Jon Stewart’s skewering of the many Nazi accusations and hypocrisy on Fox News will probably get the lion’s share of today’s attention in the blogosphere. But Wyatt Cenac’s piece of the people, descendants of slaves, in Turkey Creek, Miss. and the patronizing Audubon Society is hilarious.
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Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s call for felons to write an essay to gain back their voting rights is a thinly veiled attempt to minimize such requests. But more important, it gives his administration the chance to deny anyone they want based on the essay. What possible criteria can he devise for the essay that is not wholly dependent on subjective evaluation?
McDonnell (R) will require the offenders to submit an essay outlining their contributions to society since their release, turning a nearly automatic process into a subjective one that some say may prevent poor, less-educated or minority residents from being allowed to vote.
Virginia is one of only two states that require approval from the governor to restore felons’ rights. Most states do so automatically once a sentence has been served.
What puzzles me is the Democrats’ response.
"It’s another roadblock," Sen. Yvonne B. Miller (D-Norfolk), a member of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said when she was told of the change.
(It is surprising that in a story of more than 1,000 words that three-word sentence is the entirety of the Democrats’ viewpoint. Whether that is the reporter’s fault for not seeking more comment or the Dems fault for not speaking up is unknown.)
We do have this statement by the state’s Democratic Party office (thanks to Blue Virginia):
"Governor McDonnell should immediately remove this costly and burdensome barrier for non-violent offenders to renew their voting and 2nd Amendment rights. It’s mind-boggling that Governor McDonnell would choose to bury the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office in unnecessary paperwork during a time of belt-tightening and budget cuts. Surely the Secretary’s valuable time could be used in more productive ways than grading essays for Governor McDonnell.
"If Governor McDonnell wants to improve Virginia’s prisoner reentry efforts, he should make it easier for those who have completed their sentence to fully integrate back into society. Instead, he chose to institute an unprecedented roadblock in a Commonwealth with a painful history of blocking voting rights. Given his experience last week, it’s shocking that the Governor would unnecessarily stumble on Virginia’s history yet again.
"Virginia now may have surpassed Kentucky as the state with the most obstacles to reintegration for non-violent offenders who have served their sentence. Virginians should not be subjected to more bureaucracy getting in the way of their rights to vote, hunt, or exercise any other Constitutional rights.
"This is yet another unnecessary side project by Governor McDonnell when Virginia is facing its highest unemployment rate in nearly 30 years. Right now, Virginians have to be wondering, what happened to ‘Bob’s for Jobs?’"
Why lead with how costly and burdensome it might be? Why focus on administrative “roadblocks” and “bureaucracy”?
The statement should have been more forthright. Instead of trying to parse words, the Dems need to be more confrontational. Something like this:
Just days after the anachronistic “Confederate proclamation,” Gov. McDonnell and the Republican Party have again demonstrated their underlying racial insensitivity with an egregious campaign to limit the vote by requiring the modern day equivalent of the literacy test.
This is a naked attempt to put the McDonnell administration, which is overwhelmingly white, to limit the voting rights of black people. There is an overrepresentation of African-Americans in Virginia’s prisons, a result in part of biased application of the law. Far more than half of the prison population in Virginia is African-American.
But whatever the ethnicity of Virginians who have paid their debt to society, Bob McDonnell is instituting a plan to require essays before their rights are restored. It is a system fraught with subjective determinations that are likely to be used in a partisan way.
Given the recent acts of Virginia’s top lawyer, Attorney-General Ken Cuccinelli, we would likely see a prejudiced system designed to continue to deny rights to people who have paid their debt to society.
This smacks of literacy tests instituted in Virginia and across the South during earlier times in our history. Those tests were designed to prevent people of color from voting. This appears to be McDonnell’s modern version of the literacy test.
Attack. Repeat. Attack. And stop throwing softballs.
Andrew Breitbart has done his job. He’s offered to donate $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund to anyone who can provide proof that black Congressmen were called “nigger” during the days of the House debate on healthcare reform, thereby starting the narrative that charges of racism against members of the Tea Party folks are unfounded.
