STARBUCKS CLOSES FOR ANTI-RACISM TRAINING (IT'S A NEW DAY)

STARBUCKS CLOSES FOR ANTI-RACISM TRAINING:

NO HUMAN BEING SHOULD BE ARRESTED FOR STANDING WHILE BLACK.

IT'S A NEW DAY IN AMERICA & THE BLACK VOTE IS STILL EXTREMELY VALUABLE.


Post Sources: ABC News, Business Insider, Fox News, NY Times, Youtube


******** 'Natural hair' and whether other races visit you at home: Here's what Starbucks asked staff on its racial bias training day


Starbucks shut 8,000 US stores on Tuesday for a racial bias training day with its employees.

The coffee chain has published a booklet staff were given, asking questions about their hair and how often friends of different races come to their home.
It also asked staff to say whether they find it easy or hard to talk about race.

Take a look at the full list questions below.

Starbucks shut 8,000 stores in the US for four hours on Tuesday afternoon to give its employees a racial bias training day.

It came after a scandal which saw two black men arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks after they asked to use to the bathroom without having purchased drinks.

The training, which was provided to some 175,000 employees, included a "personal notebook" for employees to fill out. It encouraged them to become "color brave."

After the training day, Starbucks published the notebook in full. It included questions for employees about their "natural hair" and how often friends of a different race had been in their home.

There were two rounds of questions.

The first asked employees to recall the first time something happened to them. The booklet said that a possible answer was that these things had never happened:

1.The first time you noticed your racial identity.

2.The first time you noticed how your race affected your beauty standards.

3.The first time you felt your accent impacted people's perception of your intelligence or competence.

4.The first time you altered your communication style (dialed it up or down) to avoid playing into stereotypes.

5.The first time you had a friend of a different race who regularly visited your home.

6.The first time you felt distracted at work because of external events related to race.

7.The first time you had a senior role model in your organization with a similar racial identity as your own.

8.The first time you went to work with your natural hair without comments or questions from others.

9.The first time you felt your race affected your ability to build a rapport with your manager.

The second set of questions asked people to rank whether they would find various racially-charged situations easy or hard to deal with.

They were asked to put their answer on a five-point scale, once for dealing with someone of their own race, and once for somebody of their own race.

1. I can talk about race and not make the other person feel threatened.

2. I can comfortably maintain eye contact throughout the conversation and not fear I'm being aggressive.

3. I can talk about race and not make the other person feel threatened.

4. I can use my normal gestures and body language without feeling uncomfortable.

5. I can expect to be respect without having to prove my worth.

6. I can speak with my natural cadence without feeling judged about my intelligence.

7. I can respond to a difficult request directly and not fear my answer wll be questioned.

8. I can share my accomplishments without someone assuming that I did not earn them myself.

9. I can talk about my childhood and not expect others to assume I grew up in poverty.

10. I can voice my dissatisfaction with a situation and not be told I'm "too angry."

~ For Starbucks, the scope of companywide anti-bias training on Tuesday was easy to measure.

Roughly 175,000 employees at 8,000 locations pored over nearly 23,000 iPads, learning about the processing power of unconscious brains and the roots of unconscious bias.

The training — part social justice crash course and part self-reflection exercise — is at the core of a well-choreographed effort by Starbucks to improve its corporate image after a backlash over the arrests of two African-American men in a Starbucks in Philadelphia last month.

Since then, the company has apologized, most recently in full-page newspaper ads. It has changed its guest policy, allowing people to sit without buying anything. And it enlisted a full complement of social justice activists and policy advocates for guidance.

Starbucks is trying to send a statement with the training. It closed most company-owned stores in the United States, leaving caffeine addicts without Frappuccinos and freelancers without office space.

But the company acknowledges that it is trying to tackle systemic racism going back centuries. And there is only so much that can be crammed into a four-hour session.

Pomp and Circumstance

Starbucks infused its training with some star power.

In one video shown to workers via iPad, the artist Common explains that it is sometimes better to embrace differences than to look for only similarities in one another. In another, the documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson Jr. provides an overview of the civil rights era and viral videos of racial incidents in the past. Former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. reviewed the materials, and Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. gave advice.

The training “is a transformational moment in the history of Starbucks,” said Howard Schultz, the company’s executive chairman.

The company, which spent tens of millions of dollars to bring it all together, needs to put on a show. It is trying to convince customers that it is committed to social justice issues and that it wants to create a sense of community at its stores.

Its image was tarnished after the incident at the Starbucks in Philadelphia, where an employee called the police after two African-American men asked to use the restroom. The men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, who hadn’t made a purchase and were waiting for a business meeting, were arrested on suspicion of trespassing — a charge that prosecutors declined to pursue. Mr. Nelson and Mr. Robinson, both 23, reached a settlement this month with the city and Starbucks.

To design the training program, Starbucks teamed up with Perception Institute, an anti-bias research and advisory group, and solicited input from several social scientists. The questions were based on years of research and on past workshops, the group said, adding that the four-hour time frame was more generous than the one hour typically allotted.

