Media Analysis: August 2009 Archives

Jenna Bush, daughter of George W., has just been hired on by The Today Show. This is good news for us, because it's handed some of our favorite bloggers a stick with which to poke conservative ideas of meritocracy.

Adam Serwer frames it thus:

I have a lot of friends who spent a great deal of money, and went into a lot of debt, to learn how to be professional broadcast journalists. They are now struggling to find work in a profession that is -- to put it bluntly -- contracting. So when I first heard that Jenna Bush Hager, the former President's daughter, was getting a job with The Today Show, I wondered what her qualifications were. ... She "always wanted to be a teacher," and was "intrigued" by television, so I guess that qualifies her to be an education reporter over all those journalists with actual experience and education who are struggling to find jobs.

And Glenn Greenwald underscores a laundry list of nepotism's unquestioned benefactors here:

All of the above-listed people are examples of America's Great Meritocracy, having achieved what they have solely on the basis of their talent, skill and hard work -- The American Way. By contrast, Sonia Sotomayor -- who grew up in a Puerto Rican family in Bronx housing projects; whose father had a third-grade education, did not speak English and died when she was 9; whose mother worked as a telephone operator and a nurse; and who then became valedictorian of her high school, summa cum laude at Princeton, a graduate of Yale Law School, and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice -- is someone who had a whole litany of unfair advantages handed to her and is the poster child for un-American, merit-less advancement.

Neither blogger suggests that conservatives are alone in mislabeling meritocracy, or that privilege negates one's ability to work for the less well-pedigreed (look to Ted Kennedy's work for civil rights, minimum wage, protections for farmworkers, etc.). The point remains: we're in a media environment in which, for example, Greg Mankiw is getting paid money to argue that that people with "good genes" make lots of money and pass their intelligence off to their kids who then get high SAT scores. It's important to remember just who our media and political elites are, and to understand how uncomfortable it must be for them to discuss a story like Sotomayor's -- a story full of unfair obstacles more familiar to them as unacknowledged advantages.

[Editor's note: I've included Glenn Beck's piece on Van Jones above, in case you'd like to hear a narrator say 'green jobs' in a scary voice. I kid, but seriously: while we might see these as the obvious falsehoods that they are, a lot of people don't have the facts. It's up to us to get the truth in front of people. Thanks to Eva Paterson for permission to reprint her piece. -CK]

This piece originally appeared at Equal Justice Society's blog and on Huffington Post.

After smearing White House special advisor Van Jones for days on his show, Glenn Beck said on August 27, 2009: "I want to point out the silence; no one has challenged these facts — they just attack me personally."

Well, the White House is wise to stay above the fray but someone has to set the record straight. And as the person who first hired Van Jones, initially as a legal intern and later as a legal fellow, I am in a unique position to know the truth.

And the truth is: Beck is fabricating his facts.

For instance: several times on his show, Beck has said or implied that Van went to prison for taking part in the Rodney King riots.

NO CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS

Van has never served time in any prison. He has never been convicted of any crime. And just to be clear: Van was not even in Los Angeles during those tumultuous days.

I know because he was working for me - in San Francisco - when the four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King. I was the Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area when Van was an intern.

The verdicts came down on April 29, 1992. I remember Van (who was then a legal intern working with me from Yale Law School) coming into my office in San Francisco. Many of us, including Van, sat there together, listening to the news and weeping. We were all in a state of shock. That night, TV showed the tragic images of LA burning.

The next day, when an initially peaceful march in downtown San Francisco devolved into chaos, Van left the area in tears. He was not involved in any destructive activity. He even penned an essay despairing of the violence and the state of the country.

So how can Beck make such unsubstantiated claims?

THE TRUE STORY (FROM SOMEONE WHO WAS THERE)

This is what really happened. On May 8, 1992, the week AFTER the Rodney King disturbances, I sent a staff attorney and Van out to be legal monitors at a peaceful march in San Francisco. The local police, perhaps understandably nervous, stopped the march and arrested hundreds of people – including all the legal monitors.

