Issue: 43
May 22, 2003
Guest Commentary
The Blair Affair: A Punishing Bias
Guest Commentator
Whether or not Jayson Blair’s ascent at the Times was due to race is the latest post-911 media preoccupation. To be sure, the theory that race was responsible for his rise was buttressed by executive editor Howell Raines, who suggested that his southern white guilt may have been a factor in his willingness to forgive…
Whether or not Jayson Blair's ascent at the Times was due to race is the latest post-911 media preoccupation. To be sure, the theory that race…
Continue reading 8 min
Commentary
Permanent War and “The Color Line”
Guest Commentator
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line – the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.” – W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, February, 1903. A young William Edward Burghardt DuBois wrote those words…
"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line - the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia…
Continue reading 14 min
Guest Commentary
Fault Blair and The Times, Not Affirmative Action
Guest Commentator
The Jayson Blair debacle has race all in it, but not in the simplistic sense recently suggested by anti-civil rights types such as William McGowan or liberals who choose to ignore the racial subplot. If we are willing to face the fact that Mr. Blair was taking the place of another qualified journalist – whether…
The Jayson Blair debacle has race all in it, but not in the simplistic sense recently suggested by anti-civil rights types such as William McGowan or…
Continue reading 7 min
Commentary
Blair/NYT reader response – e-MailBox
Guest Commentator
There are many layers to affirmative action, alluvial deposits left by The Great Crime: slavery. In our exceptionally well circulated May 15 Cover Story, “The Jayson Blair – New York Times Affair: Affirmative action blamed for white folks’ mistakes,” we wrote: When we first encountered the NYT-Blair affair, we recoiled; it had that musty smell…
There are many layers to affirmative action, alluvial deposits left by The Great Crime: slavery. In our exceptionally well circulated May 15 Cover Story, "The Jayson…
Continue reading 21 min
Commentary
Bush cuts deeper into affirmative action – The Issues
Guest Commentator
Buried in the pages of an obscure White House statement on energy policy are 50 words that reveal the Bush men’s actual affirmative action policy: they oppose all programs that can be interpreted as providing special benefits to minorities. The four-page “Statement of Administration Policy,” or SAP, raises red flags on three programs scheduled for…
Buried in the pages of an obscure White House statement on energy policy are 50 words that reveal the Bush men's actual affirmative action policy: they…
Continue reading 5 min