Nightline: Important Questions In the Black Community Aren't "Real"

Sometimes racial denigration is easy to see -- think white police officers in the segregation era using hoses to stop peaceful protests. Other times it is more subtle -- like a few days ago on ABC's Nightline.

I don't usually watch the show, but I happened to be flipping through the channels on Tuesday, when I caught the program's predictable piece on Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Here was how correspondent David Wright (no relation to Jeremiah) concluded his piece:

DAVID WRIGHT: Many black leaders had no comment on today's developments. Obama could yet pay a price in the black community.

REVEREND AL SHARPTON: Some are going to agree. I think some are going to disagree vehemently.

DAVID WRIGHT: But the real question now is what do white voters think, especially the white voters of Indiana. They weigh in on Tuesday, and Obama's hoping there's enough time to convince them that he and his controversial pastor have gone their separate ways for good. (emphasis added)

So according to Nightline, there are questions about the painful and deep fissures the Obama-Wright issue is causing in the black community, but those aren't "real." No, "the real question is what do white voters think" -- and, according to ABC, they -- and only they --"weigh in on Tuesday" (apparently, Indiana's black population doesn't get to weigh in...did someone suspend the Voting Rights Act in Indiana?).

David Wright is white, and probably didn't even have a clue that what he said is a very clear message that he -- and the people at Nightline who edited his piece -- really don't see black people, or even the black vote, as important -- or, in their words, "real." In fact, if they go back and consider this at all, they will probably tell themselves they didn't mean it that way -- though that doesn't make it any better. Very often the true beliefs of public figures comes out in Freudian slips.

I mean, it just doesn't get any more overt than that when you think about it. Here is a show that beams out to the entire country, and one of its reporters concluded a piece by telling 37 million African Americans that the issues in their community do not matter -- an especially galling message, considering the Obama-Wright controversy is one inherently about tensions within the black community, and is also being exploited by the media and opposing campaigns through not-so-subtle racial politics. And yet, not a single media watchdog group -- progressive or otherwise -- nor anyone at ABC publicly criticized this. Most likely, no one even noticed.

Sadly, this kind of thing is the norm in American political culture -- and particularly in the 2008 presidential campaign, whether through the downplaying of the black vote's importance, or through people like Chris Matthews suggesting that black people aren't "regular people." The political Establishment likes to talk about racial equality and Santa Claus-ify Martin Luther King, but the denigration continues.

Join the book club for David Sirota's upcoming book, The Uprising, due out on 5/27.

Comments

[gregjones]

BLACKS ARE NOT DIVIDED. The media trick did not work. In fact, blacks are so united you need to write: HILLARY HAS LOST ENTIRE BLACK SUPPORT....FOREVER !!!!. This is the message currently going out to the DNC in great numbers (and the superdelegates). There is no way Hillary will defeat McCain without the support of Black America. Please read your own Huffington Post story of how the Hillary Camp has been feeding Obama attacks TO THE GOP !!!!! What a traitor to the Democratic Party !!!!!!!! Hillary started out with 82% of the black support. But as Blacks learned more about her (Goldwater Girl...Against Civil Rights Act '64....It was LBJ...Not MLK....etc) combined with Bill's (...fairy tale....Jessie Won S.C. too...etc.)...blacks were shocked beyond repair. WHERE'S THAT STORY. If the DNC thinks.....'ohhhhhh....the blacks will be angry at first...but they'll come around'.....then you don't know today's Black Americans....We have awakened to the truth about the Clintons......and with more exposure like today's Huff story re: Hill feeding the GOP Obama smears...our friends of ALL races will awaken soon !!!!!!!!!...THAT'S THE STORY !!!! Will You Print It ????

Greg Jones
Blacks4Barack.org
(A Multi-Racial, Grassroots Org...Dedicated To Truth)

[Gma11]

These people are still stuck in the 3/5ths person time warp.

I'm beginning to more fully appreciate all those cartoons I see in which Bush-boy is characatured as a monkey - still got a bit of evolving to do there, boys.

[tanyainsacramento]

I BELIEVE THIS..I WAS JUST TALKING ABOUT THIS YESTERDAY WHEN I WAS SEEING ARTICLES ABOUT HOW BLACKS ARE NOW DIVIDED OVER WRIGHT...THATS BS..ONCE A SUPPORTER, ALWAYS A SUPPORTER..THATS HOW I SEE IT. OBAMA IS NOT YOUR AVERAGE CANDIDATE..HE DOESNT JUST PULL YOUR AVERAGE SUPPORTER THAT CAN BE SWAYED...PEOPLE BELEIVE IN HIM...

[Nommo]

Thanks, David for pointing this out. Black people are perfectly aware of it, and I am certain that you know that, as well.

[brijit]

Of course issues in the African-American community aren't "real." If you watched "Hardball" you'd know that African-Americans aren't "regular" people. This from the transcript of the April 1st show:

MATTHEWS: OK. Let me ask you about how he"how"s he connect with regular people? Does he? Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?

