The President’s Relevancy Pitch

Of the 535 members of Congress, give or take because of illness, sitting before President George W. Bush this evening 284 were members of the Democratic (sorry Mr. President the name of the party is the “Democratic” party not the “Democrat” party) Party.  For the first time for his State of the Union speech the President, with just two years left in his presidency, addressed a body where his party sat in the minority. 

The speech was an opportunity to show that he still mattered.  The new “Democratic” majority has roared out of the gate with its “100 Hour Agenda” and the House of Representatives has already passed six substantive and meaningful bills in just over 42 hours and the Senate has passed what many have called a landmark ethics bill.  In the face of that onslaught, the discussion of the 2008 presidential race and very poor approval ratings the President tonight was trying to prove he is not a crippled lame duck.  That he is still relevant.   

Talking about major issues like Health Care, Energy and Immigration showed he has a domestic agenda, vision and views that don’t line up with the “100 Hour Agenda” and signaled to the new “Democratic” majority that he would use the bully pulpit that comes with the presidency to push that agenda.  The first 35 minutes of the speech was allocated to offering the American people a different domestic agenda and giving his party some red meat to chew and even offering the Dems potential opportunities to work together. 

But the one area that the President and the Democrats have not found common ground is on the issue of Iraq, which the President left for the second half of his speech. 

Saying the current situation in Iraq is “not the fight we entered…but it is the fight we’re in” the President asked the new Congress to give the new plan a “chance to work” and said safety in America is tied to our success in Iraq.  That portion of the speech was greeted with more support from the Republican side of the aisle, albeit tepid at times, than from the “Democratic” side of the aisle, but the question remains what can and will the Democrats do on the issue of Iraq?

That question alone will keep George W. Bush relevant for his final two years in the oval office.      

   

New School Voting Rights …

Compelling piece in today’s Washington Post about a little known voting rights case in Mississippi now headliner in federal court.  The irony here is that the man charged – Noxubee County Democratic chief Ike Brown – with violating the 1965 Voting Rights Act is African American … despite the fact that the law was originally created for African Americans.  It rings a bit blasphemous in terms of civil rights legacy and Black progress.  But we should have expected this time would arrive, when we’re finally reminded that although these laws may have resulted from our struggle, their application is universal. 

While we agree with the assessment that the Justice Department’s eagerness to prosecute this case reflects the ideological zeal within a Bush Administration that must pander to its Red State “angry White male” base, we also feel that Brown set himself up for a profile too controversial for federal lawyers to ignore and Mississippi Whites to let go:

At issue is whether Brown, 52, has directed “relentless voting-related racial discrimination” against white voters and white candidates through fraudulent election tactics, as federal lawyers say, or whether he was merely operating aggressive political campaigns in a milieu that has long been split along racial lines.

Still, he makes a good point here:

“I played tough, but I played fair,” Brown said last week. Whites “stole elections from us for decades and nothing was done about it. Now the slightest inconvenience for the establishment is cause for the Justice Department to come down here.”

How the Soul of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is Lost …

The worse “MLK Days” (now known more as an acronym than who and what it represents) are the ones during election cycles.  Drowned out in the press releases, talking points, campaign stumps and annual regurgitation of insincere candidates struggling to impress Black audiences.

Fire in the Hole – Sending More Troops to Iraq …

Calling it a “surge” euphemistically suggests this is a productive strategy rather than a flawed strategy.  It’s an increase: a stubborn insistence that it was right to invade a country on false premise and manufactured accusations.  For all the talk of one last “push,” it still enhances the U.S. presence there and offers an unacceptable price. 

Putting troops in harm’s way is, well, the definition of soldiering.  It is the definition of what soldiers (in a volunteer military) sign on to do.  We understand the value of military engagement when needed or when necessary.  We salute them in the dangerous execution of their duties, the risks they take and the families they leave behind.  Our problem is placing troops’ in harm’s way in the name of false policy, of - yes – “flip-flopping” on your reasons for being there in the first place.  Our problem stems from using troops for nefarious means and personal vendettas and political face-saves, which is what this 21,500 troop increase is all about. 

We admit that arguing for total withdrawal in Iraq is a tough argument.  It’s not as simple as Vietnam or as we’d like for it to be.  A power vaccum and civil war in Iraq signals that the entire Middle East is in for a real hot mess as a jihad-filled future unfolds.  Islamic fundamentalism – itching for a return to the glory days of regional pre- & post-Crusades dominance - is violently spreading like a virus, yet consolidating into a dangerous global force that will wreak much havoc on the world stage.  Obviously, American hegemony (with European and Asian cooperation) could be the only hope in stemming that tide – like it or not.  Some may complain that we’re promoting an ”imperialistic” view.  We argue that it’s too late: the U.S. is already an “empire,” although it’s shamed to admit it openly.  But, what happens when order is absent in the Middle East?  Do we simply allow the apocolypse to unfold, let the world tip off its axis and see what happens when the dust settles? 

What we do know is that American foreign policy can’t be brash, John Wayne-ish and ill-advised.  It has to be smart, diplomatic, fair and calculated.  This “surge” certainly misses the mark and Americans need to be a bit more vocal about their displeasure with it.  Problem is, we’re more concerned with winning an unwinnable war in an effort to repair a broken image.     

Letter to Inquirer publisher on recent layoffs

In a city that’s 45% Black, how do you justify laying off most of the Black reporters for the city’s biggest newspaper?  We had to post the National Association of Black Journalists’ letter of protest to Philly Inquirer CEO Brian Tierney:

Brian P. Tierney
CEO and Publisher
The Philadelphia Inquirer
400 North Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19130

Dear Mr. Tierney:

We are writing you today in the wake of the recent layoffs initiated at The Philadelphia Inquirer and the profound impact they will have on diversity and journalism.

