Afro-Netizen

Amateur Klansman & professional Clear Channel radio pundit Jim Quinn lauds slavery for making Blackfolk Americans

H/T to Media Matters for America for capturing this gem from the post-racial world of conservative talk radio . . .

Ever heard (or uttered) the trite expression, "Don't hate the player; hate the game"? Well, in this instance, the player is grand wizard Jim Quinn and the game is media consolidation.

So, if you're feathers are the least bit ruffled over Jim Quinn's racism, you'll know that whatever you're top issue is, your second issue must be media justice.

Afro-Netizen supports boycotting Clear Channel and other serial offenders. But the roots of these democracy-strangling weeds must be yanked from their deeply burrowed home on Capitol Hill that are left untouched by bipartisan complacency and self-preservation.

Media consolidation is anti-democratic and runs against the founding principles of our nation.

If we express righteous indignation about the Iranian government's crackdown on its citizens, journalists and media outlets, then we should have a much better understanding of the paucity of media democracy that exists on a practical, government-sanctioned level in our own country.

Comedian Pat Buchanan does a hiliarious bit on MSNBC about how President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is like Jim Crow for "white guys"

H/T to Media Matters for capturing Pat Buchanan insane blathering about Judge Sonia Sotomayor's alleged "reverse racism".

Funny how he refers to her selection as an "affirmative action pick" -- as if that was an objectively bad thing. The connotation, of course, is that individuals who benefited from affirmative action were not qualified for the opportunities they received.

According to poll results released today, the majority of American voters are not in favor of affirmative action on the basis of race or gender.

In an article on this poll, Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, stated that "the public clearly opposes the idea that such programs are justified as a way of increasing diversity, which has become the rationale in recent years as opposed to compensating for past discrimination which was the reason when they first began."

Mr. Brown, of course, is factually wrong. Nowhere in either executive orders laying the groundwork for affirmative action mentions these policies in the context of past discrimination. And on a more common sense basis, one doesn't need to be a historian to know that in 1961, when the first executive order was signed by President John F. Kennedy, that current discrimination was what kept (over)qualified people of color and white women from even entry-level positions in corporate and government jobs -- let alone admission to college or graduate school.

And if indeed past discrimination were in fact the basis of affirmative action policy, wouldn't it stand to reason that the only thing that would make this controversial public policy obsolete the comprehensive and proportional representation of people of color and white women in previously white and/or male-dominated spheres (i.e., "increasing diversity")?

If that were the case, affirmative action can be expected to be around a looooooooong time!

New show "Open Book TV" features guest appearance by acclaimed actor Jeffrey Wright

Open Book TV: Jeffrey Wright reads Walt Whitman from Open Book TV on Vimeo:

Actor Jeffrey Wright reads Walt Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" from the Walt Whitman Houses Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, on Open Book, a new weekly television series created and hosted by Ina Howard Parker.

Open Book, created, produced and hosted by Ina Howard-Parker, premiered May 11th at 8:30pm EST and May 13th at 11:30pm EST, nationally on LinkTV (DirectTV ch. 375, Dish Network ch. 9410, and cable channels nationally. Click here to find where Link broadcasts on your dial.

Open Book is a new show about books, focusing on a single spot on Earth in each episode to introduce you to the writers and other storytellers-- musicians, actors, poets and more-- whose work reminds us we're all connected through the stories we have to tell and the communities we inhabit.

In the premiere episode, we visit Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, a neighborhood with a rich cultural heritage, to meet some of the writers and artists who live there including former child soldier Ishmael Beah, award-winning novelist Jennifer Egan, legendary jazz musician Bill Lee, Walt Whitman devotee Daryl Blaine Ford, creative genius Carl Hancock Rux, Def Jam poet Suheir Hammad, singer Nucomme, and star of stage and screen, actor Jeffrey Wright.

Obama clowns RNC Chair Michael Steele, GOP and others at 2009 White House Correspondents Dinner

Part One . . .

Part Two . . .