[PhoenixtheUndying]

and you know this, man

[lpeggy]

This is bigger than Indiana's 9% African-American population. Do you really think that a democrat can win the White House without the vote of 12% of the population? If they take the nomination from Barack Obama after he wins the most popular vote, most delegates, and most primaries, do you really think that afterwards the people voting for him will just say, "OK, we will vote for Hillary"? I don't think so.....She started this contest with the bulk of the African-American vote firmly behind her, but after comments made by both her and her husband, and her negative and not so subtle race tinged campaing, the African-American vote is firmly behind Obama now. Most people I talk to feel personally insulted and betrayed by Sen. Clinton...that by attacking in such a way, she has insulted African-American voters and many, many White and young voters alike. Obama has brought close to a half million new voters to the table, and introduced them to politics, do you really think that these people will vote for Sen. Clinton in the general? Not likely. If she had run a clean campaign, it would be easy to pull the party back together, no hard feelings. But she is pushing people away from the Democratic Party. And some of them might just stay away.

[patrice37]

This is way bigger than 12% of the population. This is bigger than the young people brought into politics by Obama. Hill's problem is more than half the Democratic voters, including old white ladies like me who are totally repelled by the slime from the Clintons in this campaign and have voted against them. No justice, no peace.

[LarksTongue]

I believe I heard Lanny Davis, Clinton Co-Chair, misrepresent the "God Damn America" quote on Fox the other day. I believe he said that Rev. Wright said, "God Damn White America." No one challenged him.

I can not find the transcript, but this is what I recall hearing him say.

[Researchguy66]

sometimes we hear what we want to hear

[kittybitty]

Actually, Lanny Davis DID say that Wright said "God Damn White America" on CNN a couple of days ago.

[LarksTongue]

Can you find the transcript? Fox hasn't posted one yet.

[messstower]

Iran Files Complaint With U.N. Against Clinton

Iran is upset over the former first lady's comment that the United States could "totally obliterate" Iran in retaliation for a nuclear strike against Israel.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
http://www.smoothjazz1077.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=104668&article=3625253

[messstower]

Chris Matthews has a GREAT disdain for the value of others! He constantly states what the defining matters should be when you vote, being values that eliminate you if you drank orange juice instead of coffee at a blue collar restaurant. he went on for 15 minutes, as to, how offensive that is to a blue collar worker.
The measure of a person should have more to do with how they are and how they have lived their life. Mr. Matthews admittedly expressed he views are odd but he then reinforces his statements with the value of being a regular Joe being most important to being electable.
I personally don't want or need a President I can drink coffee or beer with. What I want and need is a President that I can feel has the Character and Judgment that enables me to live a life were I can go and get a beer & feel good about what is happening within the world I live.

[Researchguy66]

I'm from Florida. I like orange juice.

[CDElliott9]

Finally someone else has stated what I have been trying to get out since the South Carolina debacle with the Clinton's. There has been blatant disregard as to the concerns of the African American community because it is believed that we are a mindless Borg. People keep saying that we have transcended race in America but the truth of the matter is that it has just been ignored. Everytime I hear pundits or candidates talking about the 'American people' (and Senator Obama is included in this) I know what they really mean is white people. I cringe because I know that whether it is spoken or not, African Americans are still regarded as 3/5ths of a person when it comes to the body politic. I wish the "American people" would realize that their vote for tough-talking, they-are-just-like-us-so-I'm-comfortable-candidates is why America is in the mess that we all are in.

[ckdogs]

I guess that what makes the Rev. Wrights of the world so angry. I didn't see the show, but perhaps (to put the best face on it) he was referring to the primary in Indiana, where there is not a large black vote. The MSM clearly needs a reality check, and some sensitivity training.

[CommonSenseRules]

David, David, David, I know that you are really upset that your candidate is no longer "god-like" and is starting to be shown as what he has always been, a politician, but after reading this post, it seems you really have bumped your head too hard. Once again, you are a hypersensitive liberal who has to complain about stuff that is truly only in your head.

Do you not think that common sense would tell you that that horrible white man, David Wright and ABC might have meant that the "real" part really just meant that since whites are still in the majority (oh my!) that there vote is usually the vote that decides elections? Do you think that maybe they really meant nothing by it except that and that you are reading entirely too much into it? Maybe because you are little delusional and out of sorts over Obama having a rough 5 weeks? AND do you think that you writing posts like this only exacerbates that race chasism and some might actually think that liberals, like yourself, are COMPLETELY OBSESSED WITH RACE?

Seriously lighten up!

[hartkid]

African American population of USA 12% - In Indiana, less than 9%. I think David is overreacting here, but I certainly think that the maroons at ABC could have phrased that one more respectfully

[Benton]

Those are serious margins in the context of electoral politics.