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Comments by YACCS

 

I wonder if the diplomas are color-coded

Remember all that talk last week about the segregated proms in Georgia? Remember how the phenomenon was held up as a prime example of continuing racism in America? How could white students want to hold themselves apart from black students? Why, it's so... archaic. It's reminiscent of separate water fountains for blacks. Come to think of it, it's almost as bad excluding black students from graduation ceremonies. For instance, the policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Oops, sorry, I read that wrong. At the University of Pennsylvania, black students create their own graduation ceremonies exclusively for them. And as you can imagine, since this is the University of Pennsylvania, rather than a high school in rural Georgia, the news coverage is far less critical. And that's the case, even though the ceremonies sound like something a bigot would come up with:

As the master of ceremonies called their names, the black seniors proudly strode to the front of the room to receive colorful pieces of kente cloth marking their impending graduation from the University of Pennsylvania.

The students solemnly called out the names of their elders as poet and social worker Kamau McRae poured water on a plant in an African libation ritual.

What do you think the reaction would be if, say, a white fraternity portrayed them as engaging in African rituals? Stereotyping black Americans as primitive Africans? Furor, I imagine. There would be cries of racial harassment, demands for suspensions, sensitivity training, etc. But when black Americans themselves do it, it's an assertion of identity. And the contortions that defenders of the program go through to deny that this is exactly what it seems like are impressive.

"When black students come together, the assumption is often that they are being separatist," said Karlene Burrell-McRae, director of the Makuu Black Cultural Resource Center, which organized the black graduation celebration at Penn. "But the reality is that they are full members of the university community who take on responsibility for contributing to their community while also contributing to the larger community."

So they're not being racial separatists… they just have a separate "community" defined by their race.

And the purpose of this program? For black people to provide "support" for each other, because they feel so troubled over the “isolating" environment. Now, keep in mind that this is hardly Bob Jones University we're discussing; according to the article, 43% of Penn's freshman class is made up of minorities. So where's the "isolation" coming from? (Sure, you can bet that this group is disproportionately Asian rather than black -- but that's okay, because Asian students get their own ceremony. As do Hispanics.) And dare I suggest that perhaps black students having separate organizations, dorms, student centers, and ceremonies, might be the cause of, rather than the solution to, this feeling of isolation? Shouldn't we question the university's entire approach to "diversity" if these are the results? If the university really believes, as claimed, that its educational mission requires a commitment to diversity, then shouldn't it forbid all formal racial groupings, thus forcing black, white, Hispanic, and Asian students to have more diverse interactions? (Answer: of course not, because diversity in eduspeak just means de facto admissions quotas.)
posted by David Nieporent at 5/20/2003 12:42:00 PM |

 

I think I see the problem

From a New York Times sob story about a poor city worker who is getting laid off:

"I always thought when my time was right, I would get my promotion and my raise," said Ms. Gourdine, 47, of the Bronx. "But this is terrible. My father was a civil servant, a bus driver. I come from an era that believed when you get into city government you're secure. You don't have to ever worry when you work for the city."

And said without any sense of irony.  Yes, it's sad for this woman that she lost her job -- but when municipal workers believe that government jobs should be guaranteed lifetime employment, that might illustrate why government doesn't work quite as well as we'd hope.

Speaking of media bias, by the way, when can we expect sob stories in the Times about small businesses driven out of the city by high taxes and/or overregulation?
posted by David Nieporent at 5/19/2003 02:21:00 AM |

 

Praised be his name

In certain religions, every mention of God is accompanied by a stock mantra of praise. Well, "diversity" is one of the media's gods, so we see a similar phenomenon in discussions about that topic. For instance, in the course of a Boston Globe column condemning the New York Times for its management failures with regard to Jayson Blair, a column which openly accuses the Times of treating Blair specially because of his race, the columnist still feels the need to add:

Let's be clear: Diversity is a crucial and honorable cause. A newspaper that looks like the community it covers is a better instrument of journalism, just as a diverse police department can better understand the people it is sworn to protect.

But is that true? One thing nobody has shown, in all the coverage of Blair's career, is how this desperately-sought after diversity mattered.

The Times wasn't gauche enough to make Blair their "black correspondent," were they? He covered news, same as everyone else. (Well, not exactly the same as everyone else, we hope. I assume the other reporters at least endeavored to report the real news.) Do newspapers generally assign black reporters to write stories about the "black community", Hispanic reporters to write stories about the "Hispanic community," etc.? I sincerely hope not. Nothing in the Times' long mea culpa, in which they gave examples of Blair's malfeasance, indicated in any way that Blair's reporting involved race in any special way. So what was this vaunted "diversity" good for? How did he help make the TImes "a better instrument of journalism"? (Or, rather, how would he have, if he had been honest?) Isn't the real answer that Blair was there to fill employment quotas?
posted by David Nieporent at 5/19/2003 01:13:00 AM |

 

The Blair Math Project

Thanks to Partha for finding data on the New York Times' internship program. I do not think it exonerates the Times on charges of racial bias, however. Quite the opposite. Assuming the self-reported data -- and for some reason I'm leery of relying on New York Times fact-checkers right now -- is accurate, it seems that minorities in the internship program receive treatment similar to that of whites in the internship program in one limited respect, getting hired for a full-time job. However, it also shows massive racial bias in the internship program itself. By my count, 19 of the 44 participants -- that's forty-three percent, for those of you scoring at home -- in the program were minorities.

