In A Crowded News Week, Holder Was "The Man." (2/20/2009)

I don't know about you, but in a week filled to the brim with black-related news stories, I've got to go with the Black History Month speech by new U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, wherein he referred to Americans as a "nation of cowards" on racial issues, as the most significant.

Quite frankly, I hadn't been all that excited about Holder up to that point. He certainly seemed competent enough. I thought, overall, that he would probably do a good job but that he wouldn't add much, even in his "first black ever" Attorney General's position, to what needed to be said and done to eliminate the nation's lingering, race-based disparities.

Hey, I was wrong.

Before we get to that, I must admit that for those of us who believe there can never be too much meaningful dialogue on issues of race in this country, last week was like dying and going to heaven, in a perverse kind of way.First, it was already Black History Month and we've had, this year, perhaps, the loudest cries ever raised about whether the concept of having a month dedicated to our history still makes sense.

The answer to this one is simple: In no way should we disregard our own, unique culture, simply because a single, black man has finally been elected president after 222 years of American history. Like other groups have done, we should continue to seek inclusion in mainstream history texts, while, at the same time, pushing for separate, national recognition of our important dates in history, as the Irish do with St. Patrick's Day, and as Italians do with Columbus Day.

The past week also saw the signing of President Obama's first major bill and the related discussion about whether the Stimulus Plan, as currently designed, will have meaningful impact, at all, in black communities. Hearing one of the President's point men, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, trying to respond to the Black Press on that issue last week was very disturbing. If you haven't been paying very close attention, this is what LaHood said when asked what the new Stimulus Plan's direct impact on black Americans would be: "That's a point I have really not considered....I don't really know." That wasn't a good sign.

And while we're at it, let's not forget Senator Burris, the man who knew too much and couldn't stop talking about it. We may very well have witnessed the very first case of a brother talking himself into and out of a U.S. Senate seat, all within the same two-month period. In the beginning, I was actually a big fan of having Burris in the Senate and I certainly don't wish him any misfortune (or perjury-related jail time) but, it appears that he brought this latest controversy on himself.

Then, amazingly, there was the New York Post cartoonist and his editors who clumsily tried to "get away with" comparing "the first black President of United States" to a chimpanzee. In this day and age, in the very midst of the "post-racial society," the Post essentially said to all of us that, even if a black person did happen, somehow, to have been elected president of the entire United States, the newspaper still has license to refer to him as a monkey. For the record, I find myself agreeing with Al Sharpton on this one. If the Post can't do a better job of issuing a full apology, and reprimanding the offending cartoonist and editors, black people, and others of good conscience, should do everything in their power to shut the paper down. In today's challenging environment for print media, that shouldn't be too difficult to do.

As early as 1980, the Columbia Journalism Review said the New York Post was "...no longer merely a journalistic problem. It is a social problem...a force for evil." I couldn't agree more and I've decided to never buy a copy of that newspaper again. I hope you agree and do the same. Trust me, for a publication engaged in a "life and death struggle" with its competitor publication, The New York Daily News, the loss of its Philadelphia circulation base will hurt, and, perhaps, speed its demise. Let's collectively help "pull the plug" and put this offensive and arrogant publication out of its misery.

As I mentioned previously, the main story last week still had to be Holder's remarks and the national reaction to them.In an age when broadcast news is the favorite source for news for most Americans and when CNN is the most "trusted" of all broadcast news outlets, every story becomes instantly "personalized."Each evening, CNN gives us a headline, a few minutes of hard news detail and, then, about 50 minutes of every hour devoted to the opinions of randomly selected "talking heads," whose personal opinions grow to take on the appearance and weight of actual facts. After watching CNN, on any given night, we may not know what President Obama actually said that day, but we will absolutely know what CNN correspondents Lou Dobbs, Campbell Brown, Larry King, John King, David Gergen and the rest of the crew feel about the issue, and that now passes for "news."

In the Holder case, especially, this has all been very interesting to watch. No matter the solid and unemotional fact of Holder's speech content, it was described by one CNN pundit, and repeated over and over that evening, as "needlessly provocative." You'd think that Holder actually did something wrong or said something inaccurate. He didn't.

America certainly is "A nation of cowards" with regard to race. Regrettably, the biggest cowards are not white Americans, who somehow, thought Holder was only talking about them, but black Americans who prefer, apparently, the higher up they move on the academic and economic ladder, to be wholly disinclined to speak honestly about issues of race or their own community. It's as if they believe that not having an opinion on their own heritage or on the nation's racial inequities will enhance their ability to assimilate into the mythical "melting pot."

Regrettably, during times like these, outlets such as CNN can always find a wide selection of "black experts" who will sharply disagree with a credible black perspective by people like Holder. There must be a website or directory somewhere of "black people who strongly disagree with black consciousness." Like clockwork, CNN produced at least two such pundits to deal with the Holder issue. The first was Richard Thompson Ford, the African-American author of "The Race Card," who gets dragged out, from time to time, when there's a need to discredit legitimate complaints by black people about their treatment in the media, and Ron Christie, an African American who had been a domestic policy advisor to President Bush. Right on cue, Christie called Holder's speech "insulting to the American people" and a "disgraceful comment" from an Attorney General.

To their great credit, at least two of the network's own "correspondents of color," Soledad O'Brien and Roland Martin, minced no words, speaking clearly and emphatically on the topics. O'Brien praised Holder for trying to encourage an "honest conversation" about race in the country, and Martin described Holder's comments as "spot on." In an industry, like many others, now subject to sweeping layoffs, that took courage on both of their parts.

If you've got a minute, shoot an e-mail to CNN to support O'Brien and Martin and, then, send another to the New York Post to condemn its ongoing, racist and sensational content.

After all, it's Black History Month. Get involved.
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