Urban News Features

Trump’s Avoidance of Black Press Reveals Tense Relations by Paul Delaney

April 16, 2017

Trump’s Avoidance of Black Press Reveals Tense Relations
By Paul Delaney

President Donald Trump

Omarosa Manigault, assistant to President Trump and communications director for the White House Office of Public Liaison. PHOTO: Cheriss May

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Center for American Progress

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Paul Delaney, a veteran print journalist, spent 23 years with The New York Times as an editor, reporter, and foreign correspondent. He began his career at two black-owned newspapers, the Baltimore Afro-American and the Atlanta Daily World, before moving on to a succession of other newspapers, including the Dayton Daily News in Ohio and the now-closed Washington Star. He was a founding member of the National Association of Black Journalists and served as the chairman of the journalism department at the University of Alabama from 1992 to 1996. He is currently completing a memoir on his career.

At the very beginning of the new administration, and probably in a moment of hubris, Omarosa Manigault, an aide to President Donald Trump, promised that the first newspaper interview with the new president would go to a member of the black press. Nobody took her seriously. In fact, such a meeting has yet to occur, prompting me to think that, given the disastrous encounters with other black groups—such as black college presidents—perhaps it is best that such a meeting never happens.

As someone who began his career working for a black-owned newspaper, I’m well aware that those of us who have toiled in the black media are used to being ignored or mistreated by public officials. I never expected President Trump to meet with the black press. Like the community that spawned them, black journalists have always felt the sting of second-class citizenship.

The recent to-do between White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and April Ryan—the White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, a consortium of black-oriented radio stations—is an example. Spicer chided her as he evaded her question about a white man killing a black man in New York. “Stop shaking your head again,” Spicer hectored Ryan. There is nothing new about such patronizing, bordering on racist, behavior.

From the beginning—slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, lynchings, and discrimination of all types—reporters and editors from the black press took on the racism and the racists of the world, shining a bright spotlight on such evils as most of their counterparts in the white media took pains to ignore. In some cases, especially in the South, white reporters and editors encouraged the racist views of the day. At a conference of journalists a few years ago, keynote speaker Hodding Carter III observed that in the South during the 1960s, “the average Southern newspaper was … bigoted.” He should know. His family owned the Delta Democrat-Times, a rare liberal newspaper in Greenville, Mississippi.

Although black media was the stepchild of American journalism, it focused attention on many newsworthy acts that downtown dailies ignored. Black reporters working for black publishers and broadcasters tackled some of the worst cases of violence—and at times led the charge. I remember the pride of fellow staffers at the Atlanta Daily World after a campaign by the paper saved a black man from Georgia’s electric chair. And who can forget the chilling coffin photos of the mutilated body of Chicago teenager Emmett Till—who was lynched in Mississippi—published in Jet magazine.

During the current newsroom downturn that has seen dwindling numbers of readers, listeners, and revenue, the black press has taken a heavier hit than its white counterparts. How bad is it? One black publisher agonized over whether to accept advertising from the Trump campaign. She ended up rejecting overtures—and ad money—from the campaign.

“I could not in good conscience take the money,” she explained during a private dinner that I attended last year with a group of black journalists.

President Trump and most African Americans are off to a terrible start, not surprising given the heavy black vote against him and the atrocious gaffes he and his appointees continue to make regarding nonwhite folks. Given his actions and appointees thus far, black people have reason for deep distrust.

The few occasions of personal contact between President Trump and African Americans have been awkward and/or disastrous, enough to assume he will keep such intercourse to a minimum. During a White House meeting last month, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) said he informed Trump that “his language describing African-American communities has been ‘hurtful’ and ‘insulting.’” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) was one of first leaders to publicly call for Trump’s impeachment. What’s more, Waters was among a handful of members of Congress who refused to attend his inauguration and refused to join fellow black congressional leaders in attending the White House meeting.

