News-Record.com

I'm going to borrow an oft-used phrase from Margaret Moffett Banks to reply to this one: "Good Grief." With all that's going on in the world today you gotta be kidding me that people got up in arms about this photo! Before all the sistas and brothas rise up againt me let me clarify -- I am black. I grew up in the South and I know the history of the image. I also know that too many black kids can't read, too many are in prison and AIDS/HIV is rising at phenomenal rates in our community. Get mad about that!

I was waiting for it. When the I saw the pics, I thought, "What are they thinking?" and then I re-looked and smiled because they ARE so cute.

And a piece of me asked myself quietly (I've given up talking out loud to myself), "Do you suppose they used the pictures so that people would react and John would have something to blog about?

Ha! Sue, you'd be surprised how little they think about my blog. Besides, I have plenty to blog about. :)

I think the decision to run the images was a poor one. The image may have been innocently intended, but it plays on a very corrosive stereotype still very fresh in many people's mind.

I hate to point it out, but racism is still very much alive in the South (that includes the Triad). Hell, Tyson Foods was sued by the EEOC for having a "Whites Only!" sign on the bathroom only YESTERDAY.

Why in god's name would you want to run a picture that opens the newspaper to a charge of racism?

I'd have to side with govtwriter on this one.

I am familiar with the watermelon stereotype.

You can drive yourself crazy trying to walk the tightrope so that you don't offend people, even over what should be harmless issues.

That's part of our country's legacy, one we've inherited and must confront.

Maybe it would be worthwhile to have an article or a collection of quotations of people's responses to the pictures. Even that, you never know where it might lead people's minds.

Honestly, I guarantee you that there are a significant number of people, partiucalarly younger people, who aren't at all aware of watermelons being associated with derogatory images of African-Americans.

As I believe John's comments revealed, he encountered some African-Americans who had no idea why there was any fuss at all over the pictures.

As far as images go, this post addresses issues that concern me far more than pictures of children innocently enjoying watermelon:

"Pimps, Thugs, Gangstas, and Klansmen ".

Sorry to be the perpetual scold, but reality must intrude. It's remarkable that you worry about such stuff as this causing racial offense while you hire based solely on skin color and hang "no whites allowed" signs over your high school journalism workshops. That's actual racism and that's truly offensive.

Other pictures you guys need to be careful of printing due to racial implications:

white people at a NASCAR race
white people in pickup trucks
fat white people
white people drinking Budweiser
white people doing the "Shag"
white people wearing baseball caps
white people "cruising" Main St.
anyone at a picnic

This kind of thing never ceases to amaze me here in the United States of the Offended.

The only people offended by those photos are people that are looking for something to be offended about. I think more people have moved past these types of things than we lead ourselves to believe.

Eh. At least they weren't naked.

I guess it was a way to bump Kay Hagan off of the front page. That is redeeming in and of it self.

Jerry - maybe I missed something, but in all that I've read about the News and Record's hiring policies I've never gotten the impression anyone is hired based "solely on skin color."

Also, to say their teen journalism project is "no whites only" is to distort its purpose and iognore its importance.

I don't mind you being a scold, and there are time when every institution needs a gadfly, but let's at least stick to the facts.

Well the obvious answer would have been to find a porch where there was a white kid and a black kid eating watermelon together. That would have defused any racial stereotype claims.

Otherwise I have to think it's sad that we're so divided as a people, that the issue should ever have to come up at all.

But what do I know? I grew up in the North.

So do the editors have a meeting to decide if you'll publish a picture of a black NBA player? That's probably at least as big a stereotype as the watermelon thing.

Do folks get offended when they see two basketball teams on TV and the only white guy on the floor is the ref?
Do folks get offended when a picture of a working white guy bent over shoes the crack of his butt above his "lowered tool belt line?"
Do folks get offended when................

Unfortunately yes. There will always be some who will be offended at anything and some will be offended for being offended.

It would have been unfortunate not to have published the picture of such a sweet, blessed child enjoying what most all children regardless of color enjoy doing. Dang wish I had been there to enjoy the melon, don't you govwriter. I wouldn't even been offended if you squirted seeds my way, I would have squirted right back.

