Days Of Absence

Social scientists hastily convened a high level confab this weekend to study a recurring phenomenon that threatens to take the shine off Pittsburgh's lustrous reputation as a city on the rise.

The sociologists, ever fond of jargon that will enable them to craft complicated descriptions of simple facts, have dubbed the phenomenon "ebena evanesca," (sometimes reduced to "the E2 problem") which roughly translates into "disappearing black people."

To put the matter simply, when journalists or other media representatives turn their eyes upon Pittsburgh to seek out what makes the city special, black people consistently disappear from view. The resulting media coverage therefore makes the city appear even whiter than it is.

In a time when corporations and government bodies alike take every opportunity to highlight their progress in fostering diversity, such white-bread presentations of Pittsburgh may well make it less of a destination for the 20,000 new residents that Mayor Bill Peduto wants to attract here.

But the presentations persist.

ITEM: In April 2012, Details magazine ran a feature about East Liberty that somehow portrayed the neighborhood with no black people. 

Details is a national publication; their story essentially told the world, "East Liberty is soooooo cool - and there ain't no black folk there!"

All of the black people who do live and/or work in East Liberty? POOF!

ITEM: In March, 2014, Pop City published a list titled, "Sixteen Pittsburgh social media mavens to follow." There were no black people on that list, despite there being a bunch of black people in Pittsburgh whom a bunch of people (not all black!) consider to be worth following.

So, Pittsburgh's black digerati? POOF! POOF!

Now, TIME Magazine has produced a video about Pittsburgh's comeback, titled "Pittsburgh: The Comeback," in which they talk about the whole steel-to-eds-and-meds story that many of us could probably recite in our sleep.

Except that we won't get asked to, even when we're awake. And by "we," this time, I do mean black people, because for this 10-minute video, TIME magazine only spoke with white guys (or at least, we only see white guys speaking. Maybe they spoke with some black people but edited them out?).

So, black people who might have useful/interesting things to say about Pittsburgh's transformation? POOF!

Wait, it gets better: even when the video acknowledges the realities of segregation and racial disparities in Pittsburgh, they didn't even find a black person to say anything about that. POOF! POOF, POOF!

The confab was convened in response to the video, said University of Pittsburgh sociologist Dr.Thomas Foolery.

"It seems obvious that, as the song says, there's something happening here - but what it is ain't exactly clear," Dr Foolery said. "When media appear, black people disappear, en masse, in a day of absence that would make Douglas Turner Ward shiver, exercising a collective invisibility beyond Ralph Ellison's imaginings."

Dr. Foolery is conducting "a longitudinal study that attempts to determine whether black people circumnavigate and perambulate around media representatives whenever they appear, or whether media representatives do their own circumnavigation and perambulation."

Meanwhile, it is worth noting that TIME, in fact, accomplished a trifecta - as NEXTpittsburgh noted - by simultaneously excluding people of color, women, AND anyone under 40 as interviewees in "Pittsburgh: The Comeback."

The high point of the video for Dr. Foolery and his colleagues will undoubtedly come at the 8:30 mark, when Douglas Heuck, editor of Pittsburgh Quarterly and director of Pittsburgh Today, says, "Pittsburgh ranks at or near the top of all sorts of quality of life measures across the U.S." - while a slide appears of an article with the headline "Behind The Times: The Limited Role of Minorities in the Greater Pittsburgh Workforce."

And the beat goes on.

One Death, Two Deaths, A Deep Dark Puzzle

A police dog named Rocco died this week after being stabbed by an assailant. His stabbing, veterinary care, death and memorial service were all prominently featured in local media. I'm not providing links, but people in Pittsburgh will know what I mean; Rocco's story has been everywhere. Non-Pittsburghers, you can search "Rocco K-9 Pittsburgh" to see what I mean.

