(theGrio) Rachel Dolezal had quite a week, perhaps unlike anyone you know, as her parents revealed that the African-American studies professor, #BlackLivesMatter activist and head of the Spokane branch of the NAACP, is not a black woman but white.
Despite the scathing criticism and unforgiving memes this sister has faced, perhaps even well-deserved, all is not lost for Dolezal.
Can she redeem herself as an ally, after all this backlash?
Showing posts with label NAACP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NAACP. Show all posts
April 14, 2015
Three years after Trayvon Martin killing, two women's lives intersect
(CNN) When people are faced with overwhelming trauma in their lives, some become consumed by their difficulties, while others emerge stronger for it. In special circumstances, they may find their destiny, and seek to heal the world and make all of us stronger.
Myrlie Evers-Williams and Sybrina Fulton are two great women whose achievements demand our attention. Although their personal stories are separated by five decades, these women share parallel lives. Thrust into a position of leadership for the greater good of society, they have used personal grief over the loss of a loved one to become agents for change.
Myrlie Evers-Williams and Sybrina Fulton are two great women whose achievements demand our attention. Although their personal stories are separated by five decades, these women share parallel lives. Thrust into a position of leadership for the greater good of society, they have used personal grief over the loss of a loved one to become agents for change.
January 15, 2013
Maryland death penalty repeal
From Huffington Post:
With the death penalty a hot topic of discussion in Maryland these days, lawmakers in that state have a golden opportunity to repeal an outdated, cruel and unjust practice.
Death penalty repeal is in the air. At the urging of the NAACP, Maryland CASE and others, Gov. Martin O'Malley and state lawmakers are paving the way for a repeal vote in the legislature. When it comes to government-sponsored executions, Annapolis needs to let it go, and apparently is about to do so. And the reasons why they should are clear.
Click HERE for more.
August 2, 2010
Fox News Is The Lynchmob's Ticket Agent
The media manufactured spectacle that is and was the Shirley Sherrod incident tells us all we need to know about Andrew Brietbart, Fox "News" and the dangers of extremist hack media-- unregulated, irresponsible and unethical-- run amok.
Of course, I speak of the firing of the U.S. Department of Agriculture official based on a heavily edited video of a speech she gave at an NAACP event in Georgia. Ms. Sherrod is the wife of a SNCC cofounder, and she became a civil rights activist after her father, a black farmer, was lynched by a white farmer. Ms. Sherrod described how she overcame her reluctance to give her all in helping a white farmer who acted superior towards her. In the end, she helped him. She realized that the issue was not as much about race as it was about poor whites and poor blacks finding themselves in the same situation. And good for her.
But the doctored up video, brought to us by conservative blogger and hatchet man Andrew Breitbart, made Sherrod appear as if she denied assistance to the white farmer, end of story. And Breitbart has lots of practice at this sort of thing, fraud, that is, as the "person" who introduced to us via Fox News the fabricated ACORN pimp video that brought down the nonprofit organization.
It's not as if we should have been surprised this time around, yet some people were. Many reporters were snookered. The NAACP was hoodwinked. And most of all, the seemingly invertebrate Obama administration was so fooled, or scared, or both, that they fired the woman without due process. I'm sorry, even worse, they forced Ms. Sherrod to pull over the car and type her resignation on her blackberry. And as a wise man once said, "There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."
To watch the lambasting of Shirley Sherrod on Fox News before the facts were known was unbearable. At the same time, one should not depend on Fox for actual news. You could conceivably drink a tall glass of soy sauce with dinner and pretend it is a beverage, but it wasn't intended for that purpose.
It is safe to say that Fox News, like its movie and television divisions, is pure entertainment, that is, if you get your entertainment from a lynchmob.
