Random Thoughts On Race & Journalism
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I am currently reading The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation. It is an excellent book and I highly recommend it, it basically discusses the role journalism played in the civil rights movement.
* Objectivity. One of the themes running through the book is the role northern journalism (ie The New York Times, The Washington Post, and broadcast TV) played in the fight. They basically went from disinterest in the story as a southern regional thing to what was viewed by segregationists as an advocacy role.
I think about our modern arguments about the role of news organizations to remain journalistically “neutral” and you realize that to have been neutral in this time period would be to have effectively been pro-segregation. There’s not a moral “other side” to the issue, is there? Nowadays we don’t allow our journalistic institutions to go to the Klan for their perspective but in the ’50s the Council Of Concerned Citizens was a legitimized political outfit pushing a pro-segregation point of view. It was up to the media to rule that group out of bounds at some point.
Reading this book has reinforced my thinking that the only way journalism can recapture its soul is to tear down the church of “objectivity” and to take a point of view – and I mean a point of view from the left, right, and beyond. Contrary to what even I espouse regularly, liberalism does not have all the answers. We should have news outlets that are unabashed about their points of view. What we shouldn’t have is idealogical news outfits that bend the truth and pretend to be neutral. And by that I mean Fox News. Heh.
* The South. I’m a history buff and I go through these phases with what time periods I’m into (particularly U.S. history). Previously and ongoing I’m way into WWII (this is the part where I point out that people who try to argue that Hitler was on the left and use the evidence that the Nazi party was the National Socialist party have clearly never actually read a history book and should be laughed at and not taken seriously, especially since one of Hitler’s first acts was to round up leftists) but recently I’ve moved towards both the Civil War and the Civil Rights era.
The South in America is seriously screwed up. Its as if the entire region insists on being the lagging indicator for where American civilization is going. I’ve never pretended to not be the Yankee I am (though geographically I was actually born south of the Mason-Dixon but the part of Maryland I’m from and where I live has a Yankee heart), but things about the south continually shock me. I mean, really, you’re going to support Confederate “heritage”? You look back at American history and the group of people you think are worthy of praise are criminals who so loved their free slave labor they enaged in the worst sort of national insurrection. REALLY?
It isn’t lost on me that this is the base of the modern Republican party and conservative politics.
* Judicial philosophy. As I read the book with the impending announcement of a supreme court justice, the “activist” attack seems even more ludicrous. The courts were very much the avenue through which America broke the shackles of segregation. From cases like Brown to local cases involving ballot access. The idea that a judge should be this robot that pretends like its still 1776 and not a living breathing human that sees quite plainly that technically legal obstructions pushed by racists violate the spirit of the constitution is sort of a tough pill to swallow.
* Next. I’m thinking of reading Taylor Branch’s books on the Civil Rights movement. Can anyone recommend some books about the Civil War that aren’t in the style of “here’s a detailed and boring account of a battle followed by thirty-five more of the same”? I hear Confederates In The Attic is good. Or any other history/journalism books you think are good. I still haven’t gotten around to reading Grapes Of Wrath or The Jungle yet. They’re on my bookshelf glowering at me.
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The views on this site are mine and mine alone, and do not reflect the views of my employer, Media Matters for America
© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
“I think about our modern arguments about the role of news organizations to remain journalistically “neutral” and you realize that to have been neutral in this time period would be to have effectively been pro-segregation.”
Sometimes there is only one side to an argument, because the other side does not have a logical argument.
Oliver,
What is it about the South that you think is screwed up?
Oliver,
I have read all three of Taylor Branch’s books on Martin Luther King. They are excellent and really convey a sense of the times. They are more than just biographies, and they really do cover the whole time period and the players throughout. Well worth the time.
The south seems to celebrate the wrong side of history, to cling to going backward when we should move forward.
I never read “The Grapes of Wrath” until just a couple months ago, and I’m 54 years old. I wish I hadn’t waited. It’s very powerful. Much more so than the movie. The ending will shock and disgust you, and make you cry if you are a human being.