As they developed the materials, Starbucks tested them in select stores in Texas, New York, Indiana and elsewhere, and incorporated feedback from employees. Some said that earlier drafts of the materials were confusing, and that directions needed to be clearer, according to a consultant from SYPartners, a consultancy that also helped come up with Tuesday’s program

A Lesson in Sociology and Science

At the training sessions, employees broke into small groups to guide themselves through 68 pages of materials printed on newspaper print, sure to create ink-stained hands. They watched videos on iPads, some with stands made from a cut-up Starbucks cup.

Many of the exercises had the sort of open-ended approaches that have long been the province of sociology classes and business retreats. In personal notebooks, employees were asked to jot down private responses to vague questions like “What makes me, me? And you, you?” After one of the Common videos, they were asked to pair with a co-worker and list all the ways they were different from each other.

After a brief lesson on brain science, they took the Stroop effect test, quickly reciting the colors that words were written in to show how they form implicit associations. The notebook then took them through what it means to be “color brave” — rather than “colorblind.”

One of the more powerful exercises came toward the end of the training, when the employees listened to recorded audio clips of other colleagues discussing biased decisions they had made. In one instance, an employee said he had hid the tip jar when he saw a group of black men walk in. He became embarrassed, he said, after he gave them their change and they asked if there was a tip jar for them to leave it in.

“The big question was we need to make it much more personal,” said Zarina Masih, a Starbucks employee in Evanston, Ill., alluding to advice she received about how to treat people in the store. “To make sure we’re not making assumptions, that we get to know them.”

Talking About Race

The documentary in the training includes an interview with a bald white man who reflects on how easy he has it when he leaves his house.

“I walk out a free man,” he said. “I just do my thing.”

Going out is much more complicated for a black man with braids, who is also interviewed. He has to be careful of how close he stands to fellow train commuters and how he talks to people in public.

Leaving the house can be so exhausting, the man said, that it sometimes “just keeps you at home.”

The training bluntly shows how white and black people experience the world differently.

To that end, Starbucks is toeing a difficult line. How do you convince white people that they are beneficiaries of the country’s racist history without calling them racists? And if you can convince them, how, then, do you turn that into a more welcoming in-store environment?

This can, expectedly, be a tall task for a company whose work force transcends geographic, socioeconomic, racial and educational lines. Some undoubtedly were familiar with, and had experienced, the concepts in the training. Others found them foreign.

“You’re always talking about a particular percentage that is willing to move off of their narrative,” Ms. Ifill said. “You’re appealing to people who are willing to listen and willing to learn.”

In the training, an exercise of “firsts” could serve to highlight the Rorschach that is race in America.

When was the first time you “altered your communication style (dialed it up or down) to avoid playing into stereotypes?” For African-Americans, that is likely so common that it would be difficult to remember a first.

When was the first time you “went to work with your natural hair without comments or questions from others?” For white people, that’s likely always.

One question in the notebook highlights the efforts of its creators to emphasize that this wasn’t about proving someone to be a racist.

“Upon reflection, do you notice ways in which you treat people differently?” the booklet asked. “The point here is not to judge whether that is a good or bad thing, but merely to notice.”

The booklet also offered definitions of what it called “key terms,” such as bias, confirmation bias, inclusion and stereotype.

The definition given for institutional racism could prove upsetting without further context. “The ways in which institutional policies and practices create different outcomes for different racial groups, creating unbalanced advantages for whites along with oppression and disadvantages for people from groups classified as nonwhite,” it read.

Starbucks and the creators of the training say it is not meant to end bias. Rather, it is about getting employees to start grappling with issues of race. In other contexts, like policing, this might mean thinking twice before pulling a weapon on someone. For Starbucks, it might mean a barista’s thinking twice before accusing someone in the store of nefarious behavior.

If nothing else, Starbucks employees may have to think twice because all the publicity surrounding the training could send a message that messing up on race could cost them their job.

Challenge in History and Logistics

“It always seems to me that they’re doing it to save face. It is, to me, too little too late,” said Doug Brandt, who was sitting at a Starbucks cafe in New York with two other men on Tuesday afternoon, several minutes before the store would close. “But it can’t hurt.”

One of the men, De’Monie Jackson, joined in. “It’s not Starbucks that needs the training,” he said. “It’s the police.”

Not even Starbucks pretends that the training will solve systemic racism and abuse. But the company is trying to start a dialogue.

“We also have to recognize that there will be some customers for some reason or another who are having a bad day, and that’s the moment of truth where we have to perform,” Mr. Schultz said.

“We as a company are systemically dealing with things that are far, far out of the control of Starbucks as a company or the four walls of our stores,” he said.

Putting aside whether a corporation is well equipped to address hundreds of years of racism, Starbucks is also up against a “customer is always right” ethos. And it is putting the burden on employees to rethink their own prejudices to offer better customer service, while doing little to help Starbucks’s nearly half-minority work force address the bias it may face from customers.

Then there are the more logistical concerns. Brian Nosek, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia who was consulted on the training, worried that Starbucks was moving ahead too quickly. Productive sessions, he said, require concrete goals, specific behavioral standards and a clear metric for evaluating performance.

“Training to make a caramel macchiato can be quite effective,” he said. “Training to be unbiased toward your fellow human doesn’t achieve any of those criteria.”

