In Black America; Racism in the Media with DeWayne Wickham

music From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is In Black America. Every review I've seen has touted this film in ways that would make the unsuspecting rush off to see this film. For those of you who did not see glory, it's a film about the Massachusetts 54th, a black regiment.

In fact, the third black regiment to be formed during the Civil War that fought and distinguished itself. It's been advertised as a true story, but actually it's more fiction than fact. While the movie recounts the exploits of the regiment's real-life white commander, one Colonel Robert Goulshaw, makes no mention of not a single one of the 1,354 blacks who served in the unit. Not even Sergeant William H. Karney. The first African American to win the Medal of Honor, this nation's highest military award. Can you imagine making a movie about a military unit that fought and distinguished itself and never mentioned the single member of the unit who won the nation's highest military award? Mr. Dwayne Wickham, a media-pass president of the National Association of Black Journalists, and a syndicated columnist for Get It News Service and USA Today.

Mr. Wickham also owns his own production company, which produces an urban affairs program for the CBS affiliate in Baltimore, Maryland. During the Wayne Wickham's presidency of the National Association of Black Journalists, its membership doubled. The financial stability of the organization was the best it had ever been in the tenure history of the organization. New programs were initiated that included a jobs bank, work groups with industry organizations, and the first national survey of network news organizations that included three major television networks. John A. O. Hanson, Jr., and welcome to another edition of In Black America. This week, the challenge of the 90s fighting racism in the media was syndicated columnists and immediate past president of the National Association of Black Journalists, Dwayne Wickham, in Black America. I'm happy to be here. This is the region to which I feel a particular fondness and closeness. This is my fifth consecutive regional conference here. I've been in Texas when I was not a candidate for office. I have been in region 7 when I was running for office, and now that I am beyond lame duckhood, I am still returning to region 7, largely because of my commitment to this organization, but also because one of the things that I've come to understand about our organization nationally is that there are 10 regions, yes, but there are some regions that are more equal than others.

Some regions more committed to the pursuit of journalism, some regions more committed to the support of the education of minority students, and I count region 7 as one of those regions. I'm happy to be here tonight with David Squires, our region 7 director and role in Martin, who comes from region 7, who is our student representative to the board. I am also happy to be in the presence of Roxanne Evans and Alberta Brooks, two people who put on a very fine regional convention, and also I am particularly happy to be here because I am once again in the company of one of my close friends, John Hanson, who served this region in this organization with great distinction over the past two years. In August of 1987 through September of 1989, Duane Wickham was the president of the National Association of Black Journalists, the largest media organization of people of color in the world.

Mr. Wickham was also a founding member of the organization back in 1975. Duane Wickham began his journalism career in 1972 as a reporting intern with the evening sun. Soon after that, he became a capital hero correspondent for US News and World Report. Mr. Wickham has also been the Washington correspondent for Black Enterprise Magazine. In 1985, Duane began producing a column for Gnett News Service. Today, he also produces a column for USA Today. Mr. Wickham earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland in journalism and its certificate in African American Studies. He also holds an MPA from the University of Baltimore. During Duane Wickham's stewardship at NABJ, the organization increased his membership by twofold. Internship for students were doubled. The national staff was increased. Financial stability for the organization was obtained.

And media executives from around this nation were aware of the National Association of Black Journalists. Also during Mr. Wickham's tenure, the first national survey of the three major television news networks were conducted. Recently, Duane Wickham brought his broad-based knowledge of the industry to the ninth annual conference of Region 7 of the National Association of Black Journalists. Mr. Duane Wickham. It's already been stated that as president, I focus a lot of attention on dealing with the issue of racism in the media. It's been a lot of time looking for ways to improve upon employment of minorities, opportunities for minorities in broadcasts and in print. And over the past two years, I can say with some honesty that we have seen progress albeit not enough. Most of you know the very sad facts that a majority of this nation's daily newspapers today still do not employ a single minority. A majority of this nation's broadcast outlets, both radio and television, do not employ a single minority. The reasons why this is so very indeed, but racism is one of the principal reasons that we find ourselves in this situation today.