Quick googling turned up this article, which cites the American Society of Newspaper Editors' annual newsroom employment survey for the data showing that in 1997, fourteen percent of print journalism graduates from journalism schools were minorities. And that minority graduates were, as a group, less qualified (in terms of credentials and experience) than non-minority graduates. 14% vs. 43%. To claim that this doesn't raise at least a prima facie case of disparate treatment is... stretching it.

And that doesn't address the issue of how fast Blair was promoted through the ranks; there's a big difference between merely being given a job on the newspaper's staff, on the one hand, and being made the lead reporter on major national stories, as Blair was, on the other hand.


Finally, the claim that Blair "was a con-man and there is nothing more to this story" just doesn't hold up. Reading the Times' ridiculously long account of the Blair affair, Blair didn't "con" anybody at all. Everybody who interacted with him quickly became aware of his poor performance, his sloppiness, his erratic behavior. His supervisor begged the Times to do something: "We have to stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right now." He certainly wasn't "conned."

The question isn't how Blair was able to get away with pretending to travel without actually leaving New York; that didn't take "conning" so much as simple lying. (Stephen Glass actually invented phony evidence in an effort to hide his fiction-writing at the New Republic. Blair wasn't even smart enough to stay out of the office on days when he was pretending he was out of town.) The question is why Blair was allowed to retain his job, and get promotions, when everyone knew he was a problem. Why the Times kept him on for more than a year after his editor desperately tried to get rid of him.

Certainly, the operational failures which allowed Blair to, for instance, get away with "traveling" without filing expense reports for tickets or hotels, are an issue which the Times needs to look into. But the management failures which allowed Blair to get and keep his job despite shoddy performance are the real story here. Why did he get a job without a college degree? Why was he regularly promoted? Why did it continue even after he was forced to take leaves of absence after misbehaving? Why were some of his editors not informed of his sketchy track record? If it wasn't because of the Times' commitment to "diversity," -- which had previously led the Times to give special treatment to minority candidates -- then what was it?
posted by David Nieporent at 5/14/2003 12:39:00 PM |

 

Black and white and read all over?

Partha is technically correct: there is no formal proof that race was a deciding or even relevant factor in the Jayson Blair scandal. For all we know, Blair could have gotten special treatment because he was a University of Maryland graduate. (Or at least a pretend University of Maryland graduate, since he never actually did the work.) But to the best of our knowledge, Blair wasn't hired under an affirmative-action-for-Terrapins program. He was hired under an affirmative-action-for-ethnic-minorities program. To the best of our knowledge, the top brass at the New York Times never spoke out on the need to increase the ranks of turtle fans at the paper. The top brass at the New York Times spoke out on the need to increase the ranks of minorities at the paper. To the best of our knowledge, executives at the New York Times never singled out Blair as an example of his alma mater's importance to the paper. Executives at the New York Times singled out Blair as an example of his race's importance to the paper.

There is, of course, no evidence that Blair's malfeasance was caused by his race -- but that's a strawman, since nobody was claiming such. He's not corrupt because he's black; he's corrupt because he's corrupt. The issue is whether the treatment of Blair -- kid gloves doesn't even begin to cover it -- was affected by his race. And in that, there's no doubt. He was hired under an affirmative action program with virtually no credentials – not even a college degree. His own editor at the paper -- as the Times' own narrative recounts -- felt that Blair's race made his promotions a fait accompli.

There aren't that many possibilities. Either

• Blair is the first dishonest reporter they've hired, or
• Black and white reporters alike get away with murder at the Times, or
• Blair got special treatment.

And why would he get special treatment? No, there's no smoking gun memo saying, "I know Blair's work is shoddy, but let's be lenient with him because he's black." (At least, none I know of. Boy wouldn't it be a journalistic coup to find it, if there were.) But the Times was openly lenient with Blair for his lack of credentials, because of his race. And the Times was incredibly indulgent of him during his career there, despite his poor performance. Connect those dots, and where do you end up?
posted by David Nieporent at 5/13/2003 02:54:00 PM |

 

American History 101

From professional Bush-hater Paul Krugman:

There was a time when patriotic Americans from both parties would have denounced any president who tried to take political advantage of his role as commander in chief. But that, it seems, was another country.

Apparently so. Does Krugman remember Dwight Eisenhower? Obviously he does, because he mentioned him earlier in the op/ed. Does he think Eisenhower was elected president based on his high school football career? Ah, but you say Eisenhower wasn't taking political advantage of his role as commander-in-chief to get elected; he was taking political advantage of his role as general to get elected. Uh, yeah? And the difference is? There's a difference between using military success to get elected and to get re-elected?

And what if there is? Has Krugman ever heard of Abraham Lincoln? Remember the slogan "Don't change horses in midstream?" Was Lincoln not taking political advantage of his role as commander-in-chief to get re-elected? Sure, that isn't exactly the same as this situation, either, and you can keep splitting hairs to find distinctions.

But the point is this: Bush is doing nothing unusual. He's playing up an area in which he has been successful. (We certainly know that if the war had gone badly, his opponents would have been taking political advantage of his failures as commander in chief.) This is just more sour grapes from Krugman.
posted by David Nieporent at 5/08/2003 03:02:00 AM |