This is a typical right-wing attack on the media: raise doubt about one incident and thereby cause the mainstream media to adopt the position that all all racism charges against the right-wing are unfounded. If Breitbart can convince mainstream media that the right-wing has been wronged on one occasion, the media will sheepishly avoid the issue or write stories that always include the disclaimer that they are “alleged” charges or “never proven.”
But there are other charges of racism that are documented, including a voice message left (view clip below) on Congressman John Lewis’s (D-Ga.) voice mail. If someone was willing to do that, it’s not a stretch to believe that someone in the crowd that day hurled such epithets.
Breitbart has enlisted Washington Post ombudsman Andy Alexander in his campaign.
If there is video or audio evidence of the racial slurs against Lewis and Carson, it has yet to emerge. Breitbart insists they "made it up." If so, they’re good actors.
Roxana Tiron, a reporter for the Hill newspaper, said she was talking with a congressional staffer inside a House entrance to the Capitol when a "trembling" and "agitated" Carson said he and Lewis had just been called the N-word by protesters outside. "He literally grabbed me by the arm and . . . said ‘You need to come out with me,’ " imploring her to step back outside to listen to the taunts. Post reporter Paul Kane was nearby and witnessed Carson’s reaction. "It was real. It was raw. It was angry. It was emotional. And he wanted it documented," recalled Kane, who said U.S. Capitol Police prevented them from going outside. Carson later told the Associated Press the protesters had chanted the N-word "15 times." Breitbart told me the "phantom 15 words" is "beyond absurd."
Through spokesman Justin Ohlemiller, Carson stands by his assertion. The spokeswoman for Lewis, Brenda Jones, insists he and his chief of staff heard repeated uses of the N-word. They are declining interviews, she said, because they don’t want to "fan the flames of destructive language."
Breitbart’s $100,000 challenge may be publicity-seeking theater. But it’s part of widespread conservative claims that mainstream media, including The Post, swallowed a huge fabrication. The incidents are weeks old, but it’s worth assigning Post reporters to find the truth. After all, a civil rights legend is being called a liar. That aside, there’s serious money at stake.
Perhaps The Post will try to ferret out the truth about the charges at the rally. The proof Breitbart wants is a video. It is unusual but not impossible that no video existed. This was not a planned event at which there were many cameras. How many, I’m not sure, but the lack of videotape doesn’t not mean it didn’t happen.
What happens when a print reporter quotes someone, most likely without video and possibly without an audio tape? Is that quote then subject to video proof?
At the end of the day, the right may get its wish by raising doubt about just one incident of racism to disprove any charge of racism. It will be interesting to see how the MSM reacts to the right’s broadside. If past is prologue, look for a meek MSM to cower.
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As most folks in my business would probably tell you, the most important parts of a newspaper story are, in roughly this order, the photo (if any), the headline, the lede and the last sentence. More folks will see the photo and read the headline than will read the story. A few more will read the first few graphs, maybe to the jump, and then abandon it. The fewest will read the entire piece, and the last impression you give them in the story (the close) will have an impact.
With that in mind, I offer Anita Kumar’s story today in The Washington Post. There are slights of writing that impact the readers’ perceptions.
In the dead-tree version, the story is in the upper left of page one, a fitting placement. The proclamation by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell of “Confederate History Month” created a national furor and, of course, it’s a homegrown story.
The headline is “McDonnell admits a ‘major omission.’” That’s pretty accurate. He didn’t apologize for celebrating Confederate History Month, but only that he did not refer to slavery. (Which is like referring to the oppression of the Jews in WWII without mentioning that that oppression was more than hurling epithets.) Note that in the online version the headline is different but also accurate: “Virginia governor amends Confederate history proclamation to include slavery.”
The lede, however, is another issue.
After a barrage of nationwide criticism for excluding slavery [emphasis added] from his Confederate History Month proclamation, Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) on Wednesday conceded that it was "a major omission" and amended the document to acknowledge the state’s complicated past.
The criticism was not just about “excluding slavery” from the proclamation; it was about the proclamation itself. Why do we celebrate traitors to this country? Why do we celebrate a movement that sought to preserve the most despicable of human institutions?
