On 07/14/09 07:15, Warp wrote:
>    In the case of NABJ, some of their principles are misguided and present
> that problem. For instance:
>
>    "Strengthening ties among black journalists": Us vs. them.

	I tend to disagree. If you're a group that is consistently 
discriminated against, it will help greatly if that group gets together 
and is organized.

	Often, oppressed groups are quite fractured, and this is trying to make 
it less so.

>    "Sensitizing all media to the importance of fairness in the workplace
> for black journalists": Note that it's "black journalists", not "all
> journalists, regardless of such unimportant matters as skin color".

	One black journalist in an organization. He gets discriminated against. 
NABJ comes and talks about fairness for journalists. They proceed to 
point out that all their other journalists are doing fine, and so that 
black journalist must be the problem.

	"Look, we have all these minority journalists who work here and they 
don't have any complaints!"

	Let's look at it from another angle. Instead of stopping where you did, 
why not just an organization that "sensitizes all media to the 
importance of fairness in the workplace for all employees".

	In other words, becoming employee centric rather than just focusing on 
journalists. Wouldn't that be even better?

>    "Increasing the number of black journalists in management positions
> and encouraging black journalists to become entrepreneurs": This sounds
> like racial profiling.

	No - not unless they simply insist that black people have to be at 
their positions regardless of qualifications.

	It may well be that they're pushing their own members to perform better 
and work harder so that they can get into those positions. And then 
it'll be easier for them to fix any racial problems that may exist.

	With all these statements, one can look at it either way. It all boils 
down to how they're actually going about doing this.

>    As long as things like these are considered "good", racism will never be
> eradicated.

	After seeing a lot of problems (be they race related, or ethnicity 
related, or profession related, or religion related), I'm actually quite 
convinced that the first and most important step towards fighting it is 
for the oppressed group to organize and band together. That's what 
they're doing.

-- 
For Sale: Parachute. Only used once, never opened, small.

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