The matter was quickly sorted out; Van and my staff attorney were released within a few hours. All charges against them were dropped. Van was part of a successful class action lawsuit later; the City of San Francisco ultimately compensated him financially for his unjust arrest (a rare outcome).

So the unwarranted arrest at a peaceful march – for which the charges were dropped and for which Van was financially compensated – is the sole basis for the smear that he is some kind of dangerous criminal.

Van has spoken often about that difficult period 17 years ago - and its impact on him, as a young law student. But to imply that he was somehow a rioter who went to prison is absurd. Beck also bizarrely claims that Van was arrested in the Seattle WTO protests. That is just a flat-out falsehood.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Arrests and convictions are all a matter of public record. Beck is at best relying on internet rumors or even inventing claims to boost his ratings.

Beck is no more accurate with present facts than he is with past ones.

Hey all: Thanks for participating! Head on over to the new caption contest post, and bring your A game!

Last week's winner below the jump.

Courtesy of Sum of Change, here's our own Rinku Sen (executive director of the Applied Research Center, publisher of ColorLines, author of The Accidental American) at Netroots Nation 2009.

Speaking on the "Stepping it up: Creating Powerful Multiracial Alliances with Progressive Bloggers" panel, Rinku takes on the questions — why are race-related social justice issues so often forfeited by the predominantly white liberal blogosphere? And how is policy affected when the discourse is dominated by uncontested racism? Rinku outlines how we fall into the trap of staying within the established racist frames, and how this has led to policies that punish people of color disproportionately and leave them vulnerable to injustice and exploitation.

Yesterday, we posted Rinku's appearance on "Myth of Post-Racial America." Be sure to check out all of Sum of Change's video from Netroots Nation at their site.

Courtesy of Sum of Change, here's our own Rinku Sen (executive director of the Applied Research Center, publisher of ColorLines, author of The Accidental American, list goes on).

Speaking on the "Myth of Post-Racial America" panel, Rinku takes post-racialism head-on, saying that we in the movement need to realize that those outside of the movement just don't know about racism. That is, the average person thinks that racism is always 'individual, intentional, and explicit' — a definition that neatly precludes the acknowledgement of, and action against, systemic and structural racism in all their forms.

Check in tomorrow for Rinku's appearance on "Stepping it up: Creating Powerful Multiracial Alliances with Progressive Bloggers," and be sure to check out all of Sum of Change's video from Netroots Nation at their site.

The spread was shot for the September issue of Harper's Bazaar by Jean-Paul Goude, who, Jezebel points out, made a name for himself by exploring his self-confessed "jungle fever." Other photos from the spread include Naomi Campbell wearing a fur print sheath, racing alongside a cheetah.

Will there be an uproar, as with the LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen Vogue cover? Or are we all pretty inured these days to the Black woman as exotic, wild animal meme that we'll see the photos, roll our eyes and then move on?

Check out the rest of the photos at Gossip On This.

I know Daisy just beat me to the punch on posting this trailer, but stick with me.

I remember very clearly an exchange I had with a Black woman I'd just met, shortly after I'd left my rural Missouri hometown to join Americorps*NCCC. My new teammate told me, casually, that her hair was about the same length as mine.

I had, you know, scruffy hipster hair, like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. My friend had a million thin black braids that poured past her shoulders.

Just nod, I thought to myself. I know that you don't understand what she just said. We'll figure it out later. I nodded.

Eventually I found out about braids (oh), but it was still years before I learned anything about the social and economic implications of Black hair. Or even the scheduling implications. Not that I wouldn't have been interested — it was simply a non-subject in my world. They never talked about it on Friends, if you know what I mean. I couldn't even find out that I didn't know about it.

I bring it up because of two posts I just read about the trailer for Chris Rock's new documentary, Good Hair. Trailer and ruminations below the cut.