The Race And Social Justice Problem And The David Ignatius Syndrome

I recently watched David Ignatius, Washington Post Associate editor and columnist, on “Morning Joe,” paying tribute to “his friend,” African American Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates. It immediately raised the question, what did he do or not do during that infamous Gates, Crowley, Obama affair? This was the case in which, Professor Gates was arrested by Sgt. Crowley after “breaking” into his own home. President Obama, in a nationally televised press conference and in response to a question asked by Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times Washington bureau chief, said the police had “acted stupidly” by arresting Gates “for breaking into his own home.” With that statement by Obama, it was “Show-time and game-on” as the whole nation watched.

With the public criticism of the police officer by President Obama, in this case involving race, it became a historic revelation moment to see if the black President could legitimately criticize an obvious illegal police action involving race. The question being, would the integrated news media react fairly or do what they traditionally do in cases involving race, which is to defer to law enforcement in race matters. It’s not unusual for the news media to knowingly cover-up police misconduct when race is involved, which is exactly what happened in this case.

Old Racist Mainstream News Media Habits Are Hard To Break

At the conclusion of the press conference, along with the whole nation, we had a front-row seat watching press support of the police cover-up unfold in this race case. However, even though the press and police cover-up was there for all to see, most Americans missed this racial travesty that occurred right before our proverbial eyes. In our case, being aware of the news media tradition of supporting the police in race matters, we documented the whole press and police racist travesty in “The Big Cover-Up” video. Otherwise, this racist seminal moment would have been buried in the big stockpile of another racial injustice the press and police got away with.

Interestingly, David Ignatius is also a spy novelist, indicating how unlikely it is he didn’t recognize the blatant racist injustice involving the President and his “friend Professor Gates.” When I think of an analogous situation where the forces in play are so powerful a friend dare not speak up while seeing his pal being abused, it must be like being a white person in the crowd and silently watching your black friend being lynched.

Another Example of The David Ignatius Syndrome

The Chris Hayes “Handle The Truth” video tells yet another story of a high profile person in the mainstream news media like David Ignatius who seems to want to do the right thing. However, Chris also apparently adhered to the editorial policy of the integrated mainstream news media of supporting the police in race matters. Chris Hayes appears to be a genuine racial crusading liberal Caucasian host on MSNBC, who holds periodic televised townhall meetings on race and social justice. However, when confronted with the blatant racial bias in the integrated mainstream news media, here are the facts as they unfolded.

As seen in the “Handle The Truth” video (above), Chris Hayes was incredulous to learn that the Chicago mainstream news organizations refused to cover the Homan Square black sites operated over a ten year period. This is where police reportedly secretly detained, interrogated and tortured thousands of black Americans at this facility. Despite civil rights attorneys and activists complaining to the news media, they refused to cover the story for years until it was exposed by “The Guardian,” a British news organization.  The ultimate question is did Chris Hayes follow up with an exposé. He only stumbled on the key to the persistent race and social justice problem, which is the mainstream news media complicity with police in race matters. biggest race and social justi on the after being shocked learning of the Chicago news media supporting illegal racists police activity for years? The reality is he did not follow up on the revelation but he continues to hold town hall meetings.

LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD

We have every justification to address the last remaining institutional racial inequality that few are even aware it exists and definitely not aware that it’s at the heart of the long-standing unsolved race and social justice problem. 46 million African Americans – spending $1.2 trillion annually – are without national news media representation. This means the most visible, vilified race in the nation, African Americans, are without the most effective accountability imposing apparatus we can ill afford to be without. It also means we are not using our power effectively. This is a longstanding racial inequality that only we seem to be aware of its existence and is therefore up to us to fix, a responsibility we have fully embraced.

Only We Can Rescue Ourselves

However, the significance of this news media inequality will not be fully appreciated unless it’s learned how the integrated mainstream news media has been engaging in their racist practices undetected and unopposed. We must raise awareness of the news media’s role and our total vulnerability.