And lynchings in this country once were considered a form of entertainment by some, believe it or not. Often the victim-- typically a black man accused of insulting a white woman, or perhaps a black man having the nerve to wear his army uniform, or just any black man walking--was beaten, burned, stabbed or hanged. Often, torture and castration was involved, and various unspeakable body parts were cut off as souvenirs. White women and young children were on hand with picnic baskets to observe in the family-like atmosphere. Railroad agents even sold tickets to the events. And frequently among the instigators and participants were not only lowlife good ol' boys, but the community's business and political leadership.
In today's polarizing political climate with declining journalistic standards, sloppy fact checking and faltering government oversight, Fox News serves as the ticket agent to the lynching. They even handle the promotion and advertising. They participate in a high-tech media lynching of sorts, somewhat akin to what Justice Clarence Thomas described at his confirmation hearings, except that he was (and still is) full of it.
Like the politicized Bush Justice Department under the guidance of Karl Rove, Fox News and other conservative media decide on a narrative beforehand, and lie and fabricate to fit that narrative. The Bush DOJ, stacked with an army of televangelist law school graduates, pursued imaginary cases of voter fraud, anti-white voter intimidation and discrimination against Christians. Those prosecutors who did not comply were fired.
Similarly, Fox is filled with vacuous news models who dutifully read the scripts prepared for them. The hot topic these days among the conservative movement is the myth of rampant black racism against whites, and the truth be damned. This narrative serves an important purpose for Republicans, which is to energize the Tea Party base, and kick out the Democrats in the midterms and in 2012. Then once they impeach Obama, they'll finish off the job of ruining the country through a supply-side nightmare that Bush came close to fulfilling. It's that deep, and yet that simple.
Don't get me wrong, freedom of speech is a beautiful thing. As a writer, I appreciate the ability to speak and write freely about this or any other issue. But inciting a lynchmob is quite another matter. What we're witnessing is the use of the media specifically to spread lies, defame, and hurt groups of people, in this case based on race, solely for political gain. And that's downright dangerous and antidemocratic. Why, that's the type of thing you would expect from one of those fascist and communist governments that the ultra-conservatives so vocally decry, guilty as they are of psychological projection.
Propagandists without shame, the folks at Fox and others of their ilk would have done well for themselves under the employ of a repressive regime. Surely they would have used their media manipulation skills to publicly dehumanize unpopular groups. Certainly they would have shaped public opinion by scapegoating defenseless minorities, thereby paving the way for laws to make them disappear. And I can't help but think that someone such as Glenn Beck, or the troubled, attention-craving, perpetually angry Breitbart, would have felt at home in a Rwandan radio station in 1994, inciting violence by encouraging Hutus to exterminate the Tutsi "cockroaches".
Harsh words? No, harsh people. There's no telling what they'd do if given half the chance.
Of course, I speak of the firing of the U.S. Department of Agriculture official based on a heavily edited video of a speech she gave at an NAACP event in Georgia. Ms. Sherrod is the wife of a SNCC cofounder, and she became a civil rights activist after her father, a black farmer, was lynched by a white farmer. Ms. Sherrod described how she overcame her reluctance to give her all in helping a white farmer who acted superior towards her. In the end, she helped him. She realized that the issue was not as much about race as it was about poor whites and poor blacks finding themselves in the same situation. And good for her.
But the doctored up video, brought to us by conservative blogger and hatchet man Andrew Breitbart, made Sherrod appear as if she denied assistance to the white farmer, end of story. And Breitbart has lots of practice at this sort of thing, fraud, that is, as the "person" who introduced to us via Fox News the fabricated ACORN pimp video that brought down the nonprofit organization.
It's not as if we should have been surprised this time around, yet some people were. Many reporters were snookered. The NAACP was hoodwinked. And most of all, the seemingly invertebrate Obama administration was so fooled, or scared, or both, that they fired the woman without due process. I'm sorry, even worse, they forced Ms. Sherrod to pull over the car and type her resignation on her blackberry. And as a wise man once said, "There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."