Senate hearings on "the future of journalism" misdirected

On May 6, 2009, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation announces the following Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet hearing: The Future of Journalism (video).

Last month, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) sponsored a bill, S. 673, that would extend tax-exempt status to newspapers.

While seemingly innocuous and supportive of the many faltering dailies that abound these days, the legislation has serious defects stemming in part from a set of inaccurate and incomplete assumptions about the news media industry and the state of journalism -- two highly interrelated, but separate considerations.

Interestingly, there appears to be little to no substantive consideration for the struggling Black press and media produced for and by marginalized communities whose daily newspapers begun to die out shortly after desegregation some 40 years ago.

Perhaps if the editorial boards, newsrooms and press pools reflected the increasingly diverse demography of our nation the role of "ethnic media" in this discussion would not be so critical. However, in the years following the Civil Rights Movement, mass media have chosen not to recruit, retain and promote talent from communities of color at the level justice, quality and progress demand.

Fortunately, there exist a growing band of entrepreneurial, civic-minded folks within and beyond Black America who represent the increasingly power netroots community of journalists, artists, technologists, educators, activists, students and others who choosing to be the authors of our own collective fate.

We afro-netizens are leveraging the power of social media for civic advancement as did our abolitionist forbearers who were the proto-journalists of the early 19th Century.

This issue of the future of journalism is a red herring. Journalism is not in crisis; the commercial business model that has sustained modern print journalism is what these senators are most concerned about -- not necessarily about protecting and expanding representative voices of our society in furtherance of democracy.

Our cause must be to hold them (and ourselves) accountable for representing the interests of the people and communities served (poorly or otherwise) by media moguls, too many of whom became over-burdened by debt to remain viable in a fickle, evolving economy and industry.

Print publications will be around for awhile. Blogs and other web-based newspapers and such will continue to grow in popularity. But what matters most how well and quickly our news media represent the diverse demography and perspectives of the American people. If that's not part of their business model going forward, they deserve to wither on the vine, while those with more enlightened and sustainable models continue to flourish.

Afro-Netizen joins PCCC in testing the waters for a Democratic challenger to Sen. Arlen Specter

Afro-Netizen has joined several other leading bloggers in supporting the Progressive Change Campaign Committee's online initiative to determine the how interested the progressive netroots is in Pennsylvania and nationally for fielding a Democratic challenger to Sen. Arlen Specter.

We encourage you to PCCC's straw poll at its newly launched website.

Click here to read Politico's take on this bold netroots campaign or here to read what the Philadelphia Inquirer has to say.

FCC commits to documenting precise level of media (ownership) diversity

By Joe Torres
Guest Contributor

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission finally took a major step toward accurately assessing the number of broadcast stations owned by people of color and women in this country.

This is a critical — and long overdue — boost for U.S. media diversity. The FCC is revamping a broadcast ownership form to include much greater detail on the racial and ethnic makeup of station owners. Broadcast stations must submit the form to the commission every two years.

A few tweaks to a form may not sound like a big deal, but it is. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

In 2006 and 2007, Free Press released two studies — Out of the Picture and Off the Dial — on the state of minority and female ownership of TV and radio stations. In the process of conducting these studies, we learned that the commission had collected inaccurate date on minority and female ownership since 1998. Many stations had filled out their ownership forms incorrectly – omitting key diversity data — but the FCC had failed to monitor or verify the accuracy of the submitted information. Instead, the agency released ownership figures that were simply wrong.

In conducting our own research, Free Press took a different tack. Prior to publishing our reports, we verified the ownership figures for every broadcast station in the United States, with the result that our reports are widely believed to include the most accurate ownership figures compiled to date.

Free Press research found that people of color make up 33 percent of the U.S. population, but own just 7 percent of all radio and TV stations. Women own just 6 percent of all outlets, despite making up 51 percent of the population.

In addition, the reports concluded that people of color own more stations in less concentrated markets and that the number of minority-owned stations has declined because of media consolidation.