Let’s stipulate that all the prominent national news media people were all over this story and saw Sgt. Crowley’s lies exposed in his 911 recording. This was due to Fox News’ Greta Van Susteran and CNN’s Anderson Cooper initially giving the story straight forward coverage before their respective news organizations apparently put them in check. Neither Cooper nor Van Susteran followed up on their “breaking news” scoops, which signaled the cover-up was at work providing us with our “Perry Mason” moment exposing the cover-up. Despite the entire news media being aware of the 911 call, no one in the integrated mainstream news media chose to speak up once the cover-up commenced, which was completed with that infamous White House “Beerfest.”

You Don’t Have To Be A Racist To Engage In Racist Practices

We’ re showing aspects of the mainstream news media racial bias in action, which required news people to subordinate their journalistic integrity when it comes to press and police complicity in race matters. David Ignatius is our “poster-boy” for this racists practice because we saw him pay homage to his friend Professor Gates ten years later. But who was not heard from during Professor Gates’ high-profile news media supported police cover-up.

However, along with David Ignatius, there are countless journalists, reporters, and political columnists in a profession that defines itself as truth-seekers and tellers. They all likely saw the travesty unfold and went with the “unwritten rule” in the news media of police infallibility in race matters. For instance, does anyone believe this sham got past Rachael Maddow who uncovers at least one government scandal rivaling the discovery of the “Dead Sea Scrolls” every week? Few if any in the news media, have plausible deniability in this case because they were all tuned in on the first racial controversy, of the first black President, in his first year in office. Nevertheless, no one uttered a mumbling word and nothing shows our vulnerability as a race better than seeing a few of these news people who were around and silent allowing this travesty to take place.

An Opportunity To Remain Part Of The Problem Or Support The Solution?

Troubling was seeing an exchange a couple of years after that injustice, between Angela Mitchel and Joe Scarborough referring back to the Crowley Gates affair as a lesson from which Obama should have learned. The two were discussing how he should deal with a current racial incident. It showed they had accepted the manipulated version of that Crowley Gates affair as the historical truth.

The whole MSNBC line-up, Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist, Rachael Maddow, Chris Mathews and Brian Williams all hosted shows at the time of this Gates Crowley travesty and certainly saw the Sgt. Crowley 911- call versus his police report, including Chuck Todd and David Gregory who were White House reporters. Anderson Cooper and Greta Van Susteran have their own stories to tell on why they failed to follow up on their own scoops exposing Sgt. Crowley’s false police report. Add John King to the CNN roster. It strains credulity to think all of the above along with the rest of the news media missed this travesty. Nevertheless, here is this rare opportunity for an honorable response from those in the news media to help right a longstanding wrong of which they have been participants wittingly or unwittingly.

We are offering those in the news media, who wittingly or unwittingly went along with that injustice and others, the opportunity to support this obvious solution. There is a whole new generation of journalists unaware of their having been indoctrinated into this racist tradition and practice of deferring to police in race matters. “The Big Cover-Up” video is required viewing for those who want to learn how the news media is at the heart of the unsolved race and social justice problem. The list of news people posted here are being sent the link to this David Ignatius Syndrome posting and the “Racists Quotient” test.

THE SOLUTION AND HOW WE WILL MAKE IT HAPPEN

The launch of our all-inclusive 24-7 national cable news television network will give black Americans national news media representation for the first time in history. It’s spearheaded by our $50,000 minimum “GoFundMe” www.usathisweek.com campaign to produce the pilot. Once produced, with corporate commercials showing it to be a sound business concept, it will be streamed nationally via YouTube. Included in streaming the pilot will be our “People Power” capitalization concept: One million shares offered at $200 a share with no individual allowed more than five shares. This allows us to raise $200 million to launch our 24-7 all-inclusive national cable news television network and 24-7 on-line news magazine with a potential opening viewership of a million partner/owners/ viewers.

“All-inclusive” is the key – meaning we are not going to continue marginalizing ourselves by being a 24-7 black national cable news television network version of Jet, Ebony or BET. Our all-inclusive enlightened editorial philosophy will cover the same national news but include the issues, interests, and concerns of black Americans, This gives us a competitive advantage over the major news organizations. Most important, we will include accountability where it has never been.

(GoFundMe Participation Can Be Anonymous If You Choose )