In Black America; National Association Of Black Journalists Dallas Fort-Worth/ABC with John Wiley Price

You From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. Have not any of you wondered how layers and dollars get rich in a non-salary position? Are you really committed to any cause?

Noticeably, your cause has not been defined. I can only assume by your silence on substantive issues that face this community. That your cause is be called, you have to keep your job. African Americans and the children of America. Only when you decide to be free, will you know freedom? The Negro who lives on the philanthropy of others is the most dangerous Negro in the society. Because that Negro will give up his very freedom whenever his benefactors ask him to. Dallas County Commissioner John Wally Price, Dallas, Texas. Last March, the Dallas Fort Worth Association of Black Communicators hosted the annual National Association of Black Journalists Region 7 conference. More than 300 students, journalism professionals, journalism educators and media executives from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

Gathered for four days to re-dedicate themselves to NABJ and the fourth and fifth estates. Founded on December 13, 1975 in Washington, D.C., NABJ is the largest media organization for people of color in the world. Today, it has over 5,000 media professionals throughout this country and abroad. There are 69 affiliated professional chapters and 41 student chapters. This year's conference theme was entitled Committed to the Cause. I'm John L. Hanson, Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, the National Association of Black Journalists Region 7 conference with Dallas County Commissioner John Wally Price in Black America. In Black America. Where are they out of the whales among you that will take on the lynching of Black Americans this century?

Where are the deacons of defense who among you are willing to speak truth? Who among you will rise up and speak truth to the king? The Black press in the United States began with Freedom's Journal. It was quickly followed by the North Star. Both papers dedicated to pleading the cause of Africans in America. It was implicit in their name, Freedom, Journal, North Star. This thing was Black Journalists devoted their efforts to the cause of Black Americans until the 1970s. It was then that Black journalists found their niche in mainstream media. It was integration and appeal to the larger community. It seemed to negate an emphasis on the issues singular to the Black community. Essence and Ebony Magazine.

The magazines that told the world that describe that we had a Black middle class. Dallas, Texas, the largest banking center in the Southwest, ironically all the money in Dallas seems to be in the Northeast section of the city. South Dallas contains the largest minority population with low to moderate incomes. Besides being that banking center is also the business center of the Southwest. Approximately 8,900 corporate headquarters are located in the Dallas area. The city has more shopping center per capita than any other major US city. It has nationally recognized medical and dental schools including the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center, Baylor College of Dentistry, and Baylor University School of Nursing. The MetroPleg has the second largest concentration of telecommunications manufacturing employment in the nation. Dallas has 312 parks covering 50,000 acres and the world-class Morden-H Morrison Symphony Center. The city is the second largest convention destination in the United States and tourism contributes more than $1.9 billion to the economy.

Dallas has an African-American mayor with the city manager form of government that many of the search is strongly pro-business. This past March the Dallas-Fort Worth Association of Black Communicators hosted the annual Region 7 conference of the National Association of Black Journalists. The more than 300 who attended had an opportunity to participate in the town hall meeting that focused on rap music. There were professional development workshops, seminars, and keynote speakers. The newsmaker's lunch and speaker was Dallas County Commissioner John Wally Price. Commissioner Price has been an outspoken politician for more than a decade. The following is an excerpt from his presentation. I told Norma Wade, I'm always, I flew back in from Austin and I see brother Thomas Muhammad back there and I'm glad to see Miss Cleo Johnson, the president of Black United Front of Texas. A number of people apparently have come in for this particular occasion. But I came back in because the legislative black caucus is convening in Austin, Texas.

And I told Norma I don't get invited many places and usually when I get invited I don't get invited back. So it was just a pleasure to come back in and speak to you today. I'm not going to take up much of your time, but I want you just kind of just think with me for just a second on committed to the cause. And I listened to Vince as he talked about going into Chicago this July. Every since the resurgence of angry white men in the United States of America. We have experienced a return to what I call discriminatory politics. The reconstruction era that was generated following the 60s had basically coming gone. African Americans find themselves caught between the proverbial devil and the deep blue sea. The devil in this country is a return to segregation and the separation of blacks and whites that have been permitted by law.

And the denial of civil justice and opportunity. The deep blue sea is the chasm of indifference to the future opportunity in a country that whether white power structure still remains indifferent to the struggle of a black populist on the threshold of inclusion. What we find doing these times today are African American individuals and institutions that have been positioned in themselves to be in service to white America in white America. What we have is a struggle between the half and the half nuts in a society and in a place and a time when the half nuts are presumed to not have much. This struggle here unfortunate in this country is defined by the white media and the white media is controlled by money and political power.

All too often the substance of the conflict in this country takes a back seat to the style of the opposing parties. African Americans in this country are demonized in a familiar term to castrate and habilitate issues of equity and justice. African Americans opposing these acts of institutional racism. Find themselves the targets of criticism and abandonment. The criticism and abandonment is not limited, unfortunate to the Anglo society. Because what we find and write here in this room are African Americans who are the benefactors of the current struggle. And all too often people of our community get all confused and don't understand who is sacrificing for them.