To watch the lambasting of Shirley Sherrod on Fox News before the facts were known was unbearable. At the same time, one should not depend on Fox for actual news. You could conceivably drink a tall glass of soy sauce with dinner and pretend it is a beverage, but it wasn't intended for that purpose.
It is safe to say that Fox News, like its movie and television divisions, is pure entertainment, that is, if you get your entertainment from a lynchmob.
And lynchings in this country once were considered a form of entertainment by some, believe it or not. Often the victim-- typically a black man accused of insulting a white woman, or perhaps a black man having the nerve to wear his army uniform, or just any black man walking--was beaten, burned, stabbed or hanged. Often, torture and castration was involved, and various unspeakable body parts were cut off as souvenirs. White women and young children were on hand with picnic baskets to observe in the family-like atmosphere. Railroad agents even sold tickets to the events. And frequently among the instigators and participants were not only lowlife good ol' boys, but the community's business and political leadership.
In today's polarizing political climate with declining journalistic standards, sloppy fact checking and faltering government oversight, Fox News serves as the ticket agent to the lynching. They even handle the promotion and advertising. They participate in a high-tech media lynching of sorts, somewhat akin to what Justice Clarence Thomas described at his confirmation hearings, except that he was (and still is) full of it.
Like the politicized Bush Justice Department under the guidance of Karl Rove, Fox News and other conservative media decide on a narrative beforehand, and lie and fabricate to fit that narrative. The Bush DOJ, stacked with an army of televangelist law school graduates, pursued imaginary cases of voter fraud, anti-white voter intimidation and discrimination against Christians. Those prosecutors who did not comply were fired.
Similarly, Fox is filled with vacuous news models who dutifully read the scripts prepared for them. The hot topic these days among the conservative movement is the myth of rampant black racism against whites, and the truth be damned. This narrative serves an important purpose for Republicans, which is to energize the Tea Party base, and kick out the Democrats in the midterms and in 2012. Then once they impeach Obama, they'll finish off the job of ruining the country through a supply-side nightmare that Bush came close to fulfilling. It's that deep, and yet that simple.
Don't get me wrong, freedom of speech is a beautiful thing. As a writer, I appreciate the ability to speak and write freely about this or any other issue. But inciting a lynchmob is quite another matter. What we're witnessing is the use of the media specifically to spread lies, defame, and hurt groups of people, in this case based on race, solely for political gain. And that's downright dangerous and antidemocratic. Why, that's the type of thing you would expect from one of those fascist and communist governments that the ultra-conservatives so vocally decry, guilty as they are of psychological projection.
Propagandists without shame, the folks at Fox and others of their ilk would have done well for themselves under the employ of a repressive regime. Surely they would have used their media manipulation skills to publicly dehumanize unpopular groups. Certainly they would have shaped public opinion by scapegoating defenseless minorities, thereby paving the way for laws to make them disappear. And I can't help but think that someone such as Glenn Beck, or the troubled, attention-craving, perpetually angry Breitbart, would have felt at home in a Rwandan radio station in 1994, inciting violence by encouraging Hutus to exterminate the Tutsi "cockroaches".
Harsh words? No, harsh people. There's no telling what they'd do if given half the chance.
July 16, 2010
California NAACP Is Right for Supporting Prop 19
The war on drugs has been a war on communities of color, plain and simple. Some people realize that it is time to end a war that has devastated so many people, so many families, and has accomplished little to deal with actual drug addiction. A criminal justice model for drug use must give way to a public health model and a regulatory framework.
The California NAACP, with the support of law enforcement professionals, realizes that the state's battle for legalization of marijuana is part of the war against the war on drugs. And this new war is part of the fight for civil rights. Yes, pot legalization is a civil rights issue.