GLADYS KNIGHT'S RESTAURANT SHUT DOWN; ATLANTA NEEDS A WHITE MAYOR

GLADYS KNIGHT'S RESTAURANT SHUT DOWN; ATLANTA NEEDS A WHITE MAYOR

GLADYS KNIGHT'S FAMOUS ATLANTA BASED CHICKEN & WAFFLES FRANCHISE OWES MORE THAN $1 MILLION IN TAXES.

Sources: AJC,  Page Six, NY Daily News, 

The Root, YouTube

Another BLACK-owned Atlanta business bites the dust due to substandard business practices.

This time it's the famous Gladys Knight Chicken & Waffles restaurant, which has long been a staple for Tourists.

Apparently the family-owned franchise was recently shut down because it owes the state of GEORGIA more than $1 Million dollars in back TAXES.

As I mentioned in previous videos about Atlanta, it's high time for this Hub of the Southeast to elect a WHITE Mayor and to attract more WHITE residents.

****** Gladys Knight’s restaurants shut down amid tax evasion allegations

Georgia authorities raided chicken-and-waffle restaurants owned by Gladys Knight‘s son, who is accused of tax evasion.

State Department of Revenue agents served search warrants on Tuesday on the three Atlanta-area locations of Gladys Knight’s Chicken & Waffles, in an unsuccessful bid to arrest Shanga Hankerson.

State agents said Hankerson stole more than $650,000 in sales and withholding taxes for his own use. With penalties and interest, the total would be more than $1 million, officials said.

By lunchtime on Wednesday, all three restaurants were closed.

“It is never The Department of Revenue’s primary goal to shut down a business,” said Josh Waites, investigations chief for the Department of Revenue. “We are working with Mr. Hankerson’s attorney to have the business up and running again as soon as possible.”

State officials hope to strike a deal with Hankerson to put the restaurants into receivership so it can open again.

Gladys Knight — best known for her hit “Midnight Train to Georgia” – is not suspected of any wrongdoing.

OSCARS RACE WAR v BLACK ACTORS (WILL & JADA)

OSCARS RACE WAR v BLACK ACTORS

WILL & JADA SMITH v TYLER PERRY

Sources:  Good Morning America, Variety, Youtube

Instead of Will & Jada Pinkett Smith starting a Political Race War online about the Oscars, why not use their money to help combat Racism as Tyler Perry did?

Tyler Perry opened his own Studio and hires many Black and Latino actors to star in his film projects.

Will and Jada could also use their wealth to fund Non-profit Acting and Playwright Summer camps for Low Income children.

Furthermore if Hollywood is so Racist then why haven't Will and Jada moved?

It's easy to complain and call for Boycotts but what about using their Celebrity profile to help uplift the Black community in a constructive, creative manner?

I'm just saying.

**** Will Smith Says He Won’t Attend Oscars

Will Smith has joined his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, in vowing not to attend the Feb. 28 Academy Awards ceremony in protest over the lack of diversity among nominees in major categories this year. Smith’s decision comes as pressure mounts on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to address what many are calling the org’s diversity crisis.

Smith told “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts on Thursday that he is “uncomfortable” with the situation. For the second year in a row, the 20 acting nominees are all white. Smith generated Oscar buzz this awards season for his work in the football drama “Concussion.”

“My wife’s not going. It would be awkward to show up with Charlize (Theron),” he said. “We’ve discussed it. We’re part of this community. But at this current time, we’re uncomfortable to stand there and say, ‘This is OK.'”

Smith has previously been nommed twice for best actor, for 2001’s “Ali” and 2006’s “The Pursuit of Happyness.” He lost both times to other black actors: Denzel Washington for “Training Day” and Forest Whitaker for “The Last King of Scotland.”

“To me, that was huge,” Smith said. “So when I see this list and series of nominations that come out – and everybody is fantastic. That’s the complexity of this issue. … But it feels like it’s going in the wrong direction.”

Smith said he has a responsibility to speak out or risk contributing to the problem.

“There’s a position that we hold in this community and if we’re not a part of the solution, we’re part of the problem,” Smith told Roberts. “And it was her call to action for herself and for me and for our family to be a part of the solution.”

“[For] my part, I think I have to protect and fight for the ideals that make our country and our Hollywood community great,” he continued. “And so when I look at the series of nominations of the Academy, it’s not reflecting that beauty.”

Although his wife’s call for a boycott was partly motivated by him getting snubbed for his role in “Concussion,” Smith insists the root of the issue is much bigger than that.

“This is so deeply not about me,” he said. “This is about children that are going to sit down and watch this show and they’re not going to see themselves represented.

“There’s a regressive slide toward separatism, towards racial and religious disharmony,” he added. “And that’s not the Hollywood that I want to leave behind.”

The angry response to this year’s Oscar nominations has steamrolled in the past few days. Pinkett Smith expressed her outrage last week after the Jan. 14 nominations announcement. Director Spike Lee joined her in vowing to sit out the ceremony, although on Wednesday during a “GMA” appearance, Lee made a point of telling anchor George Stephanopoulos that he was not calling for others to boycott the ceremony.

Also on Wednesday, past AMPAS board member Quincy Jones said he would seek to address the current board next week on the issue. Jones is the first African-American to be appointed to the Academy’s board of governors and the first African-American to be awarded the Academy’s prestigious Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He’s also a four-time Oscar nominee and he exec produced the Oscar telecast in 1996.