I’ll admit that some of the chatter I saw, heard and read the last two days was a little wishy-washy on this issue. Liberals, especially elected officials, didn’t want to go all the way there for fear of alienating Southerners who continue to cling the notion of the noble confederate. But I think it’s fair to say that many people, especially those who’ve had little contact with the South, are baffled by this sanitized view of the Civil War. Were there other issues besides slavery, for example, states rights? Yes, but they stemmed from the issue of slavery; they were not separate and apart. Why, those folks ask, do Southerners celebrate the Confederacy?
McDonnell and his supporters must be happy with the next two paragraphs as they give his original rationale for omitting slavery and his rectification of the mistake. In fact, the entirety of the story before the jump is favorable to McDonnell—a man taking responsibility for his action and graciously calling two key critics.
After the jump, we see another headline: “Despite apology, criticism of McDonnell continues.” So where’s the evidence that criticism continues (though I’m sure it does)? After a graph that details the changes to the proclamation, we have this curious graph:
But his decision to declare April Confederate History Month continued to cause a firestorm Wednesday, with national media descending on Richmond and Democrats and African Americans accusing the new governor of ignoring the state’s role in slavery.
Was the firestorm before or after McDonnell’s mea culpa? If after, as is the logical interpretation, despite the lede, there is a firestorm over not just the omission of slavery in the proclamation, but the proclamation itself. OK, where’s the evidence in the story?
From the point of the above graph, we have Sheila Johnson’s critical statement—made before McDonnell’s change of heart. State Sen. Don McEachin, as Johnson an African-American, says he accepts McDonnell’s apology
…but said he was disappointed that the state had to undergo the embarrassment and national scrutiny that followed the proclamation. "It’s a black eye," he said.
That doesn’t criticize the proclamation but suggests that if it had included words about slavery it wouldn’t have been scrutinized. Of course, there’s no way of knowing that.
Kumar then gives a little history of the proclamation and includes a statement by former Virginia Gov. and now Democratic Party chairman Tim Kaine that also seems to criticize McDonnell on the basis of the omission not the proclamation itself.
"Governor McDonnell’s decision to designate April as Confederate History Month without condemning, or even acknowledging, the pernicious stain of slavery or its role in the war disregards history, is insensitive to the extraordinary efforts of Americans to eliminate slavery and bind the nation’s wounds, and offends millions of Americans of all races and in all parts of our nation," he said.
So where is the voice to continued criticism?
Kumar then turns over the last five graphs to the Sons of the Confederacy, the group that requested the proclamation.The story ends with a quote that makes the group appear reasonable.
"All we’re looking for is an accurate history, which we don’t get in schools anymore or in the media," [Sons of Confederate Veterans national board member Brag] Bowling said. "The idea is to promote education in Virginia and tourism. Hopefully, we can still do that."
McDonnell and his allies must be pleased. The article and jump headline allude to continued criticism but give no voice to it. Meanwhile, the sons of traitors get to whitewash history and attack the media for not picking up a paint brush with them.
UPDATE: The Post’s Robert McCartney has a thoughtful column on this issue, though I disagree with his conclusion that it’s justified to honor Confederate “heritage” because of Robert E. Lee’s “brilliant generalship.”
Cross posted on News Commonsense.
As most folks in my business would probably tell you, the most important parts of a newspaper story are, in roughly this order, the photo (if any), the headline, the lede and the last sentence. More folks will see the photo and read the headline than will read the story. A few more will read the first few graphs, maybe to the jump, and then abandon it. The fewest will read the entire piece, and the last impression you give them in the story (the close) will have an impact.
With that in mind, I offer Anita Kumar’s story today in The Washington Post. There are slights of writing that impact the readers’ perceptions.
In the dead-tree version, the story is in the upper left of page one, a fitting placement. The proclamation by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell of “Confederate History Month” created a national furor and, of course, it’s a homegrown story.
The headline is “McDonnell admits a ‘major omission.’” That’s pretty accurate. He didn’t apologize for celebrating Confederate History Month, but only that he did not refer to slavery. (Which is like referring to the oppression of the Jews in WWII without mentioning that that oppression was more than hurling epithets.) Note that in the online version the headline is different but also accurate: “Virginia governor amends Confederate history proclamation to include slavery.”
The lede, however, is another issue.
