March 6, 2007
Fox News Interviewer Calls Kenneth Eng "A Nut Job"
Kenneth Eng, the 23-year-old author of the "Why I Hate Blacks" column that created a firestorm when published in San Francisco's AsianWeek, told Fox News on Tuesday that he has not changed his mind about the thoughts he expressed. In apparently his first public questioning since the controversy, Eng was asked on John Gibson's "Big Story" show, "Mr. Eng, have you changed your mind?"
 |
| Kenneth Eng |
"You don't have any regrets about saying something as overtly racist as you hate somebody because they're black or because they're white?" Gibson asked.
"Evidently Sofia Coppola and Quentin Tarantino have nothing against that and neither does Shaquille O'Neal and Chris Tucker. So I have no regrets at all," Eng said.
"Why do you hate blacks?" asked Gibson.
"Well, you know, just to be blunt, 90 percent of them usually walk up to me and call me, you know, like for instance, ching-chong and stuff like that. I mean, I don't really give a damn, but you know, I mean, after a while it gets pretty damn annoying. And not to mention they get so much media attention. But you know, I mean aside from that, you probably want to know why I call myself the god of the universe as well.
"GIBSON: No, I wasn't going to ask you about that. Why do you hate white people?
"ENG: Well, you know, I mean, part of that is the fact that so many of them are Christians and religion is obviously [no audio] like a pathetic religion, just like any other religion. And the reason why I call myself god of the universe is because it's a play on religion. It's a parody," the Fox News transcript continues.
"GIBSON: You seem very angry. What are you angry about? Why are you angry at so many different kinds of people?
"ENG: First of all, I would just like to say that solipsism proves that my philosophy is that since I am the only consciousness I'm aware of, any solipsism must be real. Therefore, since perception creates reality, in both the quantum and relativistic realms, I must be god. So the only reason why — so if there is such a thing as god, then he's me. Either worship me or, you know, forsake religion.
"GIBSON: Why are you so angry?
"ENG: What's that?
"GIBSON: Why are you so angry?
"ENG: Me, well I mean after living an entire life of being discriminated against and just seeing, you know, just seeing white and black people get away with it so overtly, especially if you read my articles about my experiences at NYU. I mean, you know, it's kind of hard not to get angry."
In a radio discussion of the interview later, Gibson called Eng "a nut job" and said, "He wasn't actually wearing a strait jacket, believe it or not."
"He was a little besiged when he came in," Gibson said. "He comes in the studio and immediately does a 360. There's Jack, the guy who does the audio, who's black; Oscar, the cameraman who focuses on him is black," and so are two other members of the radio crew.
"He was feeling a little besieged," Gibson repeated.
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
AP Cuts Back Diversity Program
March 5, 2007
 |
| Cutback fed fears that with tight budgets, integration is less of a priority |
"Diverse Visions/Diverse Voices" to Skip This Year
The Associated Press is cutting back on a program designed to increase the diversity among news photographers and writers by pairing college students with professionals, adding to concerns that news organizations are sacrificing diversity programs in times of tight budgets.
The AP canceled this year's "Diverse Visions/Diverse Voices" program after students had submitted their applications by the Feb. 15 deadline.
 |
| Fred Sweets |
The students received a Feb. 22 letter with "some unfortunate news" signed by Robert Naylor, director of career development/news.
"High demand within our company for limited resources means that we are unable to fund the Diverse Visions/Diverse Voices program for 2007 and we will not be holding the workshop this year. As you might imagine, the costs are quite high given the number of people involved. We are very proud of the reputation for quality that we have earned and we do not want to do an injustice to the program — or to students like you — by trying to operate with insufficient support."
Diverse Voices is described as, "An annual five-day multicultural journalism workshop pairing aspiring student journalists with mentors who are AP writers and editors."
Diverse Visions did the same for aspiring student photojournalists. It was started by Vin Alabiso, the then-executive photo editor, about 13 years ago and guided for most of that time by Fred Sweets, the photographer, photo editor and diversity advocate who was laid off from AP in 2004. The reporting component was added in the last few years.
Up to 12 photographers and two photo editors were to be selected for the photo program, and as many as 12 for the reporting sessions. The programs were scheduled for May 21-25.