Perhaps this is a measure of my brokenness, but I have not been able to muster up sympathy, empathy or compassion for Rocco. The reason is that every time I thought of him, my mind refused to stick with the subject, and instead turned to the subject of a woman, a mother of five, pregnant with her sixth and engaged to be married, who was shot to death this week.

Susan Sidney's story grieved me so that I had no sympathy/empathy/compassion left for Rocco. Her family and friends are the ones that I have prayed for, not those who knew Rocco. More than that, I have grown increasingly perplexed this week as so many other people - who, like me, did not know either Rocco or Ms. Sidney - have demonstrated so much more concern for a police dog than for a person.

Again, this may indicate a flaw in my character, but I cannot comprehend how the extensiveness of the coverage and the outpouring of public feeling for Rocco have dwarfed those for Susan Sidney. How can Rocco have been the subject of four stories in the Post-Gazette this week, not counting an editorial ("Heroic Rocco: The killing of a police dog calls for justice"), and Susan Sidney the subject of one?

Perhaps one day my powers of reason will enable me to understand. But today, the fact that a "Justice for Rocco" Facebook page has gained nearly 50,000 likes in less than 48 hours does not break my heart - the news about Susan Sidney did that - it breaks my brain. 

Racism (or something like it) in the media - 1

I don't often think about race on my own.

When I say "on my own," I mean that most often when I do think about race, it is because some external circumstance has called it to mind.

That happens more often than I would dare count. This week it has happened twice regarding the realm of media.

The first time was Sunday, when I saw the cover of this week's issue of Newsweek:

I tweeted my response: "Really, Newsweek? In 2012, a blond, blue-eyed Jesus? Really??"

That's all I could think of to say in the moment. The more I thought about it, the more I came to view the Newsweek cover as not just passe, but as scary. Newsweek, you see, is in the business of being smart. No news organization does well by being perceived as stupid. They are smart enough to know that the image of a blond, blue-eyed Jesus lost credibility and cultural currency at least 30 years ago, and even a half-century ago for some Americans.

But they chose that image anyway, knowing not only how culturally out of step it is, but also knowing full well how unlikely it is on a purely historical basis that any 1st Century Israelite looked anything like this.

This is the kind of thing that makes people charge the media with racism. And in this case, I would add, an arrogance that goes beyond racism, that says, "We know this is wrong in multiple ways, and we don't care."

It also made me keep my money in my wallet. The cover title, "Forget the Church - Follow Jesus," was interesting enough so that I might have read the article. But I wasn't going to spend my money on that image. No way.

The second time this week that a media outlet made me think about race was just a little while ago, when my friend Kilolo Luckett emailed me the link to an article in Details magazine about East Liberty. It's a slick little piece titled, "The Rust Belt Revival: What's Happening in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."

The article made me think about race because Details has apparently discovered an East Liberty with no Black people. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Within a relatively short space, it presents five photos of people and places in East Liberty without a melanin-rich person in sight. (And by the way, that also includes  - or rather, excludes - anybody who looks like they might be Indian, Middle Eastern...you know, anything but...well...white.)

Most astonishingly, it does this while presenting a chunk of text titled, "Hip-Hop's Next Hit Makers." And who would those be? A couple of white guys who, the article seems to make clear, are the real force behind Wiz Khalifa's success. (No, no, no, Wiz is not pictured. What did I just tell you?)

In similar fashion, the article opens with a look at the Waffle Shop, which opened in 2009 - but the Shadow Lounge, which I believe has been around for at least a decade, is relegated to a footnote.

Do I need to say that the Waffle Shop's proprietor is white, and the Shadow Lounge's, Black?

I don't want to believe that the folks at Details are racist, but I also can't believe that they are immensely stupid. So what can you call it when a high-end magazine does something like that? If it's not racism or stupidity or both, then what the heck is it?

The only other word that comes to mind is delusion. The only way that I can think of for something like this to happen, without the people behind it being either racist or stupid, is if they truly perceive the world as a place in which black people either do not exist or exist so tangentially that we do not matter. And if, in fact, one has largely lived in such a world, such a delusion may be natural - even inevitable.