WHITE MAYOR WANTED IN ATLANTA (KASIM REED'S ASCENSION)

WHITE MAYOR WANTED IN ATLANTA (KASIM REED'S ASCENSION):

On Nov 7, 2017 registered Atlanta voters will elect a new Mayor.

In the video above I explain why Atlanta is ready for a new more diverse image and why Atlanta's next Mayor should be WHITE.

Incumbent Atlanta Mayor KASIM REED's future reach for the office of U.S. Senator is also discussed.

**** Could One Of These Rumored Candidates Be Atlanta's Next Mayor?

Although the Atlanta mayoral contest is less than one year away, the rumor mill is busy speculating about candidates.

Mayor Kasim Reed is unable to run for a third consecutive term, so the field is wide open. These potential candidates are making moves that are creating a bit of buzz:

• Ceasar Mitchell: The current Atlanta council president hasn’t formally declared, but has long been seen as a front-runner in the 2017 race. A long-established political action committee for Mitchell shows no signs of slowing, either, with an upcoming fundraiser in his honor.

• Kwanza Hall: The Atlanta councilman hasn’t officially filed to run, but says he’s formed an exploratory committee to seriously consider a bid. Hall has also stepped up the number of public appearances with Mayor Kasim Reed in recent months.

• Margaret Kaiser: The state representative announced a desire to run earlier this year, following Woolard’s announcement, and repeated recently that she’s still interested in the seat. But for now, Kaiser said she’s focused on her state district.

• Peter Aman: The former Reed deputy and Bain & Co. partner has been quietly making the rounds across the city to chat with insiders about a potential run. He also moved into city limits in recent years, a clear sign of intent. This week, Aman said he’s “seriously considering” a bid. His most public move yet? Joining Twitter.

• Robb Pitts: The former Fulton commissioner and Atlanta councilman may not be done with politics. A spokeswoman for Pitts, who narrowly lost his bid for Fulton chairman in 2014, said he’s considering a run for mayor in 2017. Pitts ran for mayor in 2001 and lost to Franklin.

Sources:  AJC, Youtube, Wikipedia 

THE ROLE OF BLACK MEDIA IN 2016 POLITICS (DIVERSITY & BLACK VOTERS)

THE ROLE OF BLACK MEDIA IN 2016 POLITICS:

WHERE ARE BLACK JOURNALISTS, BLOGGERS, VLOGGERS & COMMENTATORS?

IN 2008 OBAMA USED BLACK GRASSROOTS BLOGGERS TO HELP GARNER 97% OF THE BLACK VOTE.

As we approach the 2016 Presidential election I've noticed the lack of BLACK Journalists, BLACK Bloggers, BLACK Vloggers and BLACK Commentators in both Political parties.

Since it's not possible to be elected to the Oval Office minus the BLACK Majority vote, how do DEMOCRAT and REPUBLICAN Key Leaders expect to attract BLACK voters without utilizing BLACK Media Representatives?

In 2008 BARACK OBAMA utilized BLACK Grassroots Activists, BLACK Bloggers & BLACK Commentators to help garner 97% of the BLACK vote.

To help attract 2016 BLACK voters, there needs to be more Opportunities offered to BLACK Media Representatives from both major Political parties.

~ Media Diversity And The 2016 Election: How A Mostly White Press Corps Influences Campaign Coverage

As an African-American female journalist shadowing Republican presidential candidates during the 2012 election cycle, Juana Summers was, at times, the only person of color in the room. But nothing crystallized her minority status more than when one of her white male press corps colleagues asked for an interview, assuming the 27-year-old Missouri native was simply a black voter captivated by a candidate’s stump speech.

“That’s what I get for not always wearing my press credentials,” she said of her time out on the campaign trail as a full-time embedded reporter for Politico. “It’s funny, but also a little sad, too.”

Summers is an example of strides that some U.S. news outlets have taken to elevate reporters of color and women to the highly coveted politics beat, which has for decades been predominantly white and male. But even with significantly more female journalists on the 2016 campaign trail, true racial diversity among journalists covering federal, state and local politics has not been achieved, advocates said. 

Some have said this is explained by the reality that not enough rookie reporters of color are being groomed to take on national political beats.

“I don’t think it’s acceptable, in 2015 or 2016, for news organizations to say that we can’t find people of color to fill these jobs,” said Summers, who recently became the politics editor for Mashable in Washington, D.C. “It’s your fault, in my opinion.”

For more than a decade, the racial makeup of traditional media organizations has been stagnant, despite fast-growing Hispanic and Asian populations and the federal government's projection that the U.S. will become a majority-minority nation within 30 years. 

Newer digital publications also have struggled with and been criticized for the lack of diversity in their ranks.

Advocates have said media diversity matters most when candidates make statements about mass incarceration, immigration reform, the Black Lives Matter social justice movement and other topics in which race, economics and politics intersect. A more diverse group of journalists can ensure stories have needed context and that minority communities are more fairly represented, especially as voters weigh issues that can decide who wins the White House, advocates said.

Newsrooms Still Largely White

The percentage of racial minorities and women at newspapers remained “relatively steady” at 12 percent in 2014, according to the latest newsroom census from the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), a professional association that tracks newsroom diversity. That breaks down to 4.74 percent black, 4.19 percent Latino, 2.8 percent Asian-American and less than half of a percent Native American. There were approximately 32,900 full-time journalists at about 1,400 daily U.S. newspapers in 2014. Similar data for broadcast outlets was not available.