"After a thorough review of our strategic vision for the make-up of the AP's News department, we have decided to run the Diverse Visions/Diverse Voices program every other year, to alternate with a special program for internal mid-career development programs, to include for women and minorities," AP spokeswoman Linda Wagner told Journal-isms via e-mail. "Details of these programs are still being worked out and will be available within the next several weeks. The AP plans to improve its student outreach at the minority journalism conventions to maintain contact with the population serviced by Diverse Visions and Voices."
The programs' promotional material says, "Past participants have joined the staff of The Associated Press and member papers including the Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News, Dallas Morning News, Newsday, Tucson Star and many others."
The program left its mark on those who participated. It "showed me that to be successful in photography and come from a different place was possible," Clarence Williams, a Philadelphia native who was in the first class and won a Pulitzer Prize while at the Los Angeles Times, told Journal-isms.
"It enlarged my family; it gave me a family" at the AP. Williams said he no longer uses the term "white trash" after photographing the struggle of poor whites — even though, he said, he later discovered the people he photographed were members of the Ku Klux Klan. The late photogapher Mpozi Tolbert of the Indianapolis Star was in the class as well, Williams said.
"It's a tremendous loss to the journalistic community," Sweets told Journal-isms. "It's a great loss for students and it's a great loss for the participants, who probably learned more about diversity through their experiences than the students did."
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
New Voice Editor Ortega "Committed to Diversity"
On the first business day after the editor of the Village Voice was fired following a challenge by staff members on his failure to hire journalists of color, the Voice's owners hired Tony Ortega, whose father's family came to this country from Mexico, as its editor."Wherever I've been, I've been committed to diversity," Ortega told Journal-isms on Monday. "It's absolutely something I pay attention to. I think it's very important for the population of the newsroom to reflect general population."
Ortega, 43, is editor of Broward-Palm Beach New Times, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based alternative weekly that is part of the New Times weekly chain that now owns the Voice.
Ortega said he could not say that David Blum was fired after just six months on the job because of his diversity record, and spokeswoman Maggie Shnayerson said a Wednesday staff meeting was simply the "catalyst" for Blum's dismissal.
But at the meeting, "staff member Wayne Barrett said Blum responded to concerns in a way some may have construed as offensive or dismissive," the Associated Press reported.
The Village Voice, founded in 1955, is the granddaddy of alternative weeklies, and it has provided a platform for a number of African American, Latino and Asian American writers. Author Thulani Davis, one of those writers, and another who asked to remain nameless, were able to recall for Journal-isms a list that includes:
Amiri Baraka (the former LeRoi Jones), Greg Tate, Stanley Crouch, Jill Nelson, Lisa Jones, Carol Cooper, Hilton Als, Peter Noel, Chanel Lee, Dasun Allah, Joe Wood, Nelson George, Carol Cooper, Scott Poulson Bryant, Evette Porter, Amy Alexander, Marpessa Dawn Outlaw, Gary Dauphin, Valerie Burgher and Colson Whitehead among African Americans who have excelled; Jose Torres, Pablo Guzman, Ed Morales, Jorge Morales, Enrique Fernandez, Ariel Dorfman, Ed Gonzales, among Latinos; and Dennis Lim, Chisun Lee, Nita Rao, Andy Hsiao, Luis Francia, Ed Park, Jeff Yang, Andy Hsiao among Asian Americans. In addition, Kareem Fahim has roots in the Middle East.
Ortega spent four years as a staff writer at Phoenix New Times, then wrote for the New Times Los Angeles for three years before returning to become associate editor in Phoenix. He served as managing editor of the Pitch in Kansas City from 2003 to 2005, when he became editor of the 70,000-circulation New Times Broward-Palm Beach, the Voice reported Monday on its Web site.
He said the makeup of his staff writers in Broward-Palm Beach changed from five men and one woman to four women and two men, and that he was proud of his "budding superstar," music editor Jonathan Cunningham, an African American whose family is from the Bahamas. The publication has no Latino staff writers.
"He's just the kind of person that people gravitate to and people have faith in," Ortega's managing editor at Broward-Palm Beach, Edmund Newton, told Journal-isms, speaking of his boss. "He'll be able to attract a lot of talent."