California NAACP president Alice Huffman is catching a great deal of flack for supporting Proposition 19, the ballot initiative that would legalize, regulate and tax the drug in her state. In an official statement, the California NAACP mentioned a recent study by the Drug Policy Institute that clearly shows marijuana laws are unfairly applied to young African Americans. Although young blacks use marijuana at lower rates than their white counterparts, they are arrested for marijuana possession at double, triple or even quadruple the rate of whites. In Los Angeles County, blacks are 10 percent of the population, but 30 percent of the weed-related arrests.
Supporting the NAACP is Neill Franklin, a retired black narcotics cop who now leads Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an international group of pro-legalization cops, judges and prosecutors. These are the people who have been on the frontlines of the war on drugs. And war can leave you weary and disillusioned, particularly when you don't like what you witnessed in that war. "As a member of the NAACP, and as a former police officer who waged the 'war on drugs' for three decades, I can tell you that it is long past time to change our failed marijuana laws," Franklin said. "Like Alice and the other good folks at the NAACP, I'm tired of seeing young black men and women funneled through the revolving doors of the criminal justice system, all in the name of a 'war on marijuana' that actually does nothing to reduce its use." Franklin also believes that continuing the failed policy of prohibition bears obscene human and fiscal costs, and California voters need to know that.
Franklin and LEAP are standing with Huffman on an important policy issue, but they are also supporting the embattled California NAACP chief against unwarranted attacks from anti-reform groups. First and foremost among the forces out to get Alice Huffman is the conservative black clergy, led by Bishop Ron Allen of the International Faith Based Coalition (IFBC).
The IFBC website raises more questions than it answers about the organization, which purports to represent a coalition of more than 4,100 congregations. That's quite a claim, and quite unsubstantiated for that matter. The group describes itself as "an all-denominational, multi-racial, non-partisan non-political coalition of churches, ministries, community based organizations, governmental agencies, businesses and concerned individuals." Yet, this "non-partisan, non-political" group lists among its partners the California Republican Party and GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman (in fairness it also lists U.S. drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske).
And curiously, IFBC claims the NAACP as a partner, even as it simultaneously urges people on its website not to support the NAACP. "I would like to commend Rev. Ron Allen in his leadership against this evil Prompt 19 [sic]," said Rev. Anthony Evans of the National Black Church Initiative, on the IFBC website. Rev. Evans, by the way, has taken a prominent role against same-sex marriage in Washington. DC., and declared the black church will no longer allow African-American politicians to promote policies (i.e., gay marriage) that hurt the black church. It is uncertain how same-sex marriage will hurt the black church, but oh well.
Of Huffman and "Prompt" 19, Rev. Evans asserted "The NAACP is becoming an enemy to the Black family... Now they are allowing Ms. Huffman to unleash her unethical practices by supporting drugs that have ravished the African American community over the past 30 years." He continues: "I am authorizing all of our churches in the West Faith Command not to [sic] give a damn dime to the NAACP and not allow their congregation to be used for any of the NAACP meetings. There is no way that the Black Church will permit this immoral act as it will only further the devastation of the African American community."
Conservative preachers such as Rev. Evans and Bishop Allen are missing the whole point about the war on drugs, or perhaps this is intentional. Has drug addiction destroyed lives? Yes, to be certain, but so too have the consumption of alcohol and tobacco -- and these substances are not criminalized, but are regulated and treated as health concerns. Detractors insist Alice Huffman and the NAACP are an enemy of black America for supporting the legalization of marijuana. Yet, how can the prohibitionists claim to act in the interests of the black community when they support the perpetuation of a failed drug war that has placed countless black, brown and poor white folk behind bars, wasting their lives away in a cell, separated from their children, with their communities depleted of resources, hollowed out and disenfranchised?
The California NAACP is under fire when it should be applauded for its courage. Alice Huffman is carrying out the mission of her organization, ensuring that it protects civil rights and remains relevant in changing times. Should we expect her to do less?
The California NAACP, with the support of law enforcement professionals, realizes that the state's battle for legalization of marijuana is part of the war against the war on drugs. And this new war is part of the fight for civil rights. Yes, pot legalization is a civil rights issue.