“Nowadays we don’t allow our journalistic institutions to go to the Klan for their perspective but in the ’50s the Council Of Concerned Citizens was a legitimized political outfit pushing a pro-segregation point of view. It was up to the media to rule that group out of bounds at some point.”
That’s why, for example, Karl Rove isn’t allowed anywhere near a camera today, and why those who were correct about the Iraq war are universally loved by the press.
One of my favorite books that deals with race relations in the US is “Bomb the suburbs” by a writer named Upski.
http://www.amazon.com/Bomb-Suburbs-William-Upski-Wimsatt/dp/1887128441
That’s why I’ve sometimes told my editors when they demanded the “other side” of a justice issue, “Do I really need a ‘Bull Connor believes that’ paragraph in the story?”
The best Civil War book I’ve ever read is Gore Vidal’s Lincoln. But if you really want to know why the South is so screwed up, I suggest you look at Reconstruction. A couple fairly recent books I thought were worthwhile were Nicholas Lemann’s Redemption and Charles Lane’s The Day Freedom Died.
“Nowadays we don’t allow our journalistic institutions to go to the Klan for their perspective…”
Could have fooled me.
“Nowadays we don’t allow our journalistic institutions to go to the Klan for their perspective”
But every time a gay marriage bill moves forward, it seems we get an obligatory sky-is-falling quote from the local chapter of the Concerned Citizens For Outdated and Irrelevant Moral Superiority.
I was born in the South, and unless something unfortunate happens I will die somewhere in the South. I think you are confusing some of the annoying things that people think are “stereotypical” racist symbols as the mindset of an entire population of America. Civil War reenactments and all of that stuff will go on forever. However, sentiment that is shown toward minorities in places like Boston is every bit as hateful. I can’t stand country music, and I really think that wearing confederate flags makes you look like you were born in a trailer park. But, the fact remains, racial hatred has no geographic sphere of influence. The south is where the civil rights movement happened, change is not easy, and we are still changing. There are many places north of the Mason-Dixon line that are just as bad, or worse.
Definitely read ‘Confederates in the Attic’. I enjoyed it very much.
McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom is a great read, I think. The battle stuff is interspersed with broader accounts. On another front, Jack Bass’s Unlikely Heroes is a fantastic book about southern federal judges post-Brown v. Board.
Arguing about slavery : the great battle in the United States Congress by William Lee Miller remains a favorite. It tells, in painful but fascinating detail, about the fight in Congress (led by J Q Adams) in the 1830′s over the gag rule, which blocked debate on the subject of slavery.
Sci-Fi. “The Guns of the South” by Harry Turtledove. South African Time travellers supply AK47s to Lee. They win. Then Lee puts his plans for ending slavery forward and the SA lot fight Lee, Forrest etc. Not a bad book at all.
I agree with Oliver that pure objectivity is difficult if not impossible to maintain, and that pretending to be objective in order to make subjectivity seem more legitimate is a cowardly way to go.
However, I think there is value in journalism that doesn’t take sides. There’s a reason that newspapers have an op/ed section, and that it’s not on the front page. I enjoy reading well-written persuasive pieces, but I also like drawing my own conclusions from reportage that doesn’t nudge me in a particular direction.
Dkelsmith makes one excellent point – never paint a huge and diverse region with too broad a brush.
The number of misconceptions about the Civil War might be outnumbered only by those regarding the American ‘Revolution.’ The abolitionists were considered the real wackos and there was no serious support even in the north for the emancipation proclamation, the real point of which was to undercut possible European support for the confederacy. Whether Lincoln went into office intending to emancipate is unknowable, but he sure didn’t say it; in fact he said quite the opposite.
Conversely, plenty in the south (mostly the poor non-slaveowning majority) didn’t much give a damn about whether slavery was legal or not, and might have preferred it wasn’t to open up the labor market a bit. Point is, if you’re going to paint anyone as ‘seriously screwed up,’ much better to avoid impugning an entire region.