That means newsrooms increasingly don't reflect the nation's diverse makeup. 

The U.S. Census Bureau has said the country will be majority-minority by 2043. 

The nation's Hispanic and Asian populations climbed above 54 million and 19.4 million, respectively, in 2013 and 2012, according to the Pew Research Center. Their growth rates among the nation's more than 300 million residents outpaced the estimated rates for whites and blacks in subsequent years.

Politico, whose editorial staff of nearly 200 is approximately 8 percent nonwhite, recently found a bright spot in media diversity regarding the reporters assigned to cover Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. At least 18 national print, online, radio and TV outlets have female reporters covering Clinton, a big leap for media gender diversity, according to a Politico survey released this week. Several local outlets in the early voting primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire also have female reporters with Clinton, Politico reported.

In its report, Politico published a “class photo” of 18 mostly white female reporters. Two appear to be Asian-American women. It’s unclear how many are Latinas. None are African-American. The reporters pictured represented outlets including CNN, CBS News, the New York Times, the Washington Post and BuzzFeed.

Cameron Barr, national editor for the Washington Post, told International Business Times that the newspaper has 37 reporters and editors who regularly cover the campaigns. Seventeen are women, and five of the women are racial minorities. A recent newsroom census showed that 31 percent of the editorial staff at the Post is nonwhite.

“When we assign reporters of diverse backgrounds and experiences to the trail, we do a better job of seeing the candidates the way America sees them,” Barr said Tuesday.

CNN, CBS News and BuzzFeed did not respond to requests for information and comment about the racial makeup of their political news teams. The most recent broadcast diversity census completed by the National Association of Black Journalists in 2012 showed the editorial staffs of CNN and CBS News were, respectively, 15 percent and 14 percent nonwhite.

BuzzFeed this week released updated diversity data showing its newsroom is less white this year than it was in 2014. Approximately 27 percent of its editorial staff is nonwhite, up from 23 percent last year, according to the outlet. The New York Times declined comment for this story Tuesday but pointed to the latest ASNE survey that shows its newsroom is 19 percent nonwhite.

Integrating The Press Corps

Sonya Ross, an African-American journalist in Washington with more than 25 years covering state and national politics, has helped “integrate the press corps” more times than she’d like to count. In 1996, she covered President Bill Clinton’s re-election as an embedded reporter on the campaign bus for the Associated Press. She was among a few black or female reporters on the trail.

One day leading up the 1996 Democratic National Convention, Ross rode the train with Clinton's press corps and stopped in the Detroit area for a campaign rally. All the other members of the mostly white and male press corps were so focused on getting the best vantage point for the rally, that few noticed civil rights icon Rosa Parks had attended the event, said Ross, who spoke with Parks and filed a story for the AP.

"It was my perspective of being a woman, black and growing up in the South that allowed me to pick up on a story that few others saw," she said. "That's potentially what you miss as a news organization without a diverse staff."

Ross, who became the first African-American woman to sit on the executive board of the White House Correspondents' Association and is chairwoman of a national political journalism task force for black reporters and editors, said she wants to ensure more reporters of color follow in her footsteps.

“My concern was that the doors were shut behind me,” said Ross, who has also been involved with several diversity initiatives for the AP and other national outlets. “We’ve got to get more reporters into the pipeline.”

Black journalists in particular have covered politics for decades, many of them for African-American-owned newspapers that pioneered the “race beat” during the civil rights movement in the 1940s through the 1960s. Jack E. White Jr., a retired African-American journalist who covered national politics for Time magazine and the Washington Post in the 1960s and '70s, said only a handful of black journalists had covered national politics in the mainstream press.

Their ranks were increased by three critical national news events in 1972 that interested the mainstream press, said Paul Delaney, a retired New York Times reporter and editor, who is black and covered U.S. politics for a decade beginning in the 1960s. 

Newspapers sent African-American reporters to the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, the NAACP Convention in Detroit and the Democratic National Convention in Miami, where an unprecedented number of black delegates had gathered.

"There were not that many of us to cover anything before then," said Delaney, adding that numbers increased again during the Rev. Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns in the 1980s.

More Enlightened Coverage

Before black and Latino journalists struggled to secure top positions in newsrooms, white women also faced challenges getting the best assignments from mostly white, male editors. 

Gender diversity on the campaign trail has been highlighted more than a few times, beginning with the 1972 book by Timothy Crouse, “The Boys on the Bus.” Beth Harpaz, a veteran former politics reporter for the AP, revisited the topic with her 2001 book, “The Girls in the Van,” after she covered Hillary Clinton’s race for the U.S. Senate in New York.

“It’s really hard to say definitively why gender diversity has increased on the campaign trail,” Harpaz said. Women made up about half of reporters on the trail with Clinton in 2000, but they seem slightly overrepresented in the former secretary of state’s 2016 campaign, Harpaz said.

“Diversity is something that most news organizations value,” she said. “In 2000, many thought they were making a choice that would lead to more enlightened coverage, simply because [Clinton] was a candidate putting an emphasis on issues that were important to women.”

