In Defense Of Black Journalists by Armstrong Williams

A Washington based, national daily newspaper recently reported that a wild pack of black journalists heckled black conservative activists Jesse Lee Peterson during his participation in a forum on reparations. "He was booed, jeered and called 'the white man's boy' by a crowd of nearly 300 black reporters and media figures for speaking against reparations at last week's annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists," noted the article.

It is true that Peterson was jeered by a few of the black journalists in attendance. (The article fails to note that the remarks came from a vocal minority, not majority.) It is also true that the jeers were provoked by several inflammatory comments by Mr. Peterson regarding race relations in this country. This is Peterson's M.O. He makes a living by soliciting knee-jerk reactions from his audience. During past appearances on my radio program, he demanded that the NAACP serves no purpose, that Jesse Jackson has never done anything to benefit black America, and that current black leaders are more prejudiced than whites were during the Jim Crow era. In such a manner, Peterson shocks people into paying attention to him. That's his shtick. Jeers inevitably follow.

But by skimming over Peterson's provocations and by generalizing the response of the black journalists, the article gives the horribly reductive impression that black journalists are less professional than their more mainstream peers. It depicts them as unable to reign in their personal beliefs long enough to serve their professed goal: dispassionate recording of the facts. (Could you paint with a broader brush?)

This is dangerous not only for the suggestion that blacks are somehow less able to control their emotions (the centuries old argument for the enslavement of women and minorities), but also because it reinforces the idea that blacks are capable only of greeting conservative ideals with indignation and disgust.

My experience has proved otherwise. I am a black conservative. I have strong opinions on issues that can only be considered traditionally Republican. And I am often hard at work conveying those views to anyone who will listen-on TV, at speaking engagements, debate forums, etc. Often, my views do not mesh with the majority of black listeners (why preach to the converted?). Rarely, however, am I jeered. Rarely do my peers in the ethnic papers swarm on me like angry adolescents. More often than not, we engage in a genuine give and take, the sort of honest friction that broadens one's perspective.

Get it? Black journalists are professional and members of the black voting populace are capable of being-gasp--contemplative when confronted with conservative ideals. In fact, a recent study by The Joint Center of Political and Economic Studies, a think tank specializing in urban issues, found that young black Americans are favoring traditionally republican positions on social security, educational quality, vouchers and federalism. "We see a new generation of African Americans who are better educated, more successful, more pro-business and therefore drawn to policy positions vastly different from their parents and grandparents," said the Institute's President and CEO, Eddie Williams, during a public address announcing the findings.

And yet the stereotype remains that blacks are incapable of seeing beyond the decades old cultural mandate that says vote democrat. That stereotype does not give blacks credit for being able to augment their political views to fit changing social dynamic. It implies that blacks are more prone to emotional, rather than intellectual decisions. And, at bottom, it suggest that blacks are followers, incapable of asserting control over their own fate.

Shattering these kind of stereotypes is not an easy task, especially when organizations purporting to act in the best interest of black America have turned these stereotypes into a small cottage industry. For example, Julian Bond ridiculed black conservatives as "ventriloquist dummies," during the July 2002 NAACP convention in Houston.

Tossing this sort of rhetoric into the public arena prevents any thoughtful discussion of the issue. It is a shortcut to thinking; one that ultimately gives the impression that blacks are more prone to react, rather than contemplate the issues that have the greatest impact on their lives.

Shattering these stereotypes is essential to achieving social equality.

Armstrong Williams can be contacted via e-mail at: arightside@aol.com

Armstrong Williams

Tuesday, August 20, 2002