Confederates in the Attic is very much about today.
I recommend the two-volum Road to Disunion by William Freehling for an almost-too-detailed history of why we had a Civil War in the first place….
I strongly recommend the Taylor Branch trilogy. Parting the Waters is one of my all time favorites. It reads like fiction, with edge of the seat suspense. Reading this book should be mandatory.
This question is not intended to be mean in any way, but I can’t help but ask – Oliver, do you know many blacks from the South? The ones I know (admittedly few) seem to have largely positive attitudes about the south, with the obvious caveats of segregation and slavery… I think there’s a lot more to the south than just the (quite real) legacy of racial hatred.
I really liked the Taylor Branch books on the civil rights movement.
James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom is a good one volume overview of the Civil War. I also recommend Shelby Foote’s 3-volume series. He was one of the main voices in the PBS Civil War series and he is a very good historical writer.
for a different perspective of Lincoln, I would highly recommend Mr Lincoln Goes to War by William Marvel.
The South also seems to have the best economy right now… and this time, it ain’t built on slavery.
My pet theory is that the fundamental flaw in the post-Civil War was by the courts, when they ruled that “separate but equal” was acceptable. That led to a whole host of “separates that were not equal” but were called “equal” by bigots and other assholes.
We didn’t technically “need” the civil rights movement; we just needed people to actually READ the law and follow it. Unfortunately, much of the US — especially in the South — we had a decided overabundance of assholes in positions of power who chose to “interpret” the laws in ways they saw fit.
In cases like that, there is really no choice: you make goddamned sure they understand the law, and abide by it. And if that means passing more laws and spelling things out in precise detail, treating their willful obstinacy as idiocy and giving them no wiggle room, then so be it.
But that should be the last resort. As it was.
I think it was Winston Churchill who observed that “the American people will always do the right thing — after all other alternatives have been exhausted.”
J.
“The South also seems to have the best economy right now”
Wut?
Current US unemployment by region:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm
From the link:
“The Rhode Island and South Carolina rates were the highest on record for those states. Georgia, at 9.3 percent, also posted a series high.”
Not that any State is immune from the Bush Recession, but wtf are you smoking?
“We didn’t technically ‘need’ the civil rights movement; we just needed people to actually READ the law and follow it.”
Christ, you’re dense. Like the laws mandating whites and black couldn’t marry, or that blacks had to sit on the back of the bus? Pray tell, you astute historian of the Civil Rights movement you.
What to say, Oliver…? You’ve had many comments with differing opinions, and that’s good. I live in the Old South now though I grew in your neighborhood, DC. My father was a professor of medieval philosophy for over forty years and was a conservative Catholic, at the same time that he was absolutely dedicated to civil rights and active in the cause.
DC ain’t the most enlightened place for civil rights…in many respects it seems even now to be unnecessarily backward. God, I still love it though.
Now I live in South Carolina outside of Charleston. Charleston is now viewed with suspicion by the rest of the state (we’re too liberal, high-and-mighty) though this is the home of the Civil War. Pretty much the rest of the state is knuckle-dragging, hardcore Republican reprobates. A majority Black state that consistently elects Republicans, i.e., most people don’t bother to vote. It changed with Obama, though. Two kids I’ve mentored were ecstatic at the chance, their first opportunities to vote, to cast their ballots for the first African-American president. That we had a single-digit margin in 2008 was huge.
Institutional racism lives in the bedrock of the South. People themselves are more respectful, and that’s truly a great advance. The chances, though, for improvements in education, and thus improvements in peoples lives, wealth, and that ever-popular pursuit of happiness are ever diminishing. We’re going backward.
