The Curry Report

February 24, 2009

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In This Issue

How the GOP Lost Blacks

Sharpton Ramps up Protest over NY Post Cartoon

John Legend's Letter to N.Y. Post

Murdoch Apologizes for Chimp Cartoon

Race High on Agenda of Holder's Justice Dept.

A Nation of Cowards?

How the GOP Lost Blacks

By George E. Curry

Philadelphia Inquirer

Beyond the Spin

Michael Steele's election as the first black chairman of the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday have created a lot of discussion about the relationship - or lack of one - between African Americans and the party of Lincoln.

It stands in stark contrast to the post-Civil War period known as Reconstruction. Buoyed by Lincoln's decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks at that time strongly supported the Republican Party.

Although Lincoln gets credit for freeing the slaves, he was more interested in saving the Union than in making sure African Americans were treated fairly. In fact, in 1858, during one of a series of debates with Stephen Douglas, he said:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.

"And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

Blacks, most of whom lived in the South, supported the Republican Party not only because of Lincoln, but also because virulent white segregationist politicians in the South were Democrats.

African Americans remained aligned with Republicans until the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the advent of the New Deal.

The changed relationship between blacks and the Democratic Party was solidified with Harry Truman's decision to desegregate the military in 1948 and sign Executive Order 9980, eliminating racial discrimination in federal employment. Lyndon B. Johnson deepened the bond further with his support for civil-rights legislation in the 1960s.

Despite African Americans' dramatic shift to the Democratic Party, the GOP still got a respectable share of the black vote as late as 1960. Dwight Eisenhower got 39 percent of the African-American vote in 1956, and Richard Nixon got 32 percent in his narrow loss to John F. Kennedy in 1960.

But Nixon would eventually be associated with the Republican "Southern strategy" of exploiting racism to win white votes. In 1970, Kevin Phillips, a GOP strategist, told the New York Times, "From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote, and they don't need any more than that." Referring to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, he added: "The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are."

Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, thought he could win with that strategy, but he was trounced. Johnson got 94 percent of the black vote - a record that stood until Barack Obama got 96 percent of it in November.

One of the most popular Republican presidents in history, Ronald Reagan, offended blacks and many whites when he kicked off his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil-rights workers were slain.

Republicans just don't get it. When it comes to the black vote, the party is over for the party of Lincoln.

GOP leaders elected Michael Steele as their chairman partly to counter the influence of Obama. But he faces an uphill battle.

The NAACP recently issued its legislative report card for the 110th Congress, covering 2007-08. On issues important to African Americans, no Senate Republican got an A. There were only two B's, one C, one D, and 39 F's. (Grades were withheld for partial terms.) By contrast, among Senate Democrats, there were 40 A's, five B's, two C's, two D's, and no F's.

The pattern was similar in the House: among Republicans, one B, four C's, 10 D's, and 159 F's; among Democrats, 185 A's, 28 B's, seven C's, one D, and no F's.

Former President Gerald Ford often reminded people that he was a Ford, not a Lincoln. Today's GOP is not even a Ford. It's an Edsel.

George E. Curry is a former Washington correspondent and New York bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune and was editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine. He can be reached at gcurry@phillynews.com.

Sharpton Ramps up Protest over NY Post Cartoon

New York Post Chimp Cartoon

By Daniel Edward Rosen

� Newsday

February 23, 2009

The Rev. Al Sharpton Sunday ramped up his protest against the New York Post's decision to print a cartoon that has been criticized as depicting President Barack Obama as a chimp. His comments came a day after the leader of the NAACP called for the firing of both the paper's cartoonist and editor.

Sharpton, with City Council member Letitia James (D-Brooklyn), spoke to reporters in front of radio station KISS-FM headquarters in lower Manhattan, where they called for the City Council to review the Post's employment records because they questioned whether the newsroom staff represents the city's diversity.

But they shied away from NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous' call for the ouster of cartoonist Sean Delonas and editor-in-chief Col Allan. "Yes, the cartoonist ought to be dealt with, and the editor," said Sharpton. But he said "just firing them and not dealing with the overall problems of who's in the newsroom" doesn't address what he termed the "unfair setup" of staffing.