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Journalists Hit by Cherokee Vote to Oust Blacks
When the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to deny citizenship to the descendants of former African slaves, at least two black journalists felt the action personally. |
Courtesy of Sam Ford
Clip from Sam Ford's documentary shows his grandmother Leutita Ford and the deed to her Cherokee land in Oklahoma. |
Sam Ford, a reporter at Washington's WJLA-TV, had applied to vote in the election, and said his voter registration card came the day of the vote. He was born in Southeastern Kansas and put together a documentary about this little-known piece of Americana. "Black Slaves, Red Masters" aired on WJLA in 1991.
Kenneth Cooper, a freelancer and former national editor of the Boston Globe, said he confirmed at a National Association of Black Journalists convention in Atlanta that he and Ford were cousins, "linked by a Freedman who was a great-great grandfather of mine. We had suspected we were related since we first met years ago, when he told me he as a boy called my great-grandmother 'Cousin Florence.' His sister lives outside Atlanta, and when she pulled out the family tree, I spotted our common ancestor right away."
Cooper wondered on the NABJ e-mail list, "What is the position of the Native American Journalists Association on this? It might seem this is a matter of tribal politics that has nothing to do with NAJA, but it does. I was going to join NAJA several years ago, but to join you must be eligible for tribal membership, and I'm not."
 |
| Sam Ford |
The Web site indianz.com said on Monday, "With all precincts reporting, 77 percent of voters approved an amendment to the tribal constitution. Citizenship will be restricted to descendants of people who are listed on the Dawes Roll, but only those with verifiable Cherokee, Delaware or Shawnee blood.
The Dawes Rolls, a 1906 census commissioned by Congress to distribute land to tribal members, put the Freedmen on a separate roll that made no mention of Indian blood, the New York Times said.
"The amendment means the descendants of the Freedmen, former slaves who were made members of the Cherokee Nation by an 1866 treaty, won't be entitled to citizenship. Over 2,000 people will be kicked out of the tribe as a result," the Indianz.com story said.
However, it continued, "the legal and political issues at the center of the case draw the tribe, the second-largest in the U.S., into a battle that could undermine its sovereignty. Challenges are being planned at the tribal and federal level."
"In my opinion," Ford, 53, said, "Much of the Cherokee Nation is white people fronting as Indians, so therefore the vote is no surprise to me. What's sad is that many of the blacks who are now being booted out of the tribe have more Indian 'blood' in them than the so-called Indians."
Here's how Ford explained the history:
"A hundred years ago, when the government broke up the Indian nations in 'Indian Territory' into individual plots of land, they gave plots to each of the citizens as individuals, meaning some of the citizens of the nations were Indians, some were adopted whites and some were blacks, their former slaves who were made citizens by treaty after the Cherokees — who'd sided with the South — lost the Civil War. The government agency that divided up the land was called the Dawes Commission.
"Now, the law said the Indians could not sell their land. But the U.S. government then said that ruling did not apply to either adopted whites or blacks, the former slaves. What did that mean? Well, it meant this was a big loophole to allow whites to buy up this Indian land. And it also meant it was to the whites' (U.S. government's) advantage to declare black anybody who looked black, regardless of what kind of Indian blood they might have. And historians say the Dawes commission declared black any and everybody with any identifiable black features. They were put on the 'freedman' roll, whose descendants are now being booted out of the tribe."
Some of Ford's ancestors' stories were told in the slave narratives collected by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s. Reading them, he said, "was like finding a gold mine."
Kim Baca, executive director of NAJA, indicated it would not be a problem for Cooper and other Cherokee Freedmen to join NAJA. Its charter says, "Native American media professionals may be members of NAJA, hold office and vote. Individual members should be able to provide proof of tribal affiliation, if requested by the Board of Directors."
But Baca noted that the language does not say members must be "enrolled" in a tribe, and said that in the two years she had been with the organization, it had not asked anyone for proof of tribal affiliation.
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Host Suspended After Calling Obama "Clean Darky"
"An unrepentant Sam Allred said Saturday that an on-air comment Thursday morning about U.S. Sen. Barack Obama wasn't racist because he was trying to mock a 'foolish-sounding remark' made by U.S. Sen. Joe Biden," Katie Humphrey reported Sunday in the Austin American-Statesman."Allred and co-host Bob Cole were discussing Obama, D-Ill., between 7 and 7:30 a.m. on the Sam & Bob morning radio show on KVET (98.1 FM) when the conversation turned to comments made by Biden several weeks ago.
