Roundtable: 'Other' Ethnic Choices, WB-UPN Merger

ED GORDON, host:

This is NEWS AND NOTES, I'm Ed Gordon. On today's Roundtable, are employers hiring Latinos over African-American workers, and what the new CW Network means for black programming. Joining us today to discuss these topics and more; from our New York Bureau, Robert George, editorial writer at the New York Post. Also with us, George Curry, editor-in-chief of the National Newspapers Association News Service, and from the studios of Harvard University, Callie Crossley, social and cultural commentator on the television show Beat the Press, which is seen in Boston and that surrounding area. I thank you all for joining us.

One of the things we want to get into is an interesting story coming out of the University of Florida, and that is that employees of that University have to pledge that they're having sex with their domestic partners before qualifying for benefits under a new healthcare plan at the University. This was put in place, critics suggest, because the partners of both heterosexual and homosexual employees are eligible for his coverage, and what they're suggesting is, beyond declaring joint financial obligations, George Curry, you have to show that you are in a true union with a person in order to get these benefits. I guess the thought is that they want to stave off those who would just join together, say we were partners, in order to get the coverage.

Mr. GEORGE CURRY (Editor-in-chief, National Newspapers Association News Service): I think the language they use is non-platonic, and of course, I think I'm all, I'm for more sex, certainly, but you don't hold this requirement for married couples, so I don't think you should have this same requirement for partners here that you don't have in a married couple. Now of course the goal here is to try to make sure they're a committed relationship, and not just roommates, and of course that's hard to do. But when you're putting out a million dollars a year, you've got to try to verify as much as you can.

GORDON: Hard to do Robert George, but almost impossible in the sense that the University says, and they realize, there's no real way of policing this.

Mr. ROBERT GEORGE (Associate editorial page editor, New York Post): Well, that's exactly right. It's, talk about the horrors of, you know, people trying to actually police people in their bedroom. The irony of this situation is, I mean, obviously as a conservative I don't like this idea of the government being intrusive; the irony, however, is that many social conservatives have raised concerns about the idea of domestic partnerships as they do also with civil unions as opposed to gay marriage because of this exact thing. They say, well, why can't two sisters declare that they are domestic partners and get these same kinds of benefits? So, from a legal aspect, it's kind of the logical conclusion of trying to create an alternative legal union recognition.

GORDON: What, Callie, of the thought that many are suggesting that this is Orwellian, if you will, and just one step closer to Big Brother watching your bedroom?

Ms. CALLIE CROSSLEY (Television and documentary producer): Well, this is absolutely true, but I had a couple of thoughts first. There's a lot of married people not having sex. Now what?

GORDON: They need to be checked out too!

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. CROSSLEY: I think you're down a slippery slope when you start this. And of course when we go to the philosophical thing about whether or not a committed relationship really has to be one that is sexual, so, there you go. I think, I don't know how they deal with the fact that this is a, I know this is a serious issue and there's millions of dollars at stake here, but to require that somebody declare that they are having a non-platonic relationship just seems to me to be beyond Orwellian. It seems to be, it's got to be illegal. This is crazy. I just don't, I don't see how this can fly.

Mr. CURRY: Of course the other concern is that this information could end up in the wrong hands. I mean, we've seen all kinds of information out there, and it could be used to, I don't want to say blackmail, I'll say whitemail, of people, or used in some other kind of fashion. So that's another concern as well.

Mr. GEORGE: Well, I mean, but in a sense, though, this often, these kinds of things certainly come up in divorce proceedings. You know, lack of consortium, withholding marital rights, these kind of things, so I, obviously this, it ends up getting into the public sector one way or the other.

Ms. CROSSLEY: That's a different situation though.

GORDON: Alright, but Callie there are going to be those who will say that we'll blowing our horn far too much about this, that you check a box, just say yeah, we're having sex, and you move on.

Ms. CROSSLEY: Well, of course that's what people are going to do, but I thought the discussion here was whether or not this was something that ought to have this language included in it as a matter of course. And I think that's the issue; is it legal? Is that, I don't know if it's legal, but what are we saying if we're requiring that? And that is stepping into people's bedrooms. With regard to what Robert said about the divorce hearings, yes that does come up in divorce hearings but both those parties, they didn't want to be there but they ended up there, and they'll use whatever they need to use for that scenario. This is a situation where people are just trying to get insurance. I think this is really way out of bounds.

GORDON: Alright, talking about checking boxes, we'll move on to another story. This coming out of a California-based James Irvine Foundation that did a study that looked at the idea of that box that says other or unknown when it comes to race. It's being checked by more and more people, and they're actually finding out that more white people are checking that other box. That other has grown from about 3.2 percent to 5.9 percent in terms of the use of that box over the last decade.

There are those who are concerned, Callie, about the idea that this may indeed influence admissions of minorities because some admissions officers have admitted that they assume applicants who checked other were part of a minority group and they count that in their admissions numbers when they are letting students in.