We get caught up in the myth that only Anglo Americans can be heroes. What I understand for most African American professionals, those in this room and around this country is that you work for the very institution which defines and support the inequality present in today's society. The explicit rules in the institution support the implicit understanding that African Americans can only achieve status and recognition with the exception of the power culture. You have to be an exceptional Negro. You have to be an exceptionally articulate Negro. You have to be exceptionally smart. You have to be exceptionally acceptable to the white power structure. You have to be exceptional in your thoughts and your word and your deed.

Most of you have been scouts. You recognize this creed. And nowhere is that exception more implicit than in the white media in this country. The struggle we bring African Americans who say they want to be journalists. The media has always enjoyed exceptional status in this country. This country was founded on the notion that it could only and would only remain free and accountable to the populace as long as the greatest freedoms in this country were enjoyed by the media. The freedom in tandem with truth and responsibility in reporting supposed to be the cornerstone. However, in an increasing public struggle, African Americans in this country have had to fight against the ravages of institutional racism. And therefore, the media has taken on a new task that of arrogantly defining the struggle and determining its hero.

Your theme today committed to the call. I'm here today to ask you to what call are you committed? We've experienced the power of the press both in the print and the video form. And as you go about your everyday task as African American journalists, I need to ask you, do you ever question the sanctity of the press? Do you ever question what and how suspicious you are of the media? Formals, do you see yourself as having contributed to the racial misconceptions that are rampant in today's society? Is your responsibility to the ever powerful and ever present larger community to the detriment of your own? I know a lot of you are very young in this room. But as a child, I recall the guy by the name of Clark Kent. He was a quintessential journalist. He was white. He was male.

He was not extremely intelligent. But he worked at the daily planet. That was the newspaper that talked about truth, justice, and the American way. It was, however, only under the disguise that Clark Kent as Superman became a defender of justice, a writer of Rome, on the surface, Clark Kent could be considered a coward, a knucklehead. Only able to do what he did in disguise. Maybe what Clark Kent understood was that the rules of journalism were different than the rules of the other white power structure. I understand journalists are taught to be objective until they reach the ranks of editor. But as reporters, we all in nothing's worse than a Negro who talks about their bowing on the altar of objectivity. Objectivity seems to supersede truth as a goal. Reporters are taught to get the story, tell the story, and make the truth fit. Is there a superwoman or Superman in this audience today?

Is there an African American journalist here today in disguise or an African American who wants to be the journalist who is in disguise who can work for truth, justice, for the oppressed? Stories about African Americans falling to three categories. Their stories of violence, stories of pactos, or stories of transcendent Negroes, a few of them are written by African Americans. Recently, Christopher Lee wrote an article that made the front page of the Dallas Morning News. It was entitled Kirk Price Feud, called the results of differing styles. This must have been a very difficult story for Mr. Leader Wright. Interestingly enough, Mr. Lee is as close to black as the Morning News would permit to such an article. On the face, it was seen that they had used a minority to diminish the criticism to that end. However, Mr. Lee, a bi-racial reporter, has enjoyed little of the African American culture in either experience or understanding.

When those of us who interviewed asked him not to represent the story as differing styles, but one of differing substance, his understanding of the truth of the events he witnessed through his blue eyes would not support that story. This community got, was another trite interpretation of the events, and another mission of the substantive opposing issue. Implicit in Mr. Lee's article was that my poor upbringing in a family of undereducated parents had contributed greatly to my anger and my confrontational style. And that somehow African Americans, born of educated parents and reared in middle class homes in this nation, escaped that particular brand of insanity.

If confrontation and protest are the byproducts of poverty, my question here, why aren't there more protest and more protestors given the backgrounds of most of y'all in this room? Along as African American journalist, newspaper men and newspaper women and reporters acquiesce to the limited truth telling and distortions of reality, the African American community and the community at large will continue to be victimized by racism. In a very real sense, the story that gets told reflects the story teller. Why then, when African Americans tell a story, it is indistinguishable from that of Anglo-Jangling. Because of diversity, that should come with the story teller to what call a journalist of color committed. Some of the African American newspapers actually have the audacity to reprint stories from the major daily and call that news.

Let's take a look at the truth and justice and the American way. We all love investigative reporters. And while I don't wish to belabor the OJ Simpson case, it's a classic example of the media to determine truth and justice. Knowing OJ's acquittal, the media was relentless in his pursuit of truth, justice and conviction. Geraldo Rivera spit 18 months of airtime, dedicated to proving OJ was responsible for the murders of Nicole and what's his name. While African Americans did not feel compelled to defend OJ and rightfully so, white America was obsessed with their need to convict him and make him pay for his behavior. This society was inundated with pictures of Nicole as a battered wife and mother.

This picture was literally etched in our mind. Never, never was she portrayed as a home wrecking teenager being pipped by her parents who stood to gain as much from her marriage to OJ as she did. White media has a way of determining the value of life. Quite honestly, white life is more valuable than black life. Take the stories of two very young girls, one African American and live it in the high-rise public houses of Caberni Green in Chicago. The other Anglo and rich and living in Denver, both the victim of heinous sex crimes. The young nine-year-old black girl had been raped, beaten, forced to drink poison, and then left for dead, presumably by gang members in that high-rise complex under economic apartheid by the nation of Islam, of which we've said nothing in this country.