The National Association of Black Journalists understands the financial challenges that your company is going through. As the landscape of American journalism continues to evolve, newspapers across the country increasingly face a need to make hard decisions in an effort to advance the product.

However, as an organization, we are troubled by what seems to be a growing trend in the industry, which is to lay off African-Americans and minorities at a lopsided level. That trend was demonstrated severely today by The Inquirer’s elimination of a disproportionate number of African American journalists.

Of the 71 names on your latest layoff list, we understand that as many as 14-16 of the journalists targeted are African-American, or as much as 22.5 percent of the layoffs. That percentage is nearly double the proportion of blacks in the newsroom at the Inquirer, which was 11.3 percent in 2006, according to the latest ASNE survey.

You have stated publicly how important diversity is to the future of the Inquirer and Daily News, and how vital it is to the health and success of your enterprise that the staff reflects your core communities. However, your action today takes you and the newspaper in the wrong direction.

With this latest round of layoffs, your newsroom diversity representation will surely decline. While many other papers are improving nationwide, you will actually be getting worse.

While we understand that seniority policies ended up protecting white staffers while colleagues of color — often the last hired — were at the top of the chopping block, it still doesn’t make it right. Actions like yours today to purge newsrooms of the valuable minority presence are counterproductive and hurt the industry, the city of Philadelphia, the nation and our democracy.

We encourage you to rethink your position and look for ways to preserve and increase the diversity of your newsrooms, not decrease it. We offer you the resources of NABJ to quickly help you in recruiting, training and retention, and look forward to discussing with you how you can reverse your alarming trend and do what is right for journalism and for your community. Meanwhile, NABJ will continue to monitor the situation.

Bryan Monroe
President, NABJ
Vice President & Editorial Director
Ebony + Jet Magazines

Ernie Suggs
NABJ Vice President-Print
Reporter
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Black Journalists bear brunt of Philly Inquirer lay-offs …

Richard Prince writes about recent lay-offs at the Philadelphia Inquirer in his Journal-isms column.  Apparently, as much as 22.5% of the staff let go was Black, when only a little of the entire Inquirer staff was 11.3% Black:

Diversity took a significant hit at the Philadelphia Inquirer Wednesday, reporters there said, as the parent company laid off up to 71 newsroom employees, or about 17 percent of the editorial staff.

“The paper has lost talented, young black journalists. There weren’t enough, or that many to begin with,” suburban reporter Keith Herbert, who ended a term Dec. 31 as president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, told Journal-isms.

This says quite a bit about a major national news outlet in a major American city almost 45% African American.  It also says a lot about that city and its keen ability at maintaining high unemployment rates for its Black residents (who continue fleeing their beloved, yet jobless and homicide-riddled home like victims in the wake of Katrina).  But, largely, it speaks volumes about the true non-commitment to diversity in the major media newsroom.  And, just because we see faces of color on a broadcast or their names in a byline doesn’t always mean a “diverse” perspective is being represented.  

Looks like the Philadelphia Tribune will have to step up its game to ensure fair, comprehensive and balanced coverage of the City of Brotherly Love and its Black inhabitants.     

“Whiteboyism” …

BlackProf.com’s Terry Smith cleverly assigns a new school term for racist thought and action, particularly in the workplace: “Stories abound in corporate America of blacks getting whiteboyed–slammed in often subtle ways by behavior whose effect, if not purpose, is racial subordination.”

Smith is on point, but the term implies a problem solely promulagated by White men.  It is traditionally assumed that white men are the main and, perhaps, only purveyors of White racism and White racist/supremacist thought.  But we’d challenge that assumption to reach a bit further and seriously examine white women, particularly those that manage the modern American workplace.  Instead, White women are typically dismissed from the racism equation, as though they are too righteous (due to a conventional disposition of politeness towards their gender) or too “pure” to entertain such thoughts.  Right now, the nation basks in the glory of more “firsts,” including its first female House Speaker and its first viable female Presidential candidate who could become the first woman Commander-in-Chief, Leader of the Free World, blah, blah, blah and so on and so forth.  So, naturally, since this reflects the ascension of White female power, there may be little stomach for an analysis on their true attitudes on race.  Still, we’d be very interested in seeing an analysis about white female racist or race-based attitudes in the workplace, especially against black women.  The results might surprise some. 

The Ford Legacy & Executive Accountability …

There is great consensus regarding former President Gerald Ford’s legacy as that of “comity” and “grace.”  For so long perceived and somewhat ridiculed as the “accidental” President who issued the unforgiveable Nixon pardon, there is now a sizeable absence of thought on the reasoning behind and consequences after that pardon in favor of a mass media eulogy.  But, there was definitely a consequence to that pardon.  Whereas it can be argued that Ford’s pardon of Nixon may have done much to heal a nation gripped by factious political division over Presidential crimes, we can’t help but think that it also diminished Presidential accountability. 

This was probably an unintended consequence on Ford’s part.  Still, it’s fair to assert that those who occupied the Executive office following his brief tenure as “the right man at the right time” may have perhaps felt a sense of immunity from prosecution for flagrant Constitutional violations and ethical breaches of the public trust.  True, Ford’s decision could be fairly characterized as the short-term solution, but it presented far-reaching, long-term problems.   The office of the Presidency should not be “untouchable.”  Texas Congresswoman Baraba Jordan (D), the first African American woman to serve in the House from the South, said it best:  ”If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that 18th-century Constitution should be abandoned to a 20th-century paper shredder.”