Yet even after the publication of the Free Press reports, the FCC once again released inaccurate data in 2007 when it considered allowing for greater consolidation of our country’s media outlets. In fact, the agency-sponsored studies failed to identify 69 percent of all minority TV owners and 75 percent of female owners.

That’s just unacceptable. It is simply outrageous that a government agency with a public mandate would continue to adopt critical broadcast regulations without having accurate data to determine the impact of its rule changes on minority and female ownership.

“The sad truth is that we simply do not know the precise state of minority and female ownership in this country,” said FCC Acting Chairman Michael Copps. “The official term for it is, ‘We don’t have a clue.’  We will never get to where we need to go unless we know where we are.  Try getting driving directions on MapQuest without entering a starting location and you’ll see what I mean.”

Last week’s action by the Copps-led FCC will help to ensure the commission and the public have the right directions to bolster minority and female media ownership.

Joe Torres is government relations manager for Free Press in Washington, DC, a a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media.

Broadband Adoption and Availability Must Be Addressed by Washington

By Larry Irving

Guest Contributor

To paraphrase Mark Twain, for the past decade, there has been a lot of talk in Washington about broadband, but no one has done much about it. That has now changed, as the Department of Commerce, the Department of Agriculture and the Federal Communications Commission will explain how the Obama administration intends to use the provisions of the stimulus bill to ensure that broadband technologies are available to, and affordable for, every American. 

Although urban and suburban Americans generally have a choice of broadband providers, millions of exurban and rural households — possibly as many as 8 percent of American households — don’t have access to affordable broadband. Equally troubling, millions of American households have broadband networks passing right in front of their doorsteps, but for reasons not entirely clear, have decided not to subscribe.

Though private industry will always be the primary investor in and builder of our nation’s broadband infrastructure, there are important roles that government must play if every American is to realize the benefits of broadband.

The stimulus bill reflects a recognition that you can’t cure a condition until you have diagnosed it. Appropriately, the administration and Congress provide funding for “mapping” broadband networks across the United States. Within two years, Americans will have a clear sense of where (and whether) the market is effectively delivering broadband, but also where additional government assistance to ensure broadband availability will be necessary. Some states have undertaken mapping efforts on their own, but currently there are no commonly accepted metrics for meaningful comparison of broadband availability, adoption speeds or pricing. Thus, there is no reliable way of measuring where our nation (or any particular state) stands with regard to broadband: we simply don’t have a meaningful or reliable grading system.

Virtually every analyst agrees that rural Americans are the least likely to have available access to broadband. Geography and economics conspire against investment in broadband in America. It is simply not easy to recoup broadband investment in states where cattle outnumber people and homes are dispersed widely. Fiber optic and other broadband technologies are expensive to deploy in these areas, and broadband wireless technologies are just now becoming fully viable for deployment.

Just as this nation brought electricity, telephones and Internet service to rural America, we must make broadband networks ubiquitously available, as well. Appropriately, the lion’s share of this funding will address broadband in unserved areas through programs at the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture. In addition, funding will be available for improving broadband networks at libraries, community colleges, community technology centers and other locations where low-income families and the working poor are most likely to go for broadband access. According to Morgan Stanley, the national residential broadband penetration rate is currently about 56 percent of all households. For those 40 million plus households who don’t have broadband at home, and for those tens of millions of Americans without basic Internet access who disproportionately are poor, recent immigrants, senior citizens or other minorities, these community investments will make broadband more available and more accessible.

The adoption issue will be more difficult to solve. The problem is that even where broadband exists, many Americans simply don’t or won’t subscribe. A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project suggests that many folks don’t take broadband because of cost or because they don’t want it. We know, for example, that Latinos and African Americans spend more than White Americans for cellular, cable and satellite technologies and features. Yet these same groups are less likely to be connected to broadband than White or Asian Americans. Why? Is it cost? Is it value? Is it availability? Is it a marketing failure? What are the best ways to drive broadband adoption in these communities?