I guess the fact that some people are offended by pictures of children enjoying what will be remembered as one of the fondest times of their entire lives simply shows how hard some people will work to become offended. Had your photographer drove by my home he would have photographed black and white children eating watermelon while most of us "grown ups" dined on the more refined, and somewhat smaller 'loupes.

People will go to the ends of the earth simply to find reason to be mad at someone else when in fact they're the ones causing the problems.

I agree with Mr. Bledsoe. There were many intelligent white students who wanted to take the journalism workshops and were not allowed. What would happen if you had a workshop for white students only? You would never hear the end of that one.

David, the purpose of the minority journalism workshop is not to train students to become journalists; it is to interest minorities in journalism. That's why it is directed to minority students.

John,
Perhaps David and others would like to know why the N&R doesn't want white students to be interested in journalism. I'd like to know, too.

Yes, Jerry, I would like to know that.

I would also like to know what about Asian students interested in journalism and Hispanic American students interested in journalism? Or the Swedish students whose parents work at Volvo?

Why is there not a workshop for them?

In summation, why can't you just have a workshop for ALL students who are interested in journalism?

Why does color matter?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Jerry, explain the leap in logic that would allow anyone to make the assumption that the N&R does not want white students interested in journalism. Your logic is that of a 5 year old --a bratty one.

David, color matters because in our country, it has mattered in the recent past. Have you already forgotten what life was like for blacks in this country just 50 years ago?

You both need to take a refresher course in American History.

We need more minority voices in journalism because they have been, and still are, underrepresented. The reasons for that will be explained in the History course.

Whites are represented and then some, and hold most of the power positions. They don't need a workshop.

If they ever do, I'll support it.

Because during our last pointless (getting noting but pseudo answers written very politely from Mr. Robinson) discussion about race in the newsroom didn't raise this issue, I will:

When are we going to get past the race question (although it's very valid) and start raising (again) the issue of political affliation in the hiring in the newsroom?

THIS is the real issue.

The news from newspapers is all THE SAME because there are so many like-minded people huddling together with ridiculous group think (all spawned from their indoctrination in J-school). You sit around splitting hairs about watermelon pictures, but don't think a bit about the point of view of conservatives (or regular people for that matter).

It's embarassing.

We don't seem to have any lack of white students interested in journalism. Not especially true with minorities, including, David, Asians and Latinos, who are welcome at the workshop.

Phil:

You said it "does anyone remember what life was like for black 50 years ago"

50 YEARS AGO are the key words here. This is 2005.

No one answered my question why not workshops then for Asians, Hispanics, etc. You don't hear these groups complaining.

Many ethnic groups who came to this country at the turn of the century were taken advantage of and had to work hard to overcome many hardships and prejudices. There are other groups who are discriminated against.

The point I was trying to make is to have a journalism workshop open to ALL students who share a passion for journalism. I did not say to exclude blacks or anyone else.

And I disagree with your statement of blacks not having positions of power. There is C Rice, C Powell. There ARE black news reporters/journalists. Locally you have Skip Alston. Need I say more.

Clarification to last post. Skip in position of power, not in journalism.

Mr. Bledsoe,

I'll answer for you what Mr. Roginson won't--SUBSCRIBTIONS!

Imagine how many more he'd get if he could get the entire black population to subscribe?

Here's their latest scheme:

Print a big, COLOR (pun intended) picture of a cute girl

Sponsor a "not for whites" workshop

Print two editorials within a month from area high school girls claiming racism at their schools

Advertise that the N&R is seeking minority journalists

etc...AND ........HOCUS POCUS! A whole bunch of new subscriptions from the black community!

ALL of this racist activity has been questioned..the N&R goes into hiding.

I cancelled my subscription LONG ago and that damn paper keeps showing up on my driveway! It's been OVER a year now. Now THAT's just shoving their racist beliefs down our throats.

I find it hard to believe this is the actual Jerry Bledsoe writing these comments. What happened to you?

John Burns,

It IS I, and what happened to me is simple. Long ago, in my teens, I determined that discrimination because of skin color is morally wrong.

I committed to the civil rights movement. I stood with the NAACP. I actually believed Martin Luther King when he spoke about people being judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin. I trusted that the 14th amendment of the constitution means what it says: that all citizens are to be treated equally under the law. I rejoiced when the Civil Rights Act was passed reinforcing that.