So, with that stretching of the imagination, I give Details something of a pass. Meaning that while I won't buy the current issue (not that I usually do), I also won't get overly mad at 'em (certainly not as mad as I would if I were a hip-hop fan, and especially a Wiz Khalifa fan).

But if a local outfit that knows better the truth about East Liberty (I'm looking at you, Post-Gazette and Tribune-Review) touts the Details article as a good thing, I'm gonna have a conniption.

A new wrinkle in publishing?

This book caught my eye while Janet and I were at the supermarket last night:

What got my attention was neither the author's name nor the title; what got my attention was the line at the bottom: "Author's Cut Special Edition."

I experienced a confused rush of responses: "Whoa. Author's Cut? Never saw that term before! But I think I know what it means. But does it even make sense? Are books now being treated like DVDs?"

Of course, DVDs (and VHS tapes before them), led to movies being treated like books - as things that you can experience in chunks, starting and stopping and even backing up as you will. So books being treated like DVDs would only be fair. Even if a little weird.

A glance at the back cover confirmed my suspicion about what "Author's Cut" means:

"With an additional 100 pages of new material...Experience Dark Prince as it was always meant to be!"

So this book was previously published, and now is being republished?

Yep:

Wait. Is HarperCollins saying, "We screwed it up the first time?"

Nah. But at the very least, they are saying, "We think we can get more mileage out of this sucker."

But of course, the real question is, "Will readers buy it?"

If they do, in sufficient numbers, other publishers may follow HarperCollins' lead, and the term "Author's Cut" may become commonplace. Books have always been subject to updates and special editions, but the term "Author's Cut" brings a whole new flavor to the act of republishing old material.

I am curious. I find myself imagining a conversation with Christine Feehan in which she explains how this whole "Author's Cut" thing came about. 

Hey, HarperCollins, how about putting that in the next edition: the "making of" featurette! 

And while you're at it, throw in a blooper reel.

The Economic Policy Institute, a D.C.-based think tank with the slogan, "Research for Broadly Shared Prosperity," issues "Economic Snapshots" on a regular basis that provide a quick look at some aspects of the nation's economy. The July 23 snapshot noted that the federal minimum wage, due to increase on July 24 from $5.85 an hour to $6.55, is still less than the minimum in 23 states and the District, and that a full-time worker at that wage still earns below the poverty line for a household of two.

Hm. Should wages, for some jobs, be tied to household size? Probably not. Wages should reflect the value of the work.

Still, it does seem that almost any job worth doing should be worth more than $6.55 an hour. That's only $13,624 a year.

Life at that income level is so painful. Every little thing is a problem.

*******************
I went to Chicago last week for Unity. There was much attention given to blogging and other aspects of digital-age journalism. Before the conference, there was a workshop on "Diversity in the Digital Age," which I would have liked to have attended.

Oh, well. Can't have everything. Yet.

Poynter Online has an interview with Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-TV News Directors Association (RTNDA) in response to their report that both radio and television have seen increases in their percentage of minorities in staff and management. One of the questions was, "What advice do you have for the print side?" Part of Ms. Cochran's answer:

"One avenue for newspapers as well as radio and television stations to pursue is the increased participation of citizen journalists through Web sites and interactive media. This represents a new source of talent that comes from the community and that could bring in a much greater diversity of voices."

Some folks in the business fear that citizen journalists might sully their brand; I fear that they might be exploited by media outlets that are all too happy to have them work for free.

********************************
During the centennial meeting of the National Governors Association last week, the nation's governors sent a letter to Congress urging them to extend renewable energy credits for at least another five years. In the past, the credit has lasted only two or three years, causing companies to shy away from building create large-scale projects such as wind farms, that take a long time to complete.

Will the governors' letter get Congress off the dime? We'll see.