Little national tension was paid to that crime. I bet most of you don't even know what they called her. Black on black crime is considered a way of life, while white on white crime is considered newsworthy because it seems to be an anomaly, and as such it requires national attention. Everyone knows John Benet Ramsey. Everyone knows, I think they know, the circumstances of her death. In fact, the activities of the Denver Police Department are tracked in the Daily News reports every day, and you can even find it on the Internet. John Benet will be remembered as the blonde, blue-eyed, princess, while Lil Miss X will be relegated to the collective imagination of an insensitive populace.

What is the outrage about black people and the black press? Well, the human story is centering on the anguish of that poor black family. If not outrage, is there no human interest? If no human interest, is there not just playing curiosity? The white media interprets eligibility for full citizenship and freedom in this society. In Waco, those in open rebellion have been subsequently exonerated. The armed opposition to the assault on their fort by the FBI and the subsequent suicide has been determined to be within their right. In fact, the survivors, the family members have filed suit against the government, blaming the government for the death. But some of you will remember the black move movement. Members of this organization who chose to fight arrest were bombed in Philadelphia, men, women, children, killed in the assault. Vinerated, this ugly legend of black people by the government has not been dealt with in truth or justice, but perhaps this is the American way.

Or perhaps the assault on members of the moon could be more easily excused, vindicated, and forgotten because of black mayor, order the bombing, and subsequent execution of black people. Where are the out of the whales among you that will take on the lynching of black Americans this century? Where are the deacons of defense who among you, or willing to speak truth? Who among you will rise up and speak truth to the king? The black press in the United States began with Freedom's journal. It was quickly followed by the North Star. Both papers dedicated to pleading the call of Africans in America. It was implicit in their name, Freedom's journal, North Star.

Distinguished black journalists devoted their efforts to the cause of black Americans until the 1970s. It was then that black journalists found their niche in mainstream media. It was integration and appeal to the larger community. It seemed to negate an emphasis on the issues singular to the black community. Essence and Ebony magazine, the magazines that told the world that describe that we had a black middle class, that we were determined to replicate our white counterpart. Only now, with the emerge, do we see black journalism devoted to black issues irrespective of white criticism? I'm referring to a recent article about Clant, Sambo, Lawrence, Jackie, Thomas. You realize that the white media found that story in the emerged magazine most disturbing.

In April of 1997, the issue talks about Maxine Waters and how she's highlighted in Congress. It talks about the histronics over Ebony and the Forgotten 50th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson. Emerge proudly calls itself Black America's magazine and contrary to popular belief. It is replete with advertisement. So white folks won't take the money when you tell the truth. But how do you bring your blackness to bear on the press? Can you bring your blackness to bear on a popular opinion? How has a black journalist do you remain colorless in a society that is not blind to color? Integrity and honesty and justice and truth can no longer be sacrificed on the altars of your individual ambitions.

Black journalists must tread the fine line of maintaining a job and maintaining credibility, Paula, of keeping face with the public and keeping face with our forefathers and foremothers. Don't keep asking the same old silly question. I know it's different everywhere else, but I'm talking to folks in Dallas. I know the rest of y'all come from places that liberate it. But I gotta ask Dallas journalists, are you willing to turn a blind eye to the discrimination in the Dallas Police Department? Because we know it's different in L.A. Police Department. Our Dallas Journal is willing to overlook sexual harassment of black female officers in the Dallas Police Department. Our Dallas Journal is willing to give an administration that has allowed $25 million to allow following the city coffers that should have been used to improve conditions in the black community. Look beyond personality to purpose. What is the story that will explain to black people that the building of an arena in downtown Dallas under the current plan uses black tax dollars to enrich white men's pockets?

Y'all don't want to hear this. But why is the story that debates the wisdom of allowing white business interests to purchase the office of a mayor? And before you think I'm talking about mayor Ron Kirk. I'm talking about Bob Folson. I'm talking about Stark Taylor. I'm talking about Jack Evans. They didn't have to pay much when they got a net stride. I'm talking about Steve Bartlett. And yes, I'm talking about Ron Kirk. Have not any of you wondered how mayors in Dallas get rich in a non-salary position? Are you really committed to any calls? Noticeably your calls has not been defined. I can only assume by your silence on substantive issues that face this community. That your calls is because you have to keep your job. African Americans are in a true dilemma.

Only when you decide to be free will you know freedom. The Negro who lives on the philanthropy of others is the most dangerous Negro in the society. Because that Negro will give up his very freedom whenever his benefactor asks him to. Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price. If you have a question or comment or suggestions asked your future in Black America programs, write us. Also let us know what radio station you heard us over. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for IBA technical producer David Alvarez. I'm John L. Hansen Jr. Thank you for joining us today. And please join us again next week.

Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes. Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. That's in Black America cassettes, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. From 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. Because that Negro will give up his very free whenever his benefactor has been. The National Association of Black Journalists Region 7 Conference was Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price this week on in Black America.