But even after Barack Obama's historic election as the first black president in 2008 and with Latino candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz running for president this election season, newsrooms aren't assigning more blacks and Hispanics to cover the 2016 campaign.

Leaders of minority journalist organizations agree that white journalists are more than capable of accurately covering election issues relevant to nonwhite communities. 

But newsrooms still need to create opportunities for nonwhite journalists.

“There’s no reason for 100 percent of them to do the job 100 percent of the time,” said Russell Contreras, president of Unity: Journalists for Diversity, a national advocacy group for racial minority and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender reporters and editors.

“I believe right now the candidates are more diverse than the people that cover them,” he continued. 

“That, right there, needs to stop.” Part of the solution might be making sure rookie journalists of color are not pigeonholed to the crime and general assignment beats, which don’t always lead to national beats such as politics, he added.

Sarah Glover, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, said it would be “disappointing” if overall diversity on the trail reflected the status quo. “Newsrooms need to act quickly ... to encourage rich storytelling from various points of view,” Glover said.

Sources: International Business Times, NY Times, YouTube

DON LEMON vs MSNBC: "MSNBC Is A "Smug Liberal Club Of Mean, Condescending People"......I CONCUR!

"CNN’s Don Lemon Tears Into ‘Smug,’ ‘Mean’ MSNBC Over Romney Grandson Segment"

CNN anchor Don Lemon had some tough words for his competitors at MSNBC Monday night during a discussion about Melissa Harris-Perry and her panel poking fun at a crowded Mitt Romney family photo with his young black grandson.

Lemon used the opportunity to vent about the liberal network, calling it “smug” and unwilling to entertain actual diversity of opinion.

Republican Ana Navarro agreed with Lemon that it was in bad taste to use the child to mock the Romneys, but Marc Lamont Hill argued that they didn’t actually make fun of the baby itself, just used it to make a point about diversity in the Romney family and the GOP.

Lemon wondered if Hill would react the same way if the same segment aired on Fox. Navarro predicted, “By now, Jesse Jackson would be protesting and tied to a tree somewhere.”

Lemon then took on the “crowd” at MSNBC that’s given him lots of flak for comments he’s made on issues of race specifically. Lemon explained he’s never bothered responding because “dogs are supposed to howl at the moon, the moon doesn’t howl back.” He called MSNBC a “smug” club where despite touting diversity, there is “no diversity of opinion” on the network.

Hill agreed that “pockets” of MSNBC are “smug and condescending,” but Lemon continued on to dismiss the network as an insular den of liberalism where people are “saying mean, smug things about people who… may disagree with them.”

Sources: CNN, Mediaite, Youtube

Mia Love Endorsed By Ann Romney: First BLACK GOP Female Congress Member (It's About Time!)

Ann Romney Endorses Mia Love in Utah Congressional Race

In her first solo endorsement of the 2012 cycle, Ann Romney has backed Utah Congressional candidate Mia Love.

The Romneys’ son Josh has already been vocal of his support for Love and Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Congressman, said last weekend in Utah that Josh and others there for the Romney donor retreat went to a fundraiser for Love.

“Women across the country are concerned for our children’s futures,” said Ann Romney in a written statement. “Will our children be able to find jobs and will they be faced with burdensome debt?

Mia’s record of reducing spending and making government more accountable to the taxpayers should be an example for Washington. With leaders like her, we can help ensure that our children and grandchildren have bright futures.”

If elected, Love, a fitness instructor and small town mayor, would become the first African American Republican woman in Congress.

But she will have to defeat six term Democrat Jim Matheson. It’s already one of the most watched Congressional races of 2012 and handicappers rate it a toss-up.

Recent polling in the state show Matheson with a solid lead at this point.

He’s actually one of the Democrats not attending this year’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

It seems to make sense for a Democrat running in a ruby red state, but it’s important to note he has never attended since getting to Congress in 2000.


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"Million Hoodie March" In NYC For Trayvon Martin Huge Success! Diverse Crowd Showed Up To Protest

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Outrage, protests grow over shooting of unarmed Florida teen

Outrage over the killing of an unarmed Florida teenager grew nationwide Wednesday as at least 1,000 supporters of Trayvon Martin took to the streets of New York and a petition demanding the shooter's arrest amassed nearly 1 million signatures.

Members of Martin's family were among demonstrators in New York for a "Million Hoodie March," a reference to the attire the 17-year-old was wearing when he was shot.

"A black person in a hoodie isn't automatically suspicious," an online protest page says. "Let's put an end to racial profiling."

More than 900,000 people have signed a petition on Change.org demanding the arrest of the shooter, George Zimmerman.

Martin was fatally shot February 26 while walking to the house of his father's fiancee in Sanford, Florida, after a trip to a convenience store.

Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch leader, said he shot the teen in self-defense.

Zimmerman has not been arrested or charged. A police report describes him as a white male; his family says he is Hispanic.

Demonstrators of all races crowded into New York's Union Square on Wednesday night, demanding justice. Many of them wore hoodies and carried Skittles, the candy Martin had bought on the night he was killed.

"I am Trayvon Martin!" the crowd chanted as they marched for about an hour, returning to Union Square. Others chanted, "I'm a suspicious person," a reference to the shooter's description of Martin to a 911 operator. A boy carried a sign that read, "Will I be next?"