California NAACP president Alice Huffman is catching a great deal of flack for supporting Proposition 19, the ballot initiative that would legalize, regulate and tax the drug in her state. In an official statement, the California NAACP mentioned a recent study by the Drug Policy Institute that clearly shows marijuana laws are unfairly applied to young African Americans. Although young blacks use marijuana at lower rates than their white counterparts, they are arrested for marijuana possession at double, triple or even quadruple the rate of whites. In Los Angeles County, blacks are 10 percent of the population, but 30 percent of the weed-related arrests.
"While marijuana has been decriminalized over the years, there are staggering statistics that African Americans in every county of California have conviction rates far and above those of whites. It is time for the War on Drugs to focus on drug lords and cartels," the NAACP said. "We need to give our young African American citizens a chance at opportunity and not an arrest record that dooms their chances of success. The money spent on these minor drug arrests could be better used on education, health services, and counseling."
Supporting the NAACP is Neill Franklin, a retired black narcotics cop who now leads Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an international group of pro-legalization cops, judges and prosecutors. These are the people who have been on the frontlines of the war on drugs. And war can leave you weary and disillusioned, particularly when you don't like what you witnessed in that war. "As a member of the NAACP, and as a former police officer who waged the 'war on drugs' for three decades, I can tell you that it is long past time to change our failed marijuana laws," Franklin said. "Like Alice and the other good folks at the NAACP, I'm tired of seeing young black men and women funneled through the revolving doors of the criminal justice system, all in the name of a 'war on marijuana' that actually does nothing to reduce its use." Franklin also believes that continuing the failed policy of prohibition bears obscene human and fiscal costs, and California voters need to know that.
Franklin and LEAP are standing with Huffman on an important policy issue, but they are also supporting the embattled California NAACP chief against unwarranted attacks from anti-reform groups. First and foremost among the forces out to get Alice Huffman is the conservative black clergy, led by Bishop Ron Allen of the International Faith Based Coalition (IFBC).
The IFBC website raises more questions than it answers about the organization, which purports to represent a coalition of more than 4,100 congregations. That's quite a claim, and quite unsubstantiated for that matter. The group describes itself as "an all-denominational, multi-racial, non-partisan non-political coalition of churches, ministries, community based organizations, governmental agencies, businesses and concerned individuals." Yet, this "non-partisan, non-political" group lists among its partners the California Republican Party and GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman (in fairness it also lists U.S. drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske).
And curiously, IFBC claims the NAACP as a partner, even as it simultaneously urges people on its website not to support the NAACP. "I would like to commend Rev. Ron Allen in his leadership against this evil Prompt 19 [sic]," said Rev. Anthony Evans of the National Black Church Initiative, on the IFBC website. Rev. Evans, by the way, has taken a prominent role against same-sex marriage in Washington. DC., and declared the black church will no longer allow African-American politicians to promote policies (i.e., gay marriage) that hurt the black church. It is uncertain how same-sex marriage will hurt the black church, but oh well.
Of Huffman and "Prompt" 19, Rev. Evans asserted "The NAACP is becoming an enemy to the Black family... Now they are allowing Ms. Huffman to unleash her unethical practices by supporting drugs that have ravished the African American community over the past 30 years." He continues: "I am authorizing all of our churches in the West Faith Command not to [sic] give a damn dime to the NAACP and not allow their congregation to be used for any of the NAACP meetings. There is no way that the Black Church will permit this immoral act as it will only further the devastation of the African American community."
Conservative preachers such as Rev. Evans and Bishop Allen are missing the whole point about the war on drugs, or perhaps this is intentional. Has drug addiction destroyed lives? Yes, to be certain, but so too have the consumption of alcohol and tobacco -- and these substances are not criminalized, but are regulated and treated as health concerns. Detractors insist Alice Huffman and the NAACP are an enemy of black America for supporting the legalization of marijuana. Yet, how can the prohibitionists claim to act in the interests of the black community when they support the perpetuation of a failed drug war that has placed countless black, brown and poor white folk behind bars, wasting their lives away in a cell, separated from their children, with their communities depleted of resources, hollowed out and disenfranchised?