Just look at our excrescent joke of a governor, Mark Sanford. He won’t even accept fed money to repair schools that are literally crumbling. The kids, most of them, in those schools are black…
The proceedings on the evening of Decoration Day, May 30th, 1877, at the Academy of Music, city of Brooklyn, N.Y
Author: Pryor, Roger A. (Roger Atkinson), 1828-1919
http://www.archive.org/details/proceedingsoneve00pryo
Right click on the format that you want under “View the book” then “save link as” will download the book. I haven’t read it yet. Just found it with a dogpile search on the original memorial day. Seems memorial day was started by ex slaves freed by the civil war.
“Memorial Day, it turns out, is yet another hijacked holiday. It was first observed in 1865 as Decoration Day by liberated slaves, who on their own set up, decorated and proclaimed an ad-hoc graveyard – a field of “passionless mounds” – to honor dead Union soldiers.” http://www.commondreams.org/
I did not know this. I am 54.
No, I don’t know a lot of native black southerners, though I have family that lives in ATL. I do know I had some culture shock with black folks in the south when I moved from MD to FL.
I’m certainly not saying that there isn’t racism in other places, but I feel like the south – more than other regions – insists on dragging its feet on progress, and not just racial progress. Oh, they eventually get there, but it seems like they’re behind the rest of the nation on an all-too-regular basis.
Well, then, I guess as a resident of northern New Hampshire, well away from the South, I’m just fine.
Jaim, I’m going to play along with you and treat you seriously. I try to do that once a month, just to keep my hand in.
Yes, the laws were adequate — for people who were of a fair, reasonable bent. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. And it didn’t help matters when the courts — whose championing of ideals and engagement in “outreach” is so lauded above — ruled that “separate but equal” WAS Constitutional and the law of the land.
The advances in civil rights (both through law and amendment SHOULD HAVE BEEN more than sufficient. They weren’t. And the courts — for about the next century — were a big player in making sure the promises made by those changes were not fulfilled.
It took individuals willing to take on the government — at all levels — to change that. And we are a far, far better nation for their efforts.
J.
We didn’t technically “need” the civil rights movement; we just needed people to actually READ the law and follow it. Unfortunately, much of the US — especially in the South — we had a decided overabundance of assholes in positions of power who chose to “interpret” the laws in ways they saw fit.
Mr. Tea, I’ve seen fact-free posts from you more times than I can recall, but this one takes the cake.
No, the problem in the Jim Crow south was not the interpretation of laws, it was the passage and enforcement of laws. Legislatures across the south passed poll tax laws to keep black people from voting; passed school segregation laws to keep black children in inferior schools; allowed housing discrimination to keep black people in “their” neighborhoods; authorized prison “work programs” that amounted to nothing more than the rebirth of slavery.
Didn’t NEED the civil rights movement? Just needed people to follow the law? Great God Almighty, son!
What is it you think finally forced those leaders to follow the law? Here’s a hint: it involved lots of marching and sitting in and standing up to the state governments that passed discriminatory laws.
Quaker, those laws were based on deliberately faulty interpretations of the 12th-14th Amendments, and aided and abetted by the US Supreme Court with Plessy v. Ferguson. You’re bitching about symptoms, I’m talking about causes.
The Supreme Court could have fast-forwarded about sixty years in the Civil Rights movement, and instead chose to take the side of the segregationists in clear violation of the Constitution and reality. (“Separate but equal” was NEVER “equal.”)
Thanks, Supreme Court. Glad you finally got it right in Brown v. Board of Education. Pity it took you so long.
J.
The Supreme Court could have fast-forwarded about sixty years in the Civil Rights movement, and instead chose to take the side of the segregationists in clear violation of the Constitution and reality.
And what of “states’ rights” Mr. Tea? By the time the Supreme Court declared Jim Crow laws unconstitutional, the segregationists were wailing about the erosion of states’ rights. And they’re still at it today.
Back upthread, you were blaming the courts for the slow progress of racial equality. But the courts are a reactive institution–they don’t do anything until a law is established and then challenged. Before the courts could even get into the game, legislators had to write ‘em some laws.