The culprit is more likely that many non-subscribers don’t value broadband, because the increased benefits to them and their families simply aren’t apparent. Fundamentally, we need to more fully understand the value versus cost equation. The stimulus package has significant funding to help shed light on the adoption issue and to assist local governments and organizations increase adoption of broadband, particularly among underserved communities.

The Obama administration is taking the right steps. They are beginning the task of identifying the gaps in broadband coverage in the United States. In those areas where broadband is not available, particularly in rural and exurban America, they are putting people to work building broadband networks. They are bringing community access points to libraries, community colleges and community technology centers — to the neighborhoods of tens of millions of Americans. And where broadband is available but adoption rates are low, they are promoting adoption by finding community-specific solutions. The broadband era in America began more than a decade ago. The broadband era in Washington begins today.

Larry Irving is co-chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance.

When Images Became Action: What Barack owes to Virgil, Cliff, Theo, and other fake Black people

By Wyatt Closs
Guest Contributor

There they stood.  Cliff Huxtable in his multi-colored, fully-textured sweater arm wrapped around son Theo beaming with pride.  The grim, tight-jawed David Palmer looking onward wincing a smile.  While Virgil Tibbs, in characteristic narrow black suit and tie, old and frail now, let a little stream of tears work their way down his face.

It was Inauguration Day for Barack Obama.  You didn’t see them? Well, no surprise.  Granted, they didn’t endorse him. Or contribute funds. Nor head for cabinet appointments. And none of them appeared for interviews on MSNBC (though I’m sure Chris Matthews would have loved to have asked Cliff or Virgil – both Philadelphians -  how they felt about the race and the race about race and so on).

Oh, and I forgot to mention, they are fictional characters from TV and film. And while no one might put them in the same category of modern influencers as Oprah, or Spike, or Colin, I think they deserve that attribute.  They paved the way for the acceptance of a Black man for President as much as anyone. 

Just think, if some folks hadn’t seen the hypothetical Black President with “David Palmer” (Dennis Haysbert) in “24”,  would they have been ready to vote for one?  When people saw how easily the little kid “Peter” loved, laughed and wanted to stay overnight at “Rudy Huxtable’s” house on the “Cosby Show,” were suburban swing voters not hoping the same might be true for their children when they saw Sasha and Malia Obama?

We can’t be sure. But why does this matter? Well, all too often, and sometimes in the same breath, we disregard and fully embrace the impact of popular culture on our political choices and social acceptances.  We want to believe we’re deeper than that. And when we do embrace that reality, it is often in third person as if we’re all armchair modern anthropologists detached from it…as we watch a couple of hours of TV or film or internet download a day ourselves.

The NAACP figured that out a long time ago.  Peep this from their website:

 
This recognition by one of the oldest existing organizations committed to justice in this country, is what led to the creation of the NAACP Image Awards.  Hitting its 40th presentation on February 12th, it is, true to form in Los Angeles in awards season, a glitzy affair with stars and productions, and tributes and red carpets.  But the idea was for it to bolster what the NAACP was trying to do in the streets and courts for decades.

The idea was to recognize that part of fighting for justice was fighting for its perception.

And so, the cycle went like this: fighting for a different portrayal of black people in film and television (and the employment of black people in doing so) way back then, led to the generation of more images, which led to more audiences, which led to more better role models (“Virgil”) that sparked the careers of Sydney Poitier and friends like Bill Cosby (“Cliff”) who ran and owned their own productions that made people think “Black President? Why Not?” and put one on TV (“David Palmer”), and now we have one for real.

Now, I’m taking some license and skipping over many other factors that contribute to where we are today, not to mention many negative images sometimes self-inflicted by Black folks but the point remains: popular culture did have an impact on our politics.

If not, we wouldn’t be bearing witness to an endless array of constituencies who recognize the impact. Just in the awards world alone, we have the ALMA awards done by the National Council of La Raza, the Environmental Media Association awards and (not a moment too soon for those who’d like to overturn Prop 8 in CA) the GLAAD awards.  The more the better as long as perceptions and stereotypes that hold justice back are still around.