The California NAACP is under fire when it should be applauded for its courage. Alice Huffman is carrying out the mission of her organization, ensuring that it protects civil rights and remains relevant in changing times. Should we expect her to do less?
July 3, 2010
Supreme Court Hearings Remind Us of What's at Stake
I don't know about you, but after watching the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, I was given the distinct impression that Thurgood Marshall was being subjected to a criminal trial, post-mortem, by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The late great Supreme Court justice -- and the first African-American to sit on the high court -- was mentioned no fewer than 35 times the first day. Meanwhile, President Obama was mentioned only 14 times.
Elena Kagan has the nerve to actually admire such a man as Marshall, a civil rights giant who served as lead attorney in the Brown v. Board of Education case, and served as a jurist of high distinction. She even served as a law clerk to the man. How dare she! Didn't the White House people properly vet this candidate, so as to discover such disturbing, and potentially deal-breaking, information in her past?
Each time a Supreme Court nominee comes before the Senate, we should expect the same thing: one group of lawmakers will ask thoughtful, probing questions in an attempt to determine the candidate's suitability for the nation's top judicial body. But the other group, generally a contingent of dour white-male, pro-corporate, segregationist holdovers, are charged with the task of disrespecting any nominee that does not subscribe to their narrow and flawed worldview. And it is this second group -- which never passes up the opportunity to portray themselves as the twenty-first century reincarnation of Senators Strom Thurmond, Theodore Bilbo and James Eastland -- that tells you all you need to know about the nature and purpose of these hearings.
And these Republicans spent valuable time sullying the name of a man who accomplished more for this country than they could ever dream in a thousand lifetimes, and whose shoes they are unworthy to fill collectively, much less shine.
Harsh words, perhaps, but the unsolicited commentary those senators provided that day was harsh, and was said in the presence of Justice Marshall's son. The common theme was that liberal activist judges are evil, whatever "activist" means, with particular attention paid to Marshall's view that "you do what you think is right and let the law catch up." Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) condemned Kagan for praising Marshall for believing that "it was the role of the courts in interpreting the Constitution to protect the people who went unprotected by every other organ of government." Kyl also said that Marshall's judicial philosophy "is not what I would consider to be mainstream," and slammed Marshall for "his unshakable determination to protect the underdog."
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said of Kagan's purported "liberal" political leanings, "And if at the end of the day, you think more like Justice Marshall than Justice Rehnquist, so be it." Well, one would hope that Kagan does not think like the late Chief Justice Rehnquist, who once defended the "separate but equal" doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson, and began his legal career working for Operation Eagle Eye, a Republican project to intimidate, harass and exclude black and Latino voters. He also fought the passage of a Phoenix, Arizona ordinance allowing blacks to enter stores and restaurants.
In his opening statement, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) reminded us that Elena Kagan "clerked for Judge [Abner] Mikva and Justice Marshall, each a well-known liberal activist judge." Yes, she clerked for a Jew and a black, and we know what happens when you get those Jewish and black civil rights-loving activist types together. Surely this thinly-veiled racist point was not missed by the Tea Party base for which Sessions' troubling message was intended, provided their mental capacity allowed them to catch it.
And Sessions is not one to be in judgment of anyone, yet he remains on the Senate Judiciary committee. This is the man who was rejected by the Senate for the federal bench because he opposed the Voting Rights Act. As a U.S. attorney in Alabama, he called a black assistant U.S. Attorney "boy" and warned him to "be careful what you say to white folks." He said the NAACP and the ACLU were "un-American and Communist inspired" groups that "forced civil rights down the throats of people." As a federal prosecutor, Sessions engaged in a voter-fraud witch-hunt against three Black civil rights workers, including a former aide to Dr. King. Moreover, during a 1981 KKK murder investigation, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he "used to think they [the Klan] were OK" until he found out some of them were "pot smokers."