And so not surprisingly, when these people look at those of us who are still locked into the basement of economic and political opportunity, they mistakenly conclude that the only thing that is holding us back is us. Read a newspaper, listen to radio news or watch the evening news on television. And many people today come away believing that African Americans are responsible for much that is wrong in America today. We are the junkies and drug traffickers, the murderers and the rapists. It is from our ranks that come the needy and the greedy. We are illiterate and we possess an unnatural appetite for sex, which gives rise to a high rate of birth to black teenagers and unwed mothers. And just how are these images of African Americans created?

Well certainly we can't deny that crime is out of control in our communities. And teenage pregnancy, the rate in our community truly is high. Also drugs are a problem in many of the neighborhoods in which we live. But it's also true that much of this can be said about white America too. In fact, while the percentage of teenage pregnancies among blacks is higher than that of whites, the number of blacks having babies is declining. And the number of white teenagers having babies is increasing. And while it's true that one of every four blacks, black men aged 20 to 29 are in prison, on probation or parole, it's also true that whites have little to fear from blacks, because most crime in America is black on black or whites attacking whites. How about this? According to the Associated Press, more than one of every three people in this country have used illegal drugs and 75% of them are white.

Say that again because I know somebody missed that. According to the Associated Press, more than one of every three Americans have used illegal drugs and 75% of them are white. Now you would know this from media coverage of America's drug war. You would know this from the reports we see in Time Magazine, the cover stories in Newsweek, the features that we see in broadcast media. But African Americans are looked upon as the root of this nation's ills. Well, we as journalists have no one to blame but ourselves. Listen, most of what you know, most of what you know about events in Eastern Europe, most of what you know about what's going on in South Africa, most of what you know about events in Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, and even here in Austin, you learn from media. Most of what you know about white people and most of what they know about us comes from media.

And to the extent that those media images are twisted or distorted, they do great injury to the perceptions that others have of us and sadly to the way some of us see ourselves. Reading our nation of these negative images, these harmful stereotypes is one of the most important challenges facing black journalists today as we enter the decade of the 90s. When we walk into newsrooms, most of us know it's simply not enough to sit back and do our jobs well. It's not enough to be personally sensitive to the kind of harm that warped images can do. My good friend Les Payne is often fond of saying that when black journalists come to work, we have to do a lot more than just journalism. We must become the catalyst for change in the way media cover and report on minorities and we must aggressively pursue these changes. We must become the protectors of the image of African Americans. We have to be the guardians against those who seek to make the stereotypes real.

It was just about a year ago that people all over this country were talking about the attack of a white jaga in Central Park by what was described as a gang of vicious young black teenagers. I saved this paper. This is the paper that appeared the day after the attack and the headline reads, wolf packs prey, female jogger, near death after savage attack by roving gang wolf pack. It is as though we're talking about subhuman people. And a day later the paper flashed a headline, a single word that captured the attention of not just New York, not just the nation, but the world. Wilding. Remember that? All over the nation. We were talking about wilding in New York. And black journalists were largely silent.

But you know, when white womanhood is violated, particularly by blacks, it becomes a crime that is more than a crime. And I would be the first to stand here and tell you that any attack upon a woman, the sexual nature, physical nature, is an attack that should not go unpunished. But there's something particularly discomforting about the way America reacts to the violation of white women and somehow find it not so egregious a crime when black women are violated. And let me make this point. Three weeks before the Central Park attack, a black woman was dragged from a Harlem street, hauled to the roof of a 21 story building, raped by two men, and then thrown from the roof of the building. And miraculously, as she fell, she grabbed hold of a cable TV wire somewhere along the 18th or 17th floor, her body crashed into the side of the building, bruised and battered, and bleeding and naked.