"'He's clean is what what's-his-name said. Joe Biden told us that,' Cole said.
"'Clean darky,' Allred said.
"Cole immediately exclaimed, 'Sammy!' The show then cut to commercial.
". . . Allred was not on the air Friday morning, and several people familiar with the situation said he had been suspended for a week and will meet with station management Monday."
In a commentary Monday, John Kelso wrote in the American-Statesman, "there's no telling how many people around Austin want to pat Barack Obama on the back if this recent remark puts Sammy in the old folks' home."
- Monroe Anderson, Chicago Sun-Times: Daley
could easily take Giuliani
- Eugene Kane, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The suitors are lining up for black voters
- Roland S. Martin, Creators Syndicate: Blacks
Don't Owe the Clintons a Thing
- Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times: Bill
Clinton is Hillary's best bet to bridging her racial divide
- Ruben Navarrette, San Diego Union-Tribune: Political
friends and foes
- Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: The
perils of polls and politics
- David Roybal, Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal: Positivity
Has a Price
- Bob Ray Sanders, Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Message
will transcend race
- Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: For
'08, talk up issues that help average worker
- Ron Walters, National Newspaper Publishers Association:
The
Battle Begins in South Carolina
- Gary Younge, the Guardian, London:
Is Obama black enough?
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
On Al Sharpton: "No Ancestor, and No Story"
Letter writer John English of Falls Church, Va., wrote in the Washington Post on Saturday:
"Assuming that each generation produced six offspring (a conservative assumption for a time when 10 to 15 offspring were common), here's how I understand "Sharpton's Ancestor Was Owned by Thurmond's":
"Strom Thurmond is one of 2,376 first cousins twice removed of a woman who owned a slave of whom the Rev. Al Sharpton is one of approximately 216 great-grandchildren. While that no doubt is emotionally important to the Sharpton and Thurmond families, it is not exactly front-page news. It strikes me as more like an advertisement for Ancestry.com.
"Note, too, that the slave-owning cousin is not an 'ancestor' of Strom Thurmond, as your headline stated."
- Denise Rolark Barnes, Washington Informer: The
Tombs of Slavery Hold Our Roots
- Cary Clack, San Antonio Express-News: No
secret — We're all mixed up
- Bob Herbert, New York Times: Slavery
Is Not Dead. It's Not Even Past.
- Les Payne, Newsday: The heavy burden of human cargo
- Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Slave
link points to problem that never goes away
- Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: The
Story I'll Never Know All Of
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Lesson Offered in Asian American History
"I don't know who Kenneth Eng is, but I do know he needs a lesson in Asian American history," Asian American historian Ron Takaki wrote in a letter published in AsianWeek. "The 1924 Immigration Act banned the entry of immigrants from Asia. This law remained in effect until 1965. |
| Kenneth Eng |
"In the wake of the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress realized that since discrimination is illegal, the U.S. should not have an immigration law that discriminated against Asians.
"This awareness led Congress to enact the Immigration Act of 1965, a law that reopened the gates to Asian immigrants. Up to that point, the Asian American population was dwindling, even destined eventually to disappear.
"That law revitalized the Asian American population, making it one of the fastest-growing groups in the country. I don't know when Eng's ancestors came to America, but he might not be here had it not been for the struggles of African Americans. Eng should be grateful, not hateful."
The letter from Takaki, professor of ethnic studies and Asian American studies at the University of California at Berkeley, was one of several published in AsianWeek in reaction to Eng's opinion piece, "Why I Hate Blacks."
Meanwhile, in the online version of Newsweek, Ellis Cose wrote, "Perhaps the lesson for Eng's editors is that even angry, would-be literary provocateurs need to be able to form a coherent argument.
"The other lesson is broader, and one that most Americans already grasp: that those who hark back to the good old days, to a time when bigotry had a socially useful purpose, are really harking back to a time that never was. We are better off, in other words, for having moved beyond the era when Eng, whatever his abilities, would have been relegated to some menial job — as fitting, in his particular case, as that fate might be."