After a barrage of nationwide criticism for excluding slavery [emphasis added] from his Confederate History Month proclamation, Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) on Wednesday conceded that it was "a major omission" and amended the document to acknowledge the state’s complicated past.
The criticism was not just about “excluding slavery” from the proclamation; it was about the proclamation itself. Why do we celebrate traitors to this country? Why do we celebrate a movement that sought to preserve the most despicable of human institutions?
I’ll admit that some of the chatter I saw, heard and read the last two days was a little wishy-washy on this issue. Liberals, especially elected officials, didn’t want to go all the way there for fear of alienating Southerners who continue to cling the notion of the noble confederate. But I think it’s fair to say that many people, especially those who’ve had little contact with the South, are baffled by this sanitized view of the Civil War. Were there other issues besides slavery, for example, states rights? Yes, but they stemmed from the issue of slavery; they were not separate and apart. Why, those folks ask, do Southerners celebrate the Confederacy?
McDonnell and his supporters must be happy with the next two paragraphs as they give his original rationale for omitting slavery and his rectification of the mistake. In fact, the entirety of the story before the jump is favorable to McDonnell—a man taking responsibility for his action and graciously calling two key critics.
After the jump, we see another headline: “Despite apology, criticism of McDonnell continues.” So where’s the evidence that criticism continues (though I’m sure it does)? After a graph that details the changes to the proclamation, we have this curious graph:
But his decision to declare April Confederate History Month continued to cause a firestorm Wednesday, with national media descending on Richmond and Democrats and African Americans accusing the new governor of ignoring the state’s role in slavery.
Was the firestorm before or after McDonnell’s mea culpa? If after, as is the logical interpretation, despite the lede, there is a firestorm over not just the omission of slavery in the proclamation, but the proclamation itself. OK, where’s the evidence in the story?
From the point of the above graph, we have Sheila Johnson’s critical statement—made before McDonnell’s change of heart. State Sen. Don McEachin, as Johnson an African-American, says he accepts McDonnell’s apology
…but said he was disappointed that the state had to undergo the embarrassment and national scrutiny that followed the proclamation. "It’s a black eye," he said.
That doesn’t criticize the proclamation but suggests that if it had included words about slavery it wouldn’t have been scrutinized. Of course, there’s no way of knowing that.
Kumar then gives a little history of the proclamation and includes a statement by former Virginia Gov. and now Democratic Party chairman Tim Kaine that also seems to criticize McDonnell on the basis of the omission not the proclamation itself.
"Governor McDonnell’s decision to designate April as Confederate History Month without condemning, or even acknowledging, the pernicious stain of slavery or its role in the war disregards history, is insensitive to the extraordinary efforts of Americans to eliminate slavery and bind the nation’s wounds, and offends millions of Americans of all races and in all parts of our nation," he said.
So where is the voice to continued criticism?
Kumar then turns over the last five graphs to the Sons of the Confederacy, the group that requested the proclamation.The story ends with a quote that makes the group appear reasonable.
"All we’re looking for is an accurate history, which we don’t get in schools anymore or in the media," [Sons of Confederate Veterans national board member Brag] Bowling said. "The idea is to promote education in Virginia and tourism. Hopefully, we can still do that."
McDonnell and his allies must be pleased. The article and jump headline allude to continued criticism but give no voice to it. Meanwhile, the sons of traitors get to whitewash history and attack the media for not picking up a paint brush with them.
UPDATE: The Post’s Robert McCartney has a thoughtful column on this issue, though I disagree with his conclusion that it’s justified to honor Confederate “heritage” because of Robert E. Lee’s “brilliant generalship.”
Cross posted on Commonwealth Commonsense.
Further assessment – this took longer than I should have spent on it.
Above is the last sentence in a long, detailed explanation with electronic images of why the author (Mediate’s Philip Bump) thinks the now infamous photo of Tea Party founder Dale Robertson is not a fake. Robertson had said he never seen examples of racism at Tea party events. Then this photo of him was circulated.
In today’s media environment, just by spending so much time and energy debunking the myth that it’s a fake reinforces the message that it’s a fake.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says the constitution means exactly what the framers meant it to mean. The framers were so narrow-minded that the didn’t allow for any change in society’s mores.