"We will not go quietly into the night," Benjamin Crump, the Martin family's attorney, told the protesters. "We have to make sure we understand what happened so we can never let this tragedy happen again."

"No justice, no peace!" the crowd chanted.

"George Zimmerman took Trayvon's life for nothing," the teenager's father, Tracy Martin, told the demonstrators. "Our son did not deserve to die.

There's nothing that we can say that will bring him back, but I'm here today to assure that justice is served and that no other parents have to go through this again."

"Our son is your son," Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, told the crowd. "This is not about a black-and-white thing. This is about a right-and-wrong thing. Justice for Trayvon!"

Earlier, she described her situation as "a nightmare" to Anderson Cooper on his talk show. "It's hard to sleep," she said about her son. "Everything reminds me of him, and the only thing that's fueling us to keep pressing on for justice is the fact that we know that justice will be served."

Tracy Martin said race played a role in the police investigation. "Had Trayvon been a white kid ... Zimmerman would have been arrested," he said.

On Wednesday night, the Sanford City Commissioners, passed by 3-2 a no-confidence vote in Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee. It was not immediately clear what impact, if any, that would have.

The vote came a day after Ben Jealous, head of the NAACP, demanded Lee's resignation, accusing him of having mishandled the case by not arresting Zimmerman.

The U.S. Justice Department has launched a civil rights investigation into the shooting.
The incident occurred when Zimmerman, who was patrolling the neighborhood, saw the teen walking home after buying candy and a drink at a convenience store.

Zimmerman called 911 and reported what he described as a suspicious person.

Moments later, several neighbors called the emergency number to report a commotion outside.

Heated debate has erupted over whether Zimmerman used a racial slur during the 911 call, a recording of which was released this week.

"We didn't hear it. However, I am not sure what was said," Sgt. David Morgenstern of the Sanford Police Department said.

"I have listened to the tapes, and I have not heard them use a racial slur," concurred Sanford City Manager Norton Bonaparte.

A top CNN audio engineer enhanced the sound of the 911 call, and several members of CNN's editorial staff repeatedly reviewed the tape but could reach no consensus on whether Zimmerman used a racial slur.

Whether Zimmerman used such language prior to shooting Martin is key, according to CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin. "It's extremely, extremely significant because the federal government is not allowed to prosecute just your ordinary, everyday murder. Two people fighting on the street is not a federal crime.

However, if one person shoots another based on racial hostility, racial animus, that does become a federal crime."

Toobin said that if "very shortly before" the shooting, "Zimmerman used this racial epithet to refer to the person he openly shot, that very much puts it within the FBI's and the Justice Department's ambit of a case that they could prosecute."

The Martin family's lawyer said the 911 call was questionable even if there was no slur.

"Without even hearing the conflicting part, we did hear, number one, that he said 'these people,'" Crump said. "What did he mean when he said 'these people'? He also profiled him because he was a young black person with a hood on.

"So it goes without saying, even if you don't get to the thing that everyone is debating, he already had a mentality when he got out of that car that this was a young black man, and he had assumed that he was a criminal, and you know what happens when you assume," Crump said.

The 911 tapes show that, while some neighbors were on the phone with emergency dispatchers, cries for help followed by a gunshot sounded in the background.

"The time that we heard the whining and then the gunshot, we did not hear any wrestling, no punching, no fighting, nothing to make it sound like there was a fight," said Mary Cutcher, one of the callers.

Cutcher said Zimmerman was confused after the shooting.

"He'd pace and go back to the body and just like -- I don't know if he was kind of 'Oh, my God, what did I do? What happened?'" she said.

Another caller, Selma Mora Lamilla, said she did not hear any altercation, but the teen cried and "whimpered" before the shooting.

She described Zimmerman as "straddling" the teen after the shooting, saying he was "on his knees on top of a body."

Crump said Martin's girlfriend was on the phone with him during the incident and can help prove he was killed "in cold blood."

The girl connects the dots and "completely blows Zimmerman's absurd self-defense claim out of the water," Crump said Tuesday.

Shortly before he was shot, the teen told his girlfriend that someone was following him and he was trying to get away, according to the lawyer.

The girl, who did not want to be identified, said that during the call, she heard Martin ask why the person was following him.

She got the impression there was an altercation in which his cell phone earpiece fell out after he was pushed, and the connection went dead, Crump said.

She did not hear gunfire, he said.

Records show that Martin was on the phone with her much of the day, including around the time of the killing, the lawyer said.

A Seminole County grand jury will convene April 10 on the matter, State Attorney Norm Wolfinger said in a statement.

Martin's family said they believe race was a factor in his death, fueling an outcry in the racially mixed community 16 miles northeast of Orlando.

CNN has made numerous attempts to contact Zimmerman but has been unsuccessful. His father, Robert Zimmerman, told a Florida newspaper that Zimmerman had moved after receiving death threats.

Zimmerman's family has denied that race played a role, saying he has many minority relatives and friends.

Zimmerman, 28, is a part-time student at Seminole State College, according to the school. He was married in 2007.

"The portrayal of George Zimmerman in the media, as well as the series of events that led to the tragic shooting, are false and extremely misleading.