Now what do I see? The civil rights movement has been turned on its head. It apparently didn’t mean civil rights for all, just for some. And we’re told that Martin Luther King didn’t really mean what he said. The NAACP, which once opposed racial discrimination, now demands it.

I also see a newspaper that I loved holding segregationist workshops, embracing racial discrimination and blatantly ignoring the Civil Rights Act in hiring. And John Robinson tells us that these are the right things to do.

Of course, the Old South segregationists told us that enacting and enforcing Jim Crow laws was the right thing to do, too.

Treating people differently because of the color of their skin is morally wrong. It always has been and ever will be, no matter how many smug and condescending newspaper editors tell us otherwise.

Mr. Bledsoe, I repeat: Please consider running for president. Your posts make me want to jump up and yell, "Amen!"

Bledsoe in '08.

If it's wrong to print a picture of a african-american girl eating a watermelon, is it wrong for african-american people to call each other
"n---gah?"

Yeah! His campaign slogan could be "The South's Gonna Rise Agin!"

Jim Wilson: Do you really think the staff sits around conspiring to keep conservatives out of the newsroom?

That's not a rhetorical question. Seriously: Why do you think the percentage of political conservatives in newsrooms (ours and generally) is as low as it is?

HA!

Of course no one sits around conspiring to do it.

Here's why it is:
The reasons conservatives are kept out is largely because of many, many subtle reasons that all add up to "we don't want you and you opinions are not valued and you won't progress in your career if you are as outspoken in the newsroom as WE are" (we being the liberals).

I have worked at a MAJOR newspaper (nearly two dozen Pulitzers) where the PUBLISHER the next day after Bush's state of the union speech last year walked proudly through the newsroom and said he thought it SUCKED! Not only SUCKED, but absolutely was complete trash. Now, tell me. Do you actually think that someone who is a conservative is going to pipe up to the PUBLISHER and say "oh, you're wrong. I thought it was great!" No. (Of course, the publisher asked a mid level editor what he thought -- after speaking his mind -- and the answer was nearly a carbon copy of his grandious partisan attack on Bush.)

I worked in another major newspaper (about three times as large as the N&R) and the morning after Bush's win, there was CURSING at Nadar because he was viewed as the initial scapegoat for a dreaded Bush win. OUTRIGHT CURSING! Do you think a conservative is going to find such an environment worth working in? Don't you think there is something fundamentally wrong with an environment where a reporter and a couple of editors THINK they can do such behavior and have it be fine? (obviously the feel SAFE in doing it because everyone around them feels the same way -- at least anyone who matters.)

I'm telling you that work itself and getting up and existing is hard enough each day. Having to ALSO argue with everyone around you (who feels no problem with sharing how rightous their point of view is -- and has it EMBRACED openly by management) is NOT fun. In fact, it's worth NOT going into.

So, to answer your question Lex, I would say it is a a little of both -- a combination of: we are not wanted, so we don't work in it. Period.

You'll say: be bold. Work there anyway. Confront it. RIIIIIIIGHT. I've seen it. I've been there. There is no fighting it. And, it's not worth fighting. There is no conspiracy -- because no one has to conspire. They all think the same thing without having to say a word!

Anecdotes are nice, but have you seen any research on the voting habits of newspaper publishers? Bush endorsements outnumbered Gore endorsements 2 to 1 in 2000.

And the relationship of your anecdote to recruiting for newsrooms, if any, is unclear. Even if what you describe were as pervasive as you seem to think (and remember that there are 1,500+ daily newspapers in the U.S.; outside the largest markets, that attitude ranges from not-at-all pervasive to damned rare), conservatives would first have to get into the newsroom for it to have any effect on them.

And how often do conversations about elections even break out in the newsroom, except right around election time?

Having been involved in recruiting and hiring for a decade, I think the real reasons why we don't get many conservatives in the newsroom are a lot more prosaic. Our pay scale is low enough that our candidates tend to be pretty young. Young people in the job market who are conservative tend to gravitate toward more traditional (and don't forget lucrative) kinds of businesses. That's just my impression; I have no research to back it up. But also based on a decade of recruiting and hiring, I have no reason to think that a pervasive atmosphere of hostility to Republicans or conservatives is a significant factor in their absence from newsrooms.

Your mileage may vary.

I am white, and I like watermelon...