So, when little Barack was growing up, so too, was the recognition of images that would allow that age-old refrain “You could be President” to ring true. We now know it must be true. We saw it on television.

Wyatt Closs is a writer from North Carolina recently based in Los Angeles via Washington and New York. He works on social justice, coalition building, and popular media organizing matters for SEIU. 

Upload Real Change: What Activists Must Learn From the Obama Campaign

By Roberto Lovato
Courtesy of ColorLines Magazine

WHILE CRISSCROSSING CRACKED STREETS to knock on the rickety doors of rundown row houses in Philadelphia’s 14th Ward, Liza Sabater also found herself crossing the overlapping lines of political and technological history late last spring as she canvassed for Barack Obama’s campaign.

“I got to spend some time with these Puerto Rican mechanics—guys most people wouldn’t expect to have Internet access,” said Sabater, an Afro-Puerto Rican technologist who blogs at culturekitchen and The Daily Gotham. “But there—among the wrenches and jacks—were their cell phones and handheld devices they use to surf the Web.”

Sabater, who helps nonprofits use technology to further their missions, canvassed in Philadelphia with her two sons and coordinated work in the 14th Ward with three Latino volunteers from the Obama campaign. She saw in the mechanics’ mobile devices proof of her belief that “the ‘digital divide’ is a crock when we realize that laptops and desktops aren’t the only ways to access the Web.” But was the Obama campaign reaching these mechanics on their cells?

As they write future narratives of Obama’s astounding rise, historians will likely foreground how skillfully the “change” candidate maneuvered around the racial, geopolitical and economic terrain of our crises-ridden time. Lost in the background of most of these narratives will be how Obama, the former community organizer, took what he learned about mobilizing working- and middle-class residents on Chicago’s South Side and combined it with the stuff that actually wins elections: money, organizing and technology.

Obama’s campaign for the White House deployed in unparalleled ways Web. 2.0 tools—the set of technological developments that turned the World Wide Web into the ubiquitous, mobile, wireless and interactive Web we use today. As this issue of ColorLines went to production in late August, Obama’s Web site, Mybarackobama.com, was as interactive as any online social networking site. More than 10 million people had signed up at the site, and the campaign had raised millions of dollars. The Web site was the centerpiece of an online and offline political strategy that defeated the Clintons—one of the most powerful Democratic political dynasties—and, in the process, Obama took community organizing to new territory as he redefined the practice of electoral politics in the United States. Whatever the election results, Obama’s campaign demonstrated that it’s possible—and necessary—to go online and move people to action offline.

Sabater, who was born in New York’s El Barrio neighborhood and raised in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, was one of the many who responded to the campaign’s appeal. She is still fascinated by how Obama’s team fused state-of-the-art media and technology with the community organizing that the candidate learned in poor communities. Yet while she thinks community-based organizations can learn from the online organizing methods innovated by the Obama campaign, she also sees reason for concern in the cracked streets of Philadelphia.

Sabater noted, for example, that although her fellow Obama campaign volunteers were by definition “Latinos,” it was a poor decision on the part of the campaign to send three middle-class Chicanos from the west coast to a predominantly working-class, Spanish-speaking, Puerto Rican neighborhood.
“When my colleagues told me ‘we don’t speak Spanish’ and couldn’t interact with the people, I saw the interface problem,” said Sabater, adding, “I saw the disconnect between the online and offline strategies, both of which are focused on middle-class people. Nobody’s reaching out and targeting these working-class communities of color with technology. They don’t think that the mechanics and maids use technology or vote.” The Obama campaign fell through the cultural cracks in the street, while members in the community fell through the technological cracks of the campaign’s Web strategy.

They weren’t the first to use the media in this way, but he came along at that precise moment when the technology had matured, when the audience of media users had reached critical mass.“The (Obama) campaign created a fantastic interface for people to join the campaign,” Sabater said. “But it didn’t do as well in reaching people who don’t have laptops and whose technology is primarily their cell phones. There’s an age and class and race gap.”

Read more

Roberto Lovato is a writer with New America Media based in New York City.