She clung to those wires for her life. And as residents of the building heard her scream and cry out, they came to her rescue and dragged her in. And the story appeared inside the New Up Daily News, a photocopy. Black journalists hardly raised a voice of protest. And then nearly two weeks after the Central Park attack, another black woman this time in Brooklyn, was attacked by three men who forced her to the top of an apartment building. They raped and they sawed a monster. And then they threw her down an air shaft. And the very next day, the headline in the New York Daily News said she wakes from coma.

But the reference was not to the black woman in Brooklyn who was attacked the night before. The reference was to the jarga who had been attacked three weeks prior. Because in New York, it was more important that readers know about something that had happened to a white woman three weeks ago than to report this ugly crime, this vicious attack on a black woman in Brooklyn, New York. It appeared on page three of the Daily News. And black journalists were silent. Last week, there was yet another change of government in Haiti, the fifth and recent years. And despite the fact that African Americans have deep roots in Haiti, you know, but for the luck of the docking of a boat,

we could be in Haiti today. Those are our ancestors. Those are our kin. Those are our people in Haiti. Media organizations have given this story only fleeting attention and have paid literally no attention to the underlying causes of the social, political, and economic disruption in Haiti. Do you know by the way that while we are so upset about the mistreatment of blacks in South Africa that American corporations in Haiti pay Haitians lower salaries to make base balls so that we can have a major league system here in this country, lower wages than blacks in South Africa received from that racist government. Bailey a word of protest has come from black journalists. You know, black Africans who live south of the Sahara and Haitians who come to this country cannot give blood in America.

You know that the Food and Drug Administration has passed a regulation that says that no blood can be drawn from blacks who come from Africa, who live south of the Sahara, or from Haitians who come to this nation, they have been stigmatized as people who are likely to produce the AIDS virus in our blood supply. But you know these people account for less than 2,000 of this nation's 100 and 21,000 known cases of AIDS, and not a peep has been heard from black journalists. How many of you saw the movie, Glory?

Okay, over the past few weeks, thousands of people have flocked to theaters to see this film, and maybe like some of you, they come away believing that they've been exposed to a vital piece of American history. Every review I've seen has touted this film in ways that would make the unsuspecting rush off to see this film. For those of you who did not see Glory, it's a film about the Massachusetts 54th, a black regiment, in fact the third black regiment to be formed during the Civil War that fought and distinguished itself, it's been advertised as a true story, but actually it's more fiction than fact. While the movie recounts the exploits of the Regiment's real life white commander, one Colonel Robert Goulshaw, makes no mention of not a single one of the 1,354 blacks who served in the unit, not even Sergeant William H. Carney. The first African American to win the Medal of Honor, this nation's highest military award. Can you imagine making a movie about a military unit that fought and distinguished itself and never mentioned the single member of the unit who won the nation's highest military award?

In fact, in the movie, Denzel Washington, good brother that he is, is allowed to play the role of someone named Trip, who rushes off in the middle of battle, seizes the flag as it's falling to the ground, waves it high in the sky to rally the troops and it rushes to the wall of the fort, only to be shot dead in battle. In real life, Carney was the one who captured the flag as it was falling, he was the one who raised the flag and waved it high, musket in one arm, flag in the other, he was the one who rallied the troops to the wall, he was the one who was wounded three times once in each leg, he was the one who fought valiantly at the foot of the wall and crawled back to our lines, never once dropping the flag and he was the one who survived the battle and received the Medal of Honor and lived until the 1900s.

The film would have us believe that black soldiers were largely, or the black soldiers in this unit were largely runaway slaves, people so dumb that they did not know their left foot from the right. You remember that scene where they were marching? They were marching and they could march in step and so the white drill saw and finally pressed them, well don't you know your right foot from your left and they didn't know. So he had to teach them right from left before they could march, people love this film. Well let me tell you about the members of the Massachusetts 54th, there's a book written by a captain Ernest, I'm sorry Louis Emilio published in 1891, Surviving Officer of the Unit. I have a copy of it at home.