"Does it include same-sex marriage? A requirement for equal pay for equal work?'' he mused. Scalia said those who believe in an "evolutionary'' approach "close your eyes and decide what you think is a good idea.''
Using his "originalist'' philosophy, Scalia said he likely would have dissented from the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared school segregation illegal and struck down the system of "separate but equal'' public schools. He said that decision, which overturned earlier precedent, was designed to provide an approach the majority liked better.
(Thanks to Politico for the link.)
UPDATE: Looks like the newspaper may have been incorrect in quoting Scalia.
We’ve been told we’ve entered a post-racial society with the election of the offspring of an interracial couple. Not quite.
A Louisiana justice of the peace refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple because
He was concerned for the children who might be born of the relationship and that, in his experience, most interracial marriages don’t last.
"I’m not a racist," [JP Keith] Bardwell told the newspaper. "I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children."
Bardwell [said he couldn’t personally endorse the marriage.
That’s OK, Keith. We understand. It’s just like the pharmacists who won’t dispense contraceptives even if they are legal. Right? If it offends you, just say no.
Keep an eye out for the next development in this series of “Going My Way” decisions.
Perhaps we’ll see police officers refusing to investigate black on black crimes because police feel this is an internal problem in the black community, and they really need to take care of it themselves. Or perhaps it will be fireman who refused to put out a house fire because they believe the house is a blight on the neighborhood and really needed to be removed.
Or maybe we take him at his word. Bardwell was “concerned for the children” who might, he feared, one day become president of the United States.
Jimmy Carter is 84-years-old and three decades removed from the White House, but he still has the power to make Democrats run.
Away from him, that is.
From the White House to Capitol Hill Wednesday, Democrats raced to distance themselves from the former president’s claim that racism was behind Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You Lie” outburst and other attacks on President Barack Obama.
Politico leads with this in a story headlined The race from race: Dems Rebut Carter. They have plenty of quotes, most of them justifying the headline. All those quoted are current politicians. Carter is not. He’s not wrong; he’s unencumbered by politics, and a bit hyperbolic. The pols aren’t wrong, either. You obviously don’t want that fight.
OK, can the press move on now?
Bob Herbert had a good column yesterday critical of journalists propensity to think that a life is valued based on the color of skin, gender and beauty. If the victim is a pretty white girl,the media will Chandra Levy-ize it.
And let’s be clear about why young black male and female victims get much less coverage: The prevailing attitude is that black deaths are the fault of black culture. Funny that when a white guy goes on a rampage and kills his entire family (and note that it usually is a white guy), you don’t hear people blaming “white culture.” Bob Herbert says it’s been going on a long time.
I remember as a young deputy city editor at The Daily News attending my first “sked meeting,” a large gathering of editors held every afternoon to consider which stories would go into the next morning’s paper and how they would be played.
I was sitting at the far end of a conference table from the editor who was conducting the meeting. The News had very seldom had a black person at those gatherings. Mine was the only black face in the room.
One of the stories being pitched was about a baby that had been killed on Long Island. The editor running the meeting was completely relaxed. He was sprawled in his chair and was holding a handful of papers. His legs were crossed.
“What color is that baby?” he asked.
A tremendous silence fell over the room. Everyone understood what he meant. If the baby was white, the chances were much better that the story was worth big play. It might be something to get excited about.
Annoyed at not getting a response, the editor repeated himself. Then his eyes caught mine staring down from the other end of the table.
…[T]he press is still very color conscious in the way it goes about covering murder. Editors may not be asking, “What color is that victim?” But, on some level, they’re still thinking it.
Which is why we’ve heard so little about an awful story out of Chicago. Some three dozen public school students have been murdered since the school year began, most of them shot to death. These children and teenagers have been killed in a wide variety of settings and situations — while riding a city bus, playing in parks, sitting in the back seats of cars, in gang disputes, in robberies, in the crossfire of sidewalk shootouts.
It’s an immense and continuing tragedy. But these were nearly all African-American or Latino kids, so the coverage has been scant.
Herbert might have added that even if the victim is a young, pretty, educated black girl, her death would not command the attention Chandra Levy or a whole host of white female victims received. There is no explanation for it other than pure, blatant racism.