Unfortunately, some individuals and organizations have used this tragedy to further their own causes and agendas," his father said in the letter published in the Orlando Sentinel. "George is a Spanish-speaking minority with many black family members and friends.

He would be the last to discriminate for any reason whatsoever. One black neighbor recently interviewed said she knew everything in the media was untrue and that she would trust George with her life.

"Another black neighbor said that George was the only one, black or white, who came and welcomed her to the community, offering any assistance he could provide.

Recently, I met two black children George invited to a social event. I asked where they met George. They responded that he was their mentor.

They said George visited them routinely, took them places, helped them, and taught them things and that they really loved George. The media portrayal of George as a racist could not be further from the truth."

Frank Taaffe, a neighbor and friend of Zimmerman's, told HLN's Jane Velez-Mitchell that his friend was only inquiring about why Martin was in the area, considering that there had been incidents involving young black men in the neighborhood committing crimes.

"Zimmerman is not a racist," he said. "George Zimmerman is a caring man."

Police say they have not charged Zimmerman because they have no evidence to contradict his story that he shot in self-defense.

In a police report, Officer Timothy Smith said Zimmerman said he was "yelling for someone to help me," but the victim's family said it was the teen asking for help.
The shooting has renewed a debate over a controversial state law and sparked calls for a review.

Florida's deadly force law, also called "stand your ground," allows people to meet "force with force" if they believe that they or someone else is in danger of being seriously harmed by an assailant, but exactly what happened in the moments leading up to Martin's death remains unclear.

Zimmerman's father said his son never followed or confronted the teen, but 911 recordings tell a different story.

During the incident, the teen started to run, Zimmerman said.

When Zimmerman said he was following the teenager, the dispatcher told him, "We don't need you to do that."

The case is rooted in one main thing, said Jeffrey Toobin, a senior legal analyst for CNN: "Clearly, the question at the heart of the case is whether Zimmerman reasonably felt threatened. On this issue, the evidence currently seems murky."

Finding other witnesses is crucial because the teen cannot give his side, he said.

State Sen. Oscar Braynon II sent a letter to Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos asking for a review of the stand-your-ground law. Braynon called for a legislative panel to look into how the law has been used and implemented.

"The ultimate goal of such process is to decrease the number of incidents like that of Trayvon's and discourage more individuals from deciding to become vigilantes resulting in more lives lost," Braynon wrote.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he was going to look into the law "because if what's happening is that it's being abused, that's not right."





Trayvon Martin Parents to Attend NYC Million "Hoodie" March


The parents of Trayvon Martin, the Miami Gardens teen fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, are set to attend a march in his honor Wednesday evening in Union Square where supporters will demonstrate for "an end to racial profiling."

NBC News has confirmed that Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin will attend the event being called the Million Hoodie March.

"I feel very honored that New York would do a rally in my son's honor," Tracy Martin told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "It means a lot to me and my family knowing that people across the country, across the world, are coming together to get justice for Trayvon."

Martin, 17, was walking home from a 7-Eleven in Sanford, Fla. on Feb. 26 when he was shot dead by a neighborhood watch volunteer who had called police and reported a "real suspicious guy" wearing a hoodie.

Martin was found dead, unarmed, with a bag of Skittles and an iced tea.

The neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, claims he acted in self-defense and has not been arrested. The Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation and a local grand jury is set to meet next month to consider evidence in the case.

Police said Zimmerman is white; his family says he is Hispanic.

His parents appeared Wednesday on the "TODAY" show and said their child had been frightened for his life because he was being followed by Zimmerman.

"He was on his way home. He had every right to have on his hoodie. It was raining. Why not put on his hoodie to prevent getting wet?" his father said on "TODAY."

The march planned for Wednesday is part of a social media event calling for Martin's supporters nationwide to upload photos of themselves wearing hoodies and use the hashtag #millionhoodies. See some of those photos here.

"A black person in a hoodie isn't automatically 'suspicious,'" says the event's Facebook page. "Let's put an end to racial profiling!"

Tracy Martin said he was trying to stay strong on Wednesday.

"I don't feel this is the time to break down, even though it's a very troubling time in my life," he said. "I've told myself, when I get justice for Trayvon, then I'll have my time to break down."


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Texas Voting Rights Fight Another Bush vs Gore Legal Battle? Deja' Vu!

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Texas Uses Voter ID Case To Launch Assault On Voting Rights Act


Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has amended the state’s lawsuit against the federal government over the rejections of their voter ID law to include a direct strike at the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act.

Abbott argues in the amended complaint that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, amended by Congress in 2006, “exceeds the enumerated powers of Congress and conflicts with Article IV of the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment.”

“For the Department of Justice to now contend that Texas cannot implement its voter ID law denies Texas the ability to do what other states can rightfully exercise under the Constitution,” Abbott said in a statement.

While several courts have dealt with challenges to the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act — which forces certain states with a history of racial discrimination to have their election laws precleared by either the federal government or in a D.C. court — Texas’ challenge is the most prominent. Law professor Rick Hasen thinks there’s at least a chance the Supreme Court could hear the case before the November election.

“It is really late in the SCOTUS term. So maybe this does not make it to SCOTUS before adjournment in June. But if Texas wants to use its voter id law in November, the Court could well take it up even in September, before the usual October start of the Court term,” Hasen writes.


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