- Editorial, Contra Costa (Calif.) Times: An
affront to us all
- Jerry Large, Seattle Times: Shortcuts that take a toll
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Columnist Says Outside Reporters Get N.O. Wrong
"My editor says she's seen so many national reporters fumble the opportunity to enlighten the world about post-Katrina New Orleans that she halfway regrets hoping the world would remember us. Better that there's no information circulating about New Orleans than misinformation," Jarvis DeBerry, editorial writer and columnist at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, wrote on Sunday."Especially annoying was a Washington Post story which gave the impression that each of an estimated 10,000 people spending Mardi Gras 'under the bridge' at Orleans and Claiborne avenues was wallowing in sadness. They were all assumed to be despondent because they're black New Orleanians and so many black New Orleanians had their neighborhoods destroyed. Not even their apparent joy mattered because, as the headline helpfully explained, ' "Under the Bridge" Joy Masks Despair." '
"Shows how much the Washington Post knows. New Orleanians never feel compelled to mask despair to exhibit joy. Think all those dancers at a jazz funeral are happy? That they're subverting one emotion in favor of another? No. They're feeling two things simultaneously. That's a perfectly natural state of being — unless, of course, one lives somewhere outside New Orleans."
- Tammy L. Carter, Orlando Sentinel: New
Orleans is blessed with a noteworthy ally
- Lolis Eric Elie, New Orleans Times-Picayune:
Politicians get around to finding us
- Erin Aubry Kaplan, Los Angeles Times: Get
angry again
- Rhonda Chriss Lokeman, Kansas City Star: The
spirit of hope lingers in New Orleans
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Short Takes
- The National Association of Hispanic Journalists and a loose-knit coalition
of other organizations have protested that an upcoming seven-part Ken
Burns series on PBS about World War II does not mention the contributions
of Latinos. In a PBS response on the NAHJ Web site and in a statement from
the producers quoted
Sunday by Dick Kreck in the Denver Post, the series is defended
as "focusing on the testimonies of just a handful of people, mostly from four
American towns. As a result, millions of stories are not explored in our film."
- Jason Whitlock angered "about 25 percent of readers overall
— based on his e-mails — and 40 percent who say they are fellow
blacks" with his columns criticizing the conduct of visitors to the NBA All-Star
game in Las Vegas, Neil Best wrote
Sunday in Newsday. In CJR Daily last week, Dan Goldberg criticized
Whitlock for writing " two separate articles on the same event with two entirely
different tones that led readers down two entirely different paths." One column was for
the Kansas City Star; the other for AOL.
- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told Business Week that "the politicians, the people with a lot of mouth and nothing to say and
your industry" have been eager to cast him as a beneficiary of affirmative
action. "They had a story and everything had to fit into their story. It discounts
other people's achievements. . . . Everything becomes affirmative action. There wasn't some grand plan. I just
showed up," Thomas said
in discussing his college experience in Business Week's March 12 issue. In 1968, shortly after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr., the Rev. John Brooks began recruiting young black men to enroll at the College of the Holy Cross, a Jesuit school in Worcester, Mass., as the Los Angeles Times explained.
- Who is Asian? The Media Watch portion of the South Asian Journalists Association Web site
takes
the "Sunday Styles" section of the New York Times to task for using the term
"Asian" in a number of stories when the references aren't relevant to South Asia. Instead, the stories meant what is sometimes called "Asian Pacific."
- NAACP President Bruce S. Gordon announced Sunday that
he was quitting the civil rights organization, after just 19 months
at the helm, in an interview
with Erin Texeira of the Associated Press. Gordon was
scheduled
to go on Tavis Smiley's PBS show on Monday night.
- Angel Brooks, one of the black journalists laid off
in January at the Philadelphia Inquirer, is returning to the paper.
"Her recall is part of the
negotiated process for recalls. Someone on the
copydesk is going to be out on disability which has enabled the company
to call back someone. Angel is first on the list to be called back," Diane Mastrull, a development writer
who is chair of the Guild's bargaining committee, told Journal-isms on Monday.
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Send tips and comments to Richard Prince.
To be notified of new columns, contact journal-isms-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and tell us who you are
View previous columns.
Five Minutes With Richard Prince (Newspaper Association of America)
to top of page