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/08/pjb-whitey-need-not-apply/