Race was a fixture of the Sonia Sotomayor hearings, and apparently race is a big part of the Kagan hearings, even though Kagan is not a person of color. That's because the ultra-Right Republicans can't let it go. Race-baiting is their crack, if you will, and they refuse to get treatment for their affliction. The race card won them many an election. And though their base of good ol' boys is dwindling, they refuse to divest themselves of a strategy that is doomed to failure in light of changing demographics.
The Kagan hearings, or any Supreme Court hearings for that matter, are part of the war to win over the hearts and minds of America, to determine what kind of country we want this to become.
Conservatives will decry the rise of the liberal activist judges who legislate from the bench. But activism is in the eye of the beholder. I cannot think of any greater examples of activism than the gems promulgated by the current court, such as the Citizens United decision, which gives corporations free rein to influence the political process. And another great example is the court's new interpretation of Second Amendment, in which the language regarding "a well regulated militia" is misconstrued as a fundamental right of personal gun ownership under federal and state and local law. This, in a nation with 30,000 gun murders a year.
In the end, the real question is whether we want the Dred Scott court and the Plessy court, or the court that gave us the Brown decision. It's for the people with power or its power for the people. And that's what these hearings are all about.
February 6, 2009
The whiteout on network television must stop
By David A. Love
Progressive Media Project and
McClatchy Washington Bureau
February 4, 2009
We need to see more people of color on TV shows. Even with our first black president, there is a virtual whiteout on network TV, and many people of color are unable to find a job – as a writer, actor or producer, much less an executive or decision maker.
Although approximately one in three Americans is a person of color, Hollywood is, and always was, a white industry. Communities of color are not represented in proportion to their numbers. Even when minorities are portrayed, their storylines and characters usually remain subordinate to those of whites.
The NAACP is faulting Hollywood for this under-representation and is demanding that the industry step up and change the situation. The 100-year-old civil rights organization recently released a report called "Out of Focus – Out of Sync, Take 4: A Report on the Television Industry."
Back in 2002, minorities were cast in a record number of roles on TV – 10,893, or 24.2 percent of the total, according to the report. Since then, there has been a steady downward trend in available television opportunities for qualified actors and writers. This has been due to the ever-increasing popularity of reality programming, which is diverse, but does not require scripts and actors. And performers, writers and producers of color are claiming a smaller and smaller portion of a shrinking pie.
In the 1999-2000 season, only 55 writers out of 839 working in prime-time television, or 6.6 percent, were black. Most of them were not working for one of the four major networks. Actually, 77 percent were working for UPN and WB, and a third of all black television writers in America worked on only two shows, UPN's "Moesha" and "The Parkers," both of which have been canceled.
And after the merger of UPN and WB to form the CW network, only 37 black writers remained in the 2006-2007 season, and minority programming has all but completely vanished since then.
"At a time when the country is excited about the election of the first African-American president in U.S. history, it is unthinkable that minorities would be so grossly underrepresented on broadcast television," said NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous.
According to the report, the factors that stifle employment and promotion opportunities for minorities are highly subjective practices, including a closed roster system, lack of access through Hollywood agents and discriminatory guild membership requirements.
In the early days of television, it was common for blacks to run to the TV and call their friends when a person of color was making an on-air appearance. Today, such appearances should not be so rare.
And the roles minorities get need to be varied and rich.
In the 1987 movie "Hollywood Shuffle," Robert Townsend plays a struggling black actor who is faced with few job prospects except for demeaning stereotyped roles as jive-talking street hustlers. At the end of the movie, his character quits acting, declaring, "There's always work at the post office."
Now, more than 20 years later, America can and must do more to end discrimination and ensure equal opportunity in Hollywood.
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