Black media have kept up a constant drumbeat against the Trump administration; we can expect that to continue, and possibly intensify. One issue sure to bubble up repeatedly—meetings with President Trump. As a former colleague at The New York Times, E.R. Shipp, wrote in The Baltimore Sun:

So with nuts, neophytes and revisionists running the Trump asylum, one might wonder why 70 or so presidents, chancellors and advocates for historically black colleges and universities—HBCUs—accepted a “getting-to-know-you” White House invitation.

I suspect the same sentiment will apply to members of the black media, if they’re ever invited to meet with the president.

Decision to Bomb Syria Was Dangerous, Deceptive By Jesse Jackson

April 11, 2017

Decision to Bomb Syria Was Dangerous, Deceptive
By Jesse Jackson

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Fifty-nine cruise missiles. When Donald Trump ordered the attack on Syria, he made an impetuous decision, turning his previous commitment to stay out of the Syrian civil war and focus on ISIS on its head. He ordered the attack on a sovereign nation without seeking sanction from the United Nations or the U.S. Congress. For this, he received lavish praise from the media and bipartisan congressional support. He’ll undoubtedly enjoy a boost in the polls.

Military force is called “strong power.” Ordering an attack turns the president into the commander in chief and gives him an image of decisiveness and power. Yet the unleashing of cruise missiles against Syria is both dangerous and deceptive.

If Trump has decided to commit to regime change in Syria, it is dangerous. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is backed by both Russia and Iran, and Assad’s forces are the leading opposition to ISIS, the terrorist gang that Trump is already committed to destroying.

If the cruise missiles are simply a punitive gesture, a one-off strike to punish Assad for allegedly using chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war, it is deceptive. The missile attack will have done little but raise false hopes among Assad’s opponents. One day later, Assad’s air force launched attacks from the airbase that was hit, against the same town that was allegedly bombed with chemical weapons.

Last year, the U.S. dropped 26,171 bombs — in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. The only thing that the new bombing in Syria does is to get Trump and the U.S. deeper into the Syrian civil war, even as Trump appears to be escalating U.S. activity in Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq. During the campaign, Trump expressed his scorn for regime change and denounced the foreign policy elite for engaging in wars without ever “winning.” Now, he appears to be doubling down on those same wars without any plan for victory.

Bombs — strong power — are in fact simply destructive. They build nothing. In Syria, the human catastrophe from the civil war is unspeakable. Roughly half of the 22 million residents of Syria have been driven from their homes, including an estimated 6 million internally displaced and some 5 million refugees whose flight has created an ugly right-wing reaction across Europe. Half a million have died. Another 2 million have been wounded. More bombs aren’t a sign of strength; they are an expression of violent futility.

The horrible pictures of babies dying from poisonous gas might have sparked a different response. The U.S. could have gone to the U.N. with proof that the Assad regime had sponsored the attack, calling for a cooperative international effort to rid Syria of those weapons. Trump might have dispatched his emissary to Russia to demand that it join in fulfilling the promise it made to former President Obama to rid Syria of chemical weapons. The outside powers feeding the violence in Syria — the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Iran and Russia — might have convened in an effort to bring the violence to a halt, or at least to agree to stop fueling it with weapons and forces.

The children’s deaths might have served to generate a global demand for an end to the violence. Instead, it triggered a quick recourse to bombs to “send a message,” ensuring only that the violence will continue, that more Syrian children will be killed, and that the U.S. will find itself enmeshed even more deeply in yet another war.

The U.S. has been at war in the Middle East continually since 2001. In the name of creating democracy and security, we have created chaos and spread violence. In the name of fighting terrorism, we have generated ever more terrorists and helped create failed states where they can spawn. What will it take for this country to learn the limits of military force, the weakness of “strong power”?

Dr. Martin Luther King got it right when he taught us: The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.

New Study: Black Millennials More Optimistic About Their Future Than Whites, Hispanics

April 10, 2017

New Study: Black Millennials More Optimistic About Their Future Than Whites, Hispanics

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Tarket Market News

(TriceEdneyWire.com) A newly released study of Millennials reveals that Black consumers between the age of 18-35 are more optimistic about their futures than Hispanics, Asians and Whites of the same age. Young African-Americans were also far more likely (59 percent) to say "anyone can achieve their dreams if they try hard enough."