Ms. CROSSLEY: I think that's absolutely right. I have to say this is the first time I've heard of this, maybe you guys had heard of it before, and it's kind of interesting. It speaks to me about, we talk so little in this country about race, about ethnicity, and there's such a vast misunderstanding about it that I think some of the people checking it really don't have a clue, and so they say, well, okay, other.

The information suggests that there are people who are bi-racial who feel as though they don't really fit in either category so they're going to check other. Now, some of the universities have suggested that they have put enough boxes to cover everybody's race on either side, whatever bi-race you may, however you may identify yourself. But still there are folks, and I guess a lot of white people, who feel as though they are, they fit in the other category. And I think that this does leave universities in a quandary if they are trying to do the right thing and make certain that there is a racial and ethnic balance on campus.

GORDON: Robert, there are also others who suggest that whites may be calculating enough to understand that if you check other you may have a better chance of getting in the university, if they have to fill a certain number or a quota of minority applicants.

Mr. GEORGE: Well, and that's, that's exactly right. I mean it's the flip side of the affirmative action game, where, I mean, obviously we can say, America being what it is, you can find somebody, some blue-eyed blond kid on the street who may have some Cherokee in him and all this other kind of stuff, but when they see these options and they realize that certain slots may be reserved, or somebody may look on you a little more strongly if you are a minority, it's, you want to get whatever advantage you can get to get into that institution.

I mean, the irony is, it's kind of, it's the new, it can be the new version of passing. I'm passing now as a member of an undisclosed minority.

Mr. CURRY: Well, Robert, I disagree there with affirmative action and the game. I'm, I hope you didn't mean it seriously. But that is a correlation...

Mr. GEORGE: Not complete, it's not completely though, some people do game it.

Mr. CURRY: Okay, but most people don't, but, there is a direct correlation between the increase, which is almost doubling of people checking this other box, and the drop, as most universities are reporting, of the number of people of color they're admitting. And the reason they're doing it is because whites, like other groups, feel like they've been threatened. And this is their way of really gaming, Robert, this is more of a game than anything else. And it actually hurts people who need to be there.

Mr. GEORGE: Well, it's, you know, I wouldn't, it's calculating, it's calculating. It's not really a game, that they see, and it's, it's certainly logical for them to say, if they perceive that the institution is going to look at them more favorably by perceiving them as a minority, it just makes sense. I don't think it is a game, but it is, it's very, very, it's very, very serious.

Mr. CURRY: Oh, I think it's a game and it's a game they're trying to win. But what's happening, some universities are doing, and I'm glad they're doing this, is contacting their high schools and finding out from their counselor whether this person is in fact white or black. I mean, it's extra work, but it's...

Mr. GEORGE: How can the high school, how can the high school determine if they're an other though?

Mr. CURRY: Because they would've seen them.

Mr. GORDON: No, an other, what is, what it means? I'm sorry Callie, go ahead.

Ms. CROSSLEY: Yeah, but what George said, they would have seen the students and presumably have some information about the students, so that's a way to try and trace back. I think it's important, that's one of the things that some of the universities are thinking about doing, is to go back and just check with those students and say, Okay, why other? I think it might actually begin an interesting dialogue.

I think this is the worst kind of cynicism, and once again, racial dynamics played out in a way that is just hurtful all around.

Mr. GEORGE: They're using the new, in a sense, the whites are using the old one drop rule in their favor there.

GORDON: Right, and I was going to bring that up, George. I mean, if you think about what Callie is suggesting, and if in fact an admissions officer from the university does call the high school or even in fact calls the kid and says, Why'd you check other?, and he says because my great-great-great-grandfather was a Cherokee Indian, even though the rest of us are from Ireland. You know, who then determines what's what?

Mr. CURRY: That's always the problem. And also, you also have people who are bi-racial and don't really feel they fit in either category or they fit in both categories, and that's a legitimate concern.

GORDON: Mm hmm. Well, it's interesting...

Ms. CROSSLEY: My sense is once you check back with him, I think you'll find some of that is, the one-drop thing is probably not the issue. That, that's my (unintelligible).

GORDON: No, probably not the issue.

Ms. CROSSLEY: Right.

GORDON: But as George suggests, the idea of not being able to truly identify with either side and not knowing, we just did an interesting interview that will air soon on the program with a young man whose mother told him that he had a skin disease because he was a product of an interracial liaison that she had prior to getting married and she raised this young man in Ohio in an all-white community. He clearly, in looking at him, is black, but he had been told and believed his entire life, in fact, that he was white and had a skin disease and it wasn't until he reached his 20s that he realized, something ain't right with this picture.

Ms. CROSSLEY: Right, mm-hmm.

GORDON: So it'll be interesting to see as this goes. Talking about the change in face, we may be seeing a change in face in television and that is CBS announced yesterday the consolidation of UPN and the Warner Brothers networks. Warner Brothers and CBS combining to make now the WC network. The thought there was that neither of these entities was being as profitable as they wanted them to be independently. So they are joining forces.

Some people concerned here, Robert George, that UPN really, quite frankly, as a conventional network goes, had been dubbed the black network, because they had a whole lot of black shows on it. The concern in theory is with the consolidation, with the merging. We're not going to see as many African-American faces on television. That is dwindling and dwindling.