Sharpton also said he was starting an online petition drive to collect signatures in an effort to force the Federal Communications Commission to remove the waiver that allows the Post's parent company, News Corp., to run more than one media outlet in the area. "This is not the first time they have denigrated people of color," said James. "Now is the time to do it."

Jealous, speaking at the NAACP's annual meeting Saturday, said the cartoon was "an invitation of assassination" because the chimp -- depicted as shot dead by police with the words "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill" -- could be construed as being Obama.

The drawing "picks off the scabs of all the racial wounds," Jealous said.

A spokeswoman for the newspaper referred The Associated Press to the paper's editorial about the cartoon, which said "a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism ... most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize."

James and Sharpton said they will be staging a protest on the steps of City Hall Tuesday.

This story was supplemented with an Associated Press report.

John Legend's Letter to N.Y. Post

Dear Editor:

I'm trying to understand what possible motivation you may have had for publishing that vile cartoon depicting the shooting of the chimpanzee that went crazy. I guess you thought it would be funny to suggest that whomever was responsible for writing the Economic Recovery legislation must have the intelligence and judgment of a deranged, violent chimpanzee, and should be shot to protect the larger community. Really? Did it occur to you that this suggestion would imply a connection between President Barack Obama and the deranged chimpanzee? Did it occur to you that our President has been receiving death threats since early in his candidacy? Did it occur to you that blacks have historically been compared to various apes as a way of racist insult and mockery? Did you intend to invoke these painful themes when you printed the cartoon?

If that's not what you intended, then it was stupid and willfully ignorant of you not to connect these easily connectable dots. If it is what you intended, then you obviously wanted to be grossly provocative, racist and offensive to the sensibilities of most reasonable Americans. Either way, you should not have printed this cartoon, and the fact that you did is truly reprehensible. I can't imagine what possible justification you have for this. I've read your lame statement in response to the outrage you provoked. Shame on you for dodging the real issue and then using the letter as an opportunity to attack Rev. Sharpton. This is not about Rev. Sharpton. It's about the cartoon being blatantly racist and offensive.

I believe in freedom of speech, and you have every right to print what you want. But freedom of speech still comes with responsibilities and consequences. You are responsible for printing this cartoon, and I hope you experience some real consequences for it. I'm personally boycotting your paper and won't do any interviews with any of your reporters, and I encourage all of my colleagues in the entertainment business to do so as well. I implore your advertisers to seriously reconsider their business relationships with you as well.

You should print an apology in your paper acknowledging that this cartoon was ignorant, offensive and racist and should not have been printed.

I'm well aware of our country's history of racism and violence, but I truly believe we are better than this filth. As we attempt to rise above our difficult past and look toward a better future, we don't need the New York Post to resurrect the images of Jim Crow to deride the new administration and put black folks in our place. Please feel free to criticize and honestly evaluate our new President, but do so without the incendiary images and rhetoric.

Sincerely,
John Legend

Murdoch Apologizes for Chimp Cartoon

By Sharon Otterman

� New York Times

February 24, 2009

Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman of News Corp, which owns the New York Post, personally apologized Tuesday for an editorial cartoon published last week that showed a police officer telling his colleague who just shot a chimpanzee, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

"Last week we made a mistake," he wrote in a statement printed on Page 2 of the Post. "We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted."

Gov. David A. Paterson, Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, the Rev. Al Sharpton and others had expressed concern about the cartoon, which critics said implicitly compared President Obama with the primate and evoked a history of racist imagery of blacks. The chimpanzee was an apparent reference to the 200-pound pet chimpanzee that was shot dead by a police officer in Stamford, Conn., on Feb. 16, after it mauled a friend of his owner.

The New York Post editorial board issued an apology on Feb. 19, the day after the cartoon by Sean Delonas was printed, "to those who were offended," while maintaining that the cartoon was not intended to be racist.

Here's the full text of Mr. Murdoch's stronger apology:

As the Chairman of the New York Post, I am ultimately responsible for what is printed in its pages. The buck stops with me.

Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.

Over the past couple of days, I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused. At the same time, I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you - without a doubt - that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such.

We all hold the readers of the New York Post in high regard and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the sensitivities of our community.

Race High on Agenda of Holder's Justice Dept.

Eric Holder & Obama

By Leslie Fulbright

February 23, 2009

President Obama declined to make race a central theme of his campaign, but the man he tapped as the country's top law enforcement officer is making it clear that race relations will be a priority.

In a speech last week, Attorney General Eric Holder called America a "nation of cowards" when it comes to discussing race, a statement applauded by civil rights leaders.

"The civil rights community now has a partner in the Justice Department rather than an adversary," said Robert Rubin, legal director for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco.

Holder, the nation's first African American attorney general, made the statement at a Department of Justice celebration of Black History Month. He urged people "to find ways to force ourselves to confront that which we have become expert at avoiding" and said the black experience and the country are inextricably tied together.

"The need to confront our racial past and our racial present and to understand the history of African people in this country endures," Holder said. "Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards."

Influential African Americans agreed with Holder's decision to use such bold language.

"He could have taken the safe route and avoided the subject, but he had the courage to confront it," said National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial. "He is absolutely spot-on that we have not shown a lot of courage in confronting and speaking about race in a factual, thoughtful and frank way."

But conservative bloggers and cable news commentators called Holder's words divisive and insensitive.

"This nation has spilled more blood over this issue than any other nation on earth, to wipe out slavery and discrimination against people of color around the world," conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh said on his program. "They're going to keep the race business alive, and it's going to prosper during the Obama administration because that causes more chaos and it causes more division."

Mixed feelings

Council Nedd, a member of Project 21, a think tank of conservative African Americans who say they are not represented by the civil rights establishment, said he had mixed feelings about Holder's speech.

"It's tricky because I agree with his comments but I don't believe they were helpful in trying to foster a productive dialogue on race," Nedd said. "I believe that those with racial tendencies tend to be cowardly, but so do those of us who have experienced racism.

"The attorney general should be more cautious with his words and more mindful of the position he holds when he is operating from that big of a pulpit."

Obama has avoided issues of race - except when putting out fires, such as his speech on race following the controversy over his association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Morial said he believes Holder is the right person in the Cabinet to start a discussion on the country's race relations.

"Within the administration, there are multiple voices that must be in symphony but not in chorus," he said. "The president has a role to play and he made a great choice for the very specific role that the attorney general plays."

Ken Nelson, president of the Richmond branch of the NAACP, agreed.

"Obama spoke about race eloquently and effectively when he needed to," Nelson said. "I think that was smart - it should not have been the primary focus of his campaign.

"That said, I do think Holder's remarks are relevant and I embrace the notion that people need to get past their personal hang ups and discuss race openly without being offensive or offended."

In his speech, Holder also said that though this country has done a good job of melding the races in the workplace, work still must be done in social settings.

"On Saturdays and Sundays, America in the year 2009 does not in some ways differ significantly from the country that existed some 50 years ago," Holder said. "Given all that we as a nation went through during the civil rights struggle, it is hard for me to accept that the result of those efforts was to create an America that is more prosperous, more positively race conscious and yet is voluntarily socially segregated."

Justice for all

Some have concluded that a black president is one of the final steps in healing the wounds of slavery. But civil rights leaders say discrimination and police misconduct are still problems. Holder renews their confidence in the Justice Department's ability to live up to its mission statement of "fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans."

The Department of Justice in 1957 established the Civil Rights Division to enforce the laws prohibiting discrimination in education, employment, credit, housing, public accommodations and voting. The division also investigates police misconduct.

There is a long tradition of civil rights leaders working with the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to air their concerns about specific cases. Morial went to the Justice Department to discuss the killing of Sean Bell by New York City police in 2006; the racial tensions in Jena, La., in 2007; and satellite voting for New Orleans residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina. He said having dialogue with the Justice Department was difficult during the Bush years.

"In the past eight years, when we have visited the Justice Department to talk about issues, there was almost a feeling of contempt," he said. "I think the first thing is to acknowledge we have a difficult time talking about race and stereotypes. If we can't admit that, we can't turn the corner."

A Nation of Cowards?

By Charles M. Blow

� New York Times

February 21, 2009

This began as a relatively quiet Black History Month. The biggest highlight was a 72-year-old former Klansman scratching "apologize to John Lewis for beating him up" off his bucket list.

Then came Attorney General Eric Holder's scathing comments about America being "a nation of cowards" because we don't have "frank" conversations about race. That got a lot of attention.

I take exception to Holder's language, but not his line of reasoning. Calling people cowards is counterproductive. It turns the conversation into a confrontation - moving it beyond the breach of true dialogue and the pale of real understanding.

That said, frank conversations are always welcomed. But, before we start, it might be helpful to have a better understanding of the breadth and nature of racial bias.

According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released last month, twice as many blacks as whites thought racism was a big problem in this country, while twice as many whites as blacks thought that blacks had achieved racial equality.

Furthermore, according to a 2003 Gallup poll, two in five of blacks said that they felt discriminated against at least once a month, and one in five felt discriminated against every day. But, a CNN poll from last January found that 72 percent of whites thought that blacks overestimated the amount of discrimination against them, while 82 percent of blacks thought that whites underestimated the amount of discrimination against blacks.

What explains this wide discrepancy? One factor could be that most whites harbor a hidden racial bias that many are unaware of and don't consciously agree with.

Project Implicit, a virtual laboratory maintained by Harvard, the University of Washington and the University of Virginia, has administered hundreds of thousands of online tests designed to detect hidden racial biases. In tests taken from 2000 to 2006, they found that three-quarters of whites have an implicit pro-white/anti-black bias. (Blacks showed racial biases, too, but unlike whites, they split about evenly between pro-black and pro-white. And, blacks were the most likely of all races to exhibit no bias at all.) In addition, a 2006 study by Harvard researchers published in the journal Psychological Science used these tests to show how this implicit bias is present in white children as young as 6 years old, and how it stays constant into adulthood.

(You can take the test yourself.)

So why do so many people have this anti-black bias?

I called Brian Nosek, an associate professor in psychology at the University of Virginia and the director of Project Implicit, to find out. According to him, our brains automatically make associations based on our experiences and the information we receive, whether we consciously agree with those associations or not. He said that many egalitarian test-takers were shown to have an implicit anti-black bias, much to their chagrin. Professor Nosek took the test himself, and even he showed a pro-white/anti-black bias. Basically, our brains have a mind of their own.

This bias can seep into our everyday lives in insidious ways. For example, a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in October found that many white doctors also had an implicit pro-white/anti-black bias, while black doctors showed almost no bias for one race or the other. The paper suggested that these biases may contribute to the unequal treatment of blacks, and that doctors may not even be conscious of it.

Can we eradicate this implicit bias? Maybe.

According to a Brown University and University of Victoria study that was published last month in the online journal PLoS One, researchers were able to ameliorate white's racial biases by teaching them to distinguish black peoples' faces from one another. Basically, seeing black people as individuals diminished white peoples' discrimination. Imagine that.

Now that we know this, are we ready to talk? Maybe not yet. Talking frankly about race is still hard because it's confusing and uncomfortable.

First, white people don't want to be labeled as prejudiced, so they work hard around blacks not to appear so. A study conducted by researchers at Tufts University and Harvard Business School and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that many whites - including those as young as 10 years old - are so worried about appearing prejudiced that they act colorblind around blacks, avoiding "talking about race, or even acknowledging racial difference," even when race is germane. Interestingly, blacks thought that whites who did this were more prejudiced than those who didn't.

Second, that work is exhausting. A 2007 study by researchers at Northwestern and Princeton that was published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science found that interracial interactions leave whites both "cognitively and emotionally" drained because they are trying not to be perceived as prejudiced.

The fear of offending isn't necessarily cowardice, nor is a failure to acknowledge a bias that you don't know that you have, but they are impediments. We have to forget about who's a coward and who's brave, about who feels offended and who gets blamed. Let's focus on the facts, and let's just talk.

Improving your Black History IQ