The report is based on 2016 data from a collaborative research study conducted by Richards/Lerma (known for its expertise in Hispanic market advertising) and The University of Texas, Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations. It was designed to gain a more thorough understanding of the complexities of today's highly diverse multicultural Millennial group.

"One of the most staggering findings of all in the midst of our nation's current racial upheaval is that Black Millennials are more optimistic than the other Millennial segments. Although they are less likely to say they are currently satisfied with life, they are the most optimistic about the future," the report says.

The study, "Millennials Deconstructed," consisted of a national online sample of Black, Hispanic, Asian, and White Millennials between the ages of 18 and 34 and Hispanics 35+ for comparison, and explored three separate topics: political beliefs and attitudes, the American dream, and media behavior. A series of qualitative one-on-one interviews were conducted following the quantitative study to gain additional insights into survey findings.

"Although our initial intent in this report was to strictly define and deconstruct the American Dream by racial/ethnic segment, a much more interesting story emerged after analyzing the results," the report says. "When zooming into the differences between the segments, the data reached out and smacked us with untold cultural stories that challenge popular notions about each race and ethnicity. While the differences between the way the groups define and relate to the American Dream are interesting, what's far more compelling is how their cultural and ethnic background shapes their responses in counterintuitive ways. In other words, it's not only 'the what' we want to talk about, it's the often neglected how and why."

America's Current Civil Rights Climate the Most Dangerous in Decades, Activists, Lawmakers Say by Jane Kennedy

April 10, 2017

America's Current Civil Rights Climate the Most Dangerous in Decades, Activists, Lawmakers Say
By Jane Kennedy

U. S. Rep. John Conyers surrounded by members of the Congressional Black Caucus. PHOTO: Courtesy/House.gov

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - In a wide-ranging discussion on Capitol Hill among lawmakers, activists, policy experts and former Obama administration officials about the state of civil rights in the Trump administration, the consensus was unanimous that the current climate for civil rights is the most dangerous that has been experienced in decades.

The April 6 event was hosted by Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), ranking member of the House Committee on the Judiciary.

“Although the Trump presidential campaign promised changes that would benefit minorities in the areas of crime, equal justice, and economic equality, his political allies and surrogates have sent a different message that has served to heighten national divisions and anxiety,” said Conyers, the longest-serving member in the House, known as “the dean” of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The forum took place only a few days after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Justice Department would review all of the consent decrees that the Obama administration entered into with law enforcement agencies that had demonstrated and documented histories of abuses and misconduct.

“The misdeeds of individual bad actors should not impugn or undermine the legitimate and honorable work that law enforcement agencies perform in keeping American communities safe,” the DOJ memo stated. In February, Sessions, who admittedly was unfamiliar with the details of the reports that led to decrees with police departments in Ferguson and Chicago, for example, nonetheless described them as “pretty anecdotal.”

Catherine Lhamon, chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a former assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department under President Obama, described the first 76 days of the Trump administration’s civil rights record as “harrowing,” which she said was being “charitable.”

Recalling the immense challenge of getting a consent decree to reform the Los Angeles Police Department in 2000, despite years of abuses that included beating a homeless woman, lying to judges, planting drugs on innocent people to secure convictions, racially based stops and assaulting citizens, she said that Sessions’ decision was a signal of the “low value” the new administration places on civil rights.

“It was only through federal involvement that conditions [in LA] materially improved and that provided the impetus for real change for communities that were desperately in need of it,” Lhamon said. “The one ray of hope remaining now is that the federal courts have to approve the end of consent decrees that have already been implemented.”

This week, U.S. District Judge James Bredar denied the Justice Department’s request to delay the implementation of a consent decree for the Baltimore Police Department.

“The administration consistently uses its signaling to demonstrate disregard for civil rights. When it announces that it will reconsider the value of police consent decrees, withdraws support for transgender students, slashes the [budgets of agencies] that protect civil rights, the administration unilaterally sends a chilling message that it not only is not striving to secure civil rights for all but is in fact striving to not be a federal partner in that effort.”

Roy Austin, former director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs, Justice, and Opportunity, delivered an equally pessimistic assessment.

“In my humble opinion, the greatest current threat to civil rights in this great nation is this current administration. In record time [it] has already shown not simply a willingness to not defend civil rights, but it has shown an intent to violate civil rights, and at a minimum make it easier for others to violate civil rights. No marginalized, struggling, excluded, discriminated against, or protected individual or group is safe from what [it] has already done or appears to be planning to do,” Austin declared. “Everything that people have fought for, and that some have died for in recent decades, is at risk. Hopefully the will of the people, of representatives like you, and the courts will continue to ensure that the current administration cannot accomplish all that they desire.”

According to Austin, the Trump administration “could not move fast enough” to remove guidance that literally helps to save the lives of transgender individuals. In addition, he had harsh words for the White House’s “Muslim ban,” which in his view not only endorses religious discrimination but also diminishes public safety.

“When the federal government announces it will side with bigots and those with irrational fears, we all lose some of our humanity,” Austin said.

He also criticized the “orchestrated photo-op” that President Trump had with the leaders of the nation’s black college and university presidents in February. While the White House may have celebrated it as a successful meeting, Austin cautioned, the students who depend on and thrive at these historic institutions, must not be fooled by the administration’s false promises.

“Many of us in the Obama administration used to say that we wanted a nation where the color of your skin, the God you pray to, your ZIP code, or who you love did not determine your chances of success. It saddens me to see an administration that is trying to make these characteristics even more important and determinative,” Austin lamented.

Following eight years of near radio silence when it came to criticism of the White House to avoid publically finding fault with its first African-American occupant, the Congressional Black Caucus has been quite vocal in calling out actions by the current administration that members consider unjust. After its meeting last month with President Trump, the group announced plans to also meet with key members of his administration to find common ground and at least attempt to smooth out differences.

But given Session’s previous civil rights history during his time as a lawmaker and the record he is currently building at DOJ, the hope for common ground appears bleak.

Said Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, “We may be seeing the most dangerous Department of Justice that we have seen in decades.”

Morality, Race, and Chemical Assaults in Syria - With No Black President to Oppose, Trump Decides to Take Action By Roger Witherspoon

April 10, 2017

Morality, Race, and Chemical Assaults in Syria
With No Black President to Oppose, Trump Decides to Take Action

By Roger Witherspoon

missilelaunch

Tomahawk launch from USS Ross

The tragic result of Assad's use of gas to kill more than 1,400 men, women and children in Syria.

This photo of a South Sudanese child is among the horrific pictures of men, women, and children being massacred or starving in an ongoing civil war.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - In 2013, Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad launched a massive gas attack on civilians which killed more than 1,400 men, women, and children. President Barack Obama was both horrified and angry and sought legal authorization from the GOP-controlled Congress to launch a military strike against Syria.

The Republicans, who had criticized many Obama initiatives as “overreaching,” unauthorized and illegal, declined to grant approval. They were encouraged in their position by Donald Trump, who had seen newspaper still photos — sanitized for American audiences — of the chemical attack. Trump repeatedly said the U.S. has “no business” in Syria and the use of chemical weapons there was not our problem. More than once the prolific Trump tweeted “stay out!”

That attitude didn’t change with the regular use of barrel bombs (http://bit.ly/2oGZg7S ) which have killed thousands of Syrian men, women, and children. There were videos and still pictures of destroyed neighborhoods and assorted bodies sticking out of what used to be apartment buildings. But they didn’t earn a 3 a.m. tweet.

And that was understandable: Why should a Caucasian billionaire give a damn about a bunch of Muslim babies dying in a Syrian street? And why would a rich White man who associated freely with White supremacists ever side with a Black President over a moral issue?

In the ensuing years, on the other side of the globe, thousands of Muslim Rohingya men, women, and children have been slaughtered by Buddhist mobs and military in Myanmar and Thailand. Thousands of Rohingya people tried to flee on overloaded boats, only to be pushed further out to sea to die by Navy vessels from surrounding countries whose captains viewed Muslims as vermin to be exterminated.

To this, Trump has said nothing. But then, it was a bunch of Muslims being killed by a bunch of “slopes” — nothing for a White man to bother tweeting about.

Meanwhile, in South Sudan there were horrific pictures of men, women, and children being massacred or starving in an ongoing civil war. There were some photos of desiccated bodies rotting in the sun, and others of reed-thin waifs ( http://bit.ly/2nJTQnz ), their empty bellies bloated, being held to the last by emaciated mothers with no milk to give.

The incoming president, during the course of his world briefs, would have had these photos if he cared to look at them and thick dossiers if he cared to read them. But then, a bunch of Black women and children dying in the African sun was hardly worth a White man’s tweet.

Which brings us to April 2017. As it happens, President Trump, as usual roaming the mansion bored and alone, was looking at late night television and saw real time videos of men, women, and children dying in the streets of Syria from the same type of gas attack launched by the same murderous President Assad four years ago. The videos of these 70 victims were riveting, a stark difference from the static photo or two in a local newspaper four years earlier. It didn’t matter that in terms of scale, this brutal assault killed just 5 percent as many as the 2013 attack he dismissed with a tweet.

This time, there was no Black president to automatically oppose. This time, there was no opposition Congress to interfere. This time, Trump actually looked at the videos — and found it difficult to turn away from the haunting scene: a woman’s writhing, uselessly flailing limbs that eventually stop in death; the straining, heaving chests of children starving for air until their little bodies give up and the heaving slows and then stops forever — children light-skinned enough to evoke images of his own grandchildren.

And that was enough for Trump to loose the weapons of war (http://bit.ly/2p7XN6G).

The launching of 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian airbase came less than a week after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the official policy of the United States was that President Trump didn’t give a damn how many people were slaughtered in Syria’s one-sided, uncivil war. A generation ago, Assad’s father secured control of the country by the brutal slaughter of some 20,000 Syrians. Assad has improved on that level of butchery with more than half a million dead citizens to his credit as he seeks to kill anyone who isn’t part of his minority sect and a sycophant blindly supporting him. With Tillerson’s announcement, the President of the United States gave Assad permission to continue his murderous ways, secure in the knowledge that America would neither question his morality nor interfere in his slaughter.

But then, there was late night television and the images that Trump couldn’t get out of his head. It would be encouraging to think that the immorality of Assad’s chemical war offended Trump. But that’s unlikely in a man who boasts of sexually assaulting women and openly disdains morality.

It would be encouraging to think that, as President, Trump realizes America has a longstanding role in the world to oppose evil and could not ignore this brazen violation of civilized norms. But that would be counter to his longstanding position of “America First” and the rest of the world can go to hell. It would be encouraging to think that Trump sat down with all the long-term experts at the State Department to understand America’s role in the face of this reviled throwback to World War I. But then, Trump fired all the State Department experts.

Which brings us back to skin color.

The man who schemed to avoid serving his country saw death in Syria stalk scores of women and children who looked like his and felt compelled to order other Americans’ children into the breach to avenge them. As a parent, I understand the revulsion at the chemical attack. But then, as a father and grandfather I understood it in 2013.

But as a Black father whose child is serving her country overseas, I wish I had confidence that decisions that could again place her in harm’s way were based squarely on the morality of the situation and the role of America in a dangerous world and not on the ability of the President to identify with the color of a foreign victim’s skin.

Roger Witherspoon, a board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, has been a professional writer for more than 40 years. He has published in Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Essence, Black Enterprise, The Economist, and US Black Engineer & IT among others.He can be contacted at https://witherspoontnp.wordpress.com/