Mr. GEORGE: Before they decided to call it CW, they were thinking of calling it You Pick a White Negro Network, but they've, they've, they've backed away from that. Well, I mean, the fact is, on a lot of these, it started with Fox a, several years ago, nearly a decade ago now. And with Warner and UPN, with these other networks, when they first started actually, many of them had African-American-focused programming.

And then when more advertisers came in, they started to lighten up, as it were, quote, unquote. And even UPN, which still has more than the WB, I think that's still there. And I think that's, I think it's a legitimate concern that once it becomes one, you may have the Chris Rock Show stick around and the model show, but otherwise, it may not be.

GORDON: America's Top Model.

Mr. GEORGE: America's Top Model.

(soundbite of laughter).

GORDON: Don't act like you don't watch it. Tivo it every day. Let me ask you this, George Curry, and you and I have talked about this privately. When you take a look at the state of the media today, and you look at black, oh, forget shows being produced, but just the black-owned media, it is an aspect of the horizon that black America really is not taking a look at seriously in terms of not just the want and need to see images like yourself on television, hear them on the radio, see them in magazines, but the power that's wielded by the ability to provide these images.

Mr. CURRY: And you control it. I mean, that's why there's so much concern about BET being sold to Viacom and, you know, and what has happened since then and we'll continue to have this concern and I tell you, the danger though is that we're gonna have more pressure of a mainstream, so-called mainstream corporation buying up ethnic-oriented media because that's where the population growth is.

Ms. CROSSLEY: Absolutely. And it's already happening everywhere. You can look on the newspaper side, and I'm sure George can speak to that, and see where these major media conglomerates are buying up what were grassroots ethnic newspapers. That's a huge trend now. The minute they get some traction, they get bought up. And that's happening across the board in all the media formats. And I think absolutely for certain, you heard it here first, that's the end of black programming as we know it on those networks on the WB and UPN as soon as this merger goes into place.

GORDON: So if in fact that happens, Robert George, if African-Americans don't get on the front end of technology, and that is with the video podcasting that we're seeing, Verizon says that they're going to jump in, the idea of making programming available, television as we know it is going to change over the course of the next couple of decades. But it's whether or not African-Americans are going to really be able to get on that ground floor. Heretofore they've been locked out of it.

Ms. GEORGE: I think that's exactly right. I mean, the idea, the mass marketing model is fading away on a daily basis. And so now, that, the idea of, you know, creating these more targeted technologies so you can microprogram. And the question is, will there be African-Americans who are gonna be getting into that? However, I will say this, though. One thing we shouldn't, the networks are not going to go away overnight.

And if you have a Tyra Banks, if you have a Chris Rock, if you do have some of these really big name African-Americans, they can put their money and clout and still put black-oriented programming on the air.

GORDON: Well, I don't know how true that is in the sense that Tyra Banks just squeaked through with her second season, it being okayed.

Mr. GEORGE: Exactly.

GORDON: And when you talk about combining, you know, even if Chris and Tyra sat down and put their bank accounts together George Curry, it's not gonna match a Fox, it's not gonna match a Viacom. They're going to decide ultimately who gets on the air.

Mr. CURRY: Yes.

Ms. CROSSLEY: And it's a certain kind of programming as well.

Mr. CURRY: AJ Liebling, the press critic said freedom of the press is a guarantee only to those who own one. If you're not the owner, you can't control... Look, what we're witnessing now is a transformation of American society. People will have different ways of getting different programs at different times at ways it'll be convenient and really, quite frankly, almost you can't fathom the kind of changes.

But the way we sit in front of T.V., those days are over. You can get it later, you can get it away from home. You already can do that now. We are very quickly changing our country.

GORDON: Callie, you wanted to say the kinds of programming that we're seeing okayed by these entities.

Ms. CROSSLEY: Yes, I think, absolutely and you mentioned that Tyra just squeaked by but even having said that, that's the kind of programming that is a little bit more acceptable to some of these major conglomerates even though she squeaked by.

GORDON: But that being said, that being said, Callie, you have to have the backing of your audience. And if an audience does not come to bat and really support something that is more dramatic, more newsworthy, more serious, then the networks are not going to put it on. Black or white, they're gonna look at that bottom line.

Ms. CROSSLEY: Well, absolutely. That does not mean to say, however, that there are some other programs that we could all name here that were hanging on by a thread and they got two, three, four, five shots. I mean, again, we're back to the ownership. I did want to mention while we're talking about this that ethnic media is the fastest-growing media in this country. Most of that is print-based at this point.

And that's because folks who are owning their own media are saying, I don't see myself. I think that's going to expand a little bit more across the broadcast format, and particularly online, where folks feel like they can really grab hold and approach a niche market and get the support and get the funding that they need to attract that support.

GORDON: All right.

Ms. CROSSLEY: But people do have to own, you're absolutely right.

GORDON: Callie, you get the last word there. Guys, thanks very much, appreciate it. Robert George, George Curry, Callie Crossley. Next up on News & Notes, we go to Colombia, where the legacy of slