Posted on 01/29/2003 8:42:42 PM PST by victim soul
DALLAS -- With the uproar over affirmative action and the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the national media spent most of last week obsessing over how blacks and whites are getting along. And then, in the middle of it all, came figures from the Census Bureau suggesting that what really matters is how blacks and whites alike get along with Hispanics.
A historic demographic shift that was supposed to occur by 2010 is seven years ahead of schedule: Due in large measure to immigration and higher-than-average birthrates, Hispanics have inched past African-Americans to become the nation's largest minority group. The Hispanic population in the United States is now roughly 37 million. The black population now clocks in at about 36.2 million.
This is a huge deal -- the sort of thing that happens once every couple of centuries in the life of a nation. It is history in the making, and it commands respect.
And yet it got short shrift from the media. In most newspapers, it was a one-day story. Some television networks missed it altogether. Among the media outlets that did cover it, some questioned the accuracy of the figures, insisting that there may have been some confusion in how people filled out the census forms. Others implied that it really didn't matter since perhaps as much as 25 percent of Hispanics are noncitizens who can't vote. An inventive few even spun their stories to suggest that what really mattered was that Hispanics and blacks continue to live together harmoniously.
Here's the real headline: We blew it. The media bungled a story that should have been last week -- and should continue to be this week -- the talk of Everytown, U.S.A.
I'm not surprised. The rap on journalists is that they are notorious for failing to grasp the complexity of stories they cover. They tend to fall back into old habits and define what they see and hear in terms of what they already know, or at least think they know. And, like most Americans, with regard to race and ethnicity, most of what they know is tied up in the country's familiar paradigm of black and white.
That's not true of Roberto Suro, a former reporter for The Washington Post and now director of the Pew Hispanic Center. Suro termed the demographic shift "a turning point" that should bring an end to business as usual.
"If you consider how much of this nation's history is wrapped up in the interplay between black and white," Suro said, "this serves as an official announcement that we as Americans cannot think of race in that way any more."
Good luck pitching that to the nation's television producers.
Judging from what did make the airwaves last week, you would think black-and-white television was making a comeback.
There was Phil Donahue using one of the last breaths of his ailing talk show to give angry whites a forum for blasting blacks, who they claim use affirmative action to take jobs away.
The offerings were more respectable on PBS, which aired a fine documentary on Jasper, Texas. It was there that, in June 1998, James Byrd Jr., a black man, was dragged to his death by three white men. "The Two Towns of Jasper" examined how differently blacks and whites in the East Texas town view the Byrd killing and its aftermath.
The documentary served as a peg for ABC's Nightline, which aired portions of a town hall meeting held in Jasper. In it, black and white residents aired their thoughts about their town and the act that brought it infamy.
There is no question that the murder of James Byrd was a heinous act, and one that no American should ever forget. There is nothing wrong with looking back. And yet it can also be helpful now and then to look ahead. In that respect, it is hard to see the wisdom of using the Byrd tragedy as an entry point into some broader discussion of race relations in America -- or, for that matter, a state like Texas, where one in three residents is Hispanic.
This is old news. Hispanics always end up in the media's blind spot. Last month, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists issued its annual audit of news coverage by four television networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN.
Out of approximately 16,000 news stories airing in 2001, only 99 were about Hispanics.
That's 0.62 percent of stories -- for a group that now makes up about 13 percent of the U.S. population.
My math isn't what it used to be, but the way I figure it, the nation's largest minority deserves much better.
http://www.blacksforlife.net/didu.htm
DID YOU KNOW
For every 3 African American babies born, 2 died to surgical abortion
In the late 1800's, a "pro-choice" position supported the continuation of the legally-protected right to own slaves.
African Americans represent 11-12% of the USA population yet have been placed in a position where we have had from 25-43% of the abortions in the USA.
Abortion industry sales to the African American community totals at least $150 million a year.
A 1994 study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute indicates that women who abort after the age 30 increase their breast cancer risk by 110%, and women aborting under age 18 increase their risk by 150%. More astonishing is that a 1993 Howard University study showed that African American women over age 50 were 4.7 times more likely to get breast cancer if they had had any abortions compared to women who'd not had any abortions.
Abortion Surveillance---United States, 1998
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5103a1.htm
In the 39 areas for which race was adequately reported, approximately 56% of women who obtained legal induced abortions were known to be white (Table 9). The abortion ratio for black women was 512 per 1,000 live births, 2.7 times the ratio for white women (189 per 1,000 live births). The abortion ratio for women of other races (336 per 1,000 live births) was approximately 1.8 times the ratio for white women. In addition, the abortion rate for black women (36 per 1,000 women) was 3.0 times the rate for white women (12 per 1,000 women). The abortion rate for women of other races was 2.0 times the rate for white women.
Abortion And The African-American: Is It Genocide?
(Taken from Reggie White’s Book “Fighting the Good Fight”)
http://www.pregnancycenters.org/batonrouge/abortionafican.html
Today, for every three black babies born, two are aborted. Every month more than 41,000 black babies are killed in the womb. Since Roe v Wade, more than 10 million black babies have died in this American holocaust.
Not only are black abortion rates three times those of whites, but Planned Parenthood targets the black community with its abortion clinic and propaganda. Today, according to the Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN), a black antiabortion group, 78 percent of abortion clinics are located in or near predominantly minority neighborhoods. Grant also notes that in the 1980s, more than one-hundred school-based Planned Parenthood clinics opened in the United Stated. None were opened in a suburban, middle-class school. All were in black, minority, or ethnic schools.
ABORTION: THE BLACK WOMAN'S VOICE
Reynolds Farley of the University of Michigan, in a paper for the commission, suggested how the black birthrate might be restrained. Noting the high abortion rate of Negro women in New York after a permissive law was passed there, Farley commented: "Liberalized abortion laws may speed a decline in Negro childbearing, although we cannot be certain that the experience of New York City will be duplicated elsewhere." He said that if then-current fertility and mortality rates continued, then the black community, which in 1970 made up 11 percent of the U.S. population, would grow to a 17-percent share by 2020--and that it could go as high as 29 percent if black fertility increased. But with low fertility for both races, the black share of the population would rise to only 12 percent of the population by 1980--and stay there through 2020.
Eugenicists have not been able to suppress the black birth rate quite as much as they wanted, but the black share of the U.S. population is still only about 13 percent and projected to be about 14 percent in 2020. The industrial-strength birth control aimed at the black community in recent decades has done much to suppress the birth rate--and the potential political power--of that community. Abortion kills nearly one-half million African American children each year.
If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)
Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.