Quaker, you’re absolutely right — but you don’t take it far enough. (That seems to be a recurring theme here.) Yes, the job of the courts is to interpret the law — but the Constitution is the highest law in the land.
The legislators and the judges and the justices all had to creatively interpret the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (apologies; earlier I said 12-14) to get those laws passed and keep them.
I hate to play to stereotypes, but it’s another case of passing laws (or in this case, Amendments) and presuming that that makes everything all better. The Amendments in question should have made all those repugnant laws and policies and court decisions impossible. The language in them is clear and unambiguous:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
…
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude–
Three sentences. Two of them fairly simple ones, the third kind of wordy and long, but still clear as a bell.
And still assholes found ways to circumvent or subvert them to further their racist ways.
It’s nothing less than a miracle that the Civil Rights Movement didn’t break down into another Civil War. We are so fortunate that the majority of the leaders were committed to peaceful change — and that American society as a whole was amenable to that.
Unlike, for example, Iraq. President Bush once noted that if there had been Nelson Mandelas in Iraq under Saddam, they were all killed.
Unlike, for example, the Palestinians. Their “Nelson Mandelas” or “Dr. Martin Luther Kings” are routinely executed as “collaborators.”
There aren’t many places that could have turned so radically, so quickly, so completely, and so relatively peacefully from segregation as the United States.
J.
Mr. Tea, I’m not going to spoil the rest of my day by trying to coax you into owning up to your own disingenuous b.s. You entered the thread on this note:
Try all you like to turn hisory on its head and lay Jim Crow at the feet of “activist” judges. You’re wasting your time peddling that crap here. It was judicial activism that finally broke with precedent and enabled the federal government to force southern states to live by the 13th and 14th amendments.
Jay Tea,
I think I understand the point you are trying to get at, that if a pure interpretation of the law had not been twisted to follow the cultural norms at the time, the “movement” would not have been necessary. However, I think QIAB is correct with everything that he set forth. With the point that Judicial Activism is the prevailing action that forced states and municipalities to act within the tenets of the Constitution regardless of race.
He also brought up a good point. The term “states rights” always seems to go hand in hand with depriving some individual of their rights it seems.
Dkels, Quaker is carrying over a bit of bias from prior arguments. I’m pointing out that the same kind of judicial “activism” that helped the Civil Rights movement also held back that movement for decades.
The Jim Crow laws were blatantly in violation of the Constitution, but there wasn’t enough moral courage and integrity to force recognition of that. The single greatest attempt to force that was Plessy v. Ferguson, and the Supreme Court took the racist side in a decision that sanctioned decades of institutionalized racism both before and after.
That’s the sort of thing that happens when you have Justices who see the Constitution as a “living document” that can change its meaning all on its own — without the tedious process of amending it.
J.
The single greatest attempt to force that was Plessy v. Ferguson, and the Supreme Court took the racist side in a decision …That’s the sort of thing that happens when you have Justices who see the Constitution as a “living document” that can change its meaning all on its own — without the tedious process of amending it.
Jay Tea, the majority decision in Plessy v Ferguson is far closer to a strict constructionist interpretation of the 14th Amendment because is the court’s reading of the 14th Amendment it found no language or intent to extend the legal and political equality established between the races, into the social/culture realms of schools or restrooms.
In determining the validity of the Louisiana law in question, the court gave “large discretion”to the Louisiana legislature, instead of overturning the law:
The court’s decision in Plessy v Ferguson, then, was exactly what conservative “strict constructionists” demand in the issue of gay marriage.
Every time a state supreme court overturns a state law banning gay marriage, we hear the cry of “judicial activism” from gay marriage opponents. In Plesst v Ferguson, the court found that the state legislation was better able “to act with reference to the established usages, customs and traditions of the people” just as gay marriage opponents argue.
I’m pointing out that the same kind of judicial “activism” that helped the Civil Rights movement also held back that movement for decades.