In the book he lists the names of every member of the ten companies that made up the Massachusetts 54th. He lists their enlistment date, their discharge date, their marital status, their occupation, their hometown, the overwhelming majority of the members of the Massachusetts 54th came from northern states, they were free men, not slaves. They had professions such as Barbara, Druggist, Druggist, not druggist. They weren't into cocaine men. They were Steve Adors, they were farmers, they were men of intelligence and great bravery. They were men who were willing to fight and to die for a country that had not yet set all African-Americans free and I'm here to tell you that they were men who certainly knew their right foot from the left. And yet few voices of protests have been raised by black journalists, virtually no challenges of these false and harmful images have come from our ranks. What's wrong with us?

Glory in other films like Mississippi Burning, Cry Freedom, and Lean On Me, which all purport to tell our story, do serious injury to our self-perception and the perception that others have of us. And to the extent that media organizations distort our image and damage the perceptions others have of us, they also do great harm to our quest to plant our feet firmly in the American mainstream. There's a feel of philosophy that got great notice around the beginning of this century, it's called existentialism and it is basically a discussion of proof of one's existence. And there's a very powerful group among those existentialists who simply said that to be is to be perceived, that one's existence is verified by the acknowledgement of others. Let me share with you a part of a letter a reader of my column wrote to me several years ago.

In which he described himself as a middle-aged college grad up an income white male. He wrote, I am taking the time to write so that you may know that millions of Americans are like myself. We are fed up with blacks whining, begging, demanding, on and on it goes. And blacks have caused a decline in educational quality and have contributed nothing to the progress of mankind in raising itself above the level of Stone Age man anywhere in the world. To be is to be perceived. No, he may not have been speaking for millions of Americans, but I can assure you that he is not alone in what he thinks. And so what does this all mean? What does it have to do with challenges of the 90s for black journalists?

Journalism isn't and cannot be a passive profession. And black journalists cannot afford to be newsroom pacifist, especially when it comes to the coverage of our communities, the coverage of those things that are important to our people. What we bring as journalists to the news gathering process is different and unique and distinct from that which white reporters and newsroom managers bring to the job. And we should have the courage to insist that our perception of news be considered. When drugged out Hollywood stars are known to enter the Betty Ford clinic to kick their habit free of legal intervention and star athletes test positive for cocaine use, but are not arrested or prosecuted. Black journalists ought to be the first to point out that Washington Mayor Marion Barry is in fact the victim of selective prosecution.

You ought not to be afraid to raise that issue. They got him on film. All right. And he's using dope. Okay. We don't approve of it. But you ought to be the first to point out that he is the victim of selective prosecution. Every year we hear about these athletes who fail the drug test for the third time. You know, three time loses. Good lifetime suspension. Nicky, they can come back and play again. It's all confusing for me. You go to Betty Ford clinic and the places packed with Hollywood stars and starlets strung out on drugs. Where are the FBI flying squads to arrest these people? Where's this thing operation that's going to pull them in? When the longing for freedom of people in Eastern Europe is treated as a more important news story than the quest for freedom of blacks in Africa and in the Caribbean.

Black journalists ought to raise their voices in protest. And when as is the case, the rate of infant mortality among black babies in this country is higher than that of most developing nations. Black journalists ought to be demanding that the companies they work for get to the bottom of this story. Now, I don't know what it would finally take to wake up the media to convince those who run newspapers and radio and television stations that news coverage today continues to lack balance. But I am certain of this. Black journalists cannot take on the challenges of the 90s until we come to understand that the future, the future for us is now. The Wayne Wickham immediate past president of the National Association of Black Journalists and the syndicated columnist for the Gnett News Service and USA today.

If you have any questions or comment about this program, write us. Remember views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for in black America's technical producer Cliff Hargrove, I'm John L. Hansen, Jr. Please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in black America cassettes, longhorn radio network, communication building B, UT Austin, Austin Texas 78712. From the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network. I'm John L. Hansen, Jr. Join me this week on in black America.

Every year we hear about these athletes who failed the drug test for the third time. You know, three time loses. Get a lifetime suspension, Nicky, they can come back and play again. Immediate past President of the National Association of Black Journalists to Wayne Wickham this week on in black America.