You’re full of old shoes, Mr. Tea. You’re playing word games by deliberately confusing judicial activism with its opposite.
As I said, that shinola doesn’t sell here.
Well done, faffer. TFJ for you.
It’s an odd feeling, having to take the “progressive” side of the argument here, but I’ll take up the gauntlet.
Amendment XIV, Section I clearly states that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The issue in Plessy v. Ferguson was whether or not the states could set up two tiers of citizenship without violating the “equal protection” clause. The court ruled that yeah, you can have two classes of citizenship, as long as they were treated “equally.” The notion that the kind of separation the states were applying would even have a passing resemblance to “equal” should have been ludicrous, but the Justices agreed.
I also reject the analogy to gay marriage. The issues involving Plessy v. Ferguson were things like public accomodations, public education, and more fundamental rights.
At the very least, Congress could have said “all right, we’ll accept ‘separate but equal’ — but we’re gonna be looking very, very carefully to make certain that they are, indeed, ‘equal.’” But that didn’t happen, either.
It took nearly a century for the 13th-15th Amendments to be fully recognized and accepted, and only then because Americans of good conscience united and demanded it from the government. Prior to then, the government was more than willing to turn a blind eye to gross violations of the Constitution.
J.
If you want a great read about the Civil War, read Shelby Foote’s “The Civil War: A Narrative.” This is a trilogy and can seem daunting because of its length, but God, is it great.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_Foote
Foote was a novelist, so he makes this history read like a great story.
Trust me. I have read a lot of Civil War history, and Foote’s is by far the best because it is the most readable and engrossing.
If you want detail, read Bruce Catton. If you want a story well and accurately told, read Foote.
The notion that the kind of separation the states were applying would even have a passing resemblance to “equal” should have been ludicrous, but the Justices agreed.
Uh, yeah, Jay Tea, we all know that. What you have failed to account for is why the justices reached this conclusion.
The justices reached this conclusion because they did not find any reason in the language of the Amendment or in the original intent of its authors that would have allowed them to declare Louisiana’s law unconstitutional:
They were not, in other words, treating the “Constitution as a ‘living document’ that can change its meaning all on its own.”
They were, in fact, treating the Constitution exactly as Conversatives even today want it to be treated: With deference given to exact readings of the language and the original intent of its authors.
And of course you reject the gay marriage “analogy” because who the hell, in this day and age, wants to look like an asshole arguing in favor “separate but equal”? But this is exactly the argument being made by gay marriage opponents–that marriage and civil unions are separate but equal–based on the same reasoning that the court gave in Plessy v Ferguson which argued that state legislatures are better equipped to determine “the established usages, customs and traditions of the people, and with a view to the promotion of their comfort, and the preservation of the public peace and good order,”
Jay Tea, you are not taking up the “progressive side” of the argument. The reason you feel so odd is because the conservative alternate reality you prefer to live in doesn’t hold up to the actual facts.
I also reject the analogy to gay marriage. The issues involving Plessy v. Ferguson were things like public accomodations, public education, and more fundamental rights.
Oh and Jay Tea, you’ve never really read the Plessy decision until the quote I’ve posted in this thread have you?
Because the justices make clear in their decision that they find a sharp distinction between things like public acomodations and more fundamental rights:
And:
Finally, the justices laid out an argument against legislation designed for “social engineering” that conservatives still support today:
So the court found that there was a difference between civil and political rights and social rights. The Constitution, it argued, held sway only in the realm of political and civil rights and had no power to legislate social equality.
That is EXACTLY a central conservative argument against all manner of civil rights era legislation, including affirmative action.
It’s an odd feeling, having to take the “progressive” side of the argument here, but I’ll take up the gauntlet.
You’re not taking up the progressive side. You’re pretending to take up the progressive side by pretending that court decisions upholding discriminatory laws were “judicial activism.”
Keep trying though. Maybe someone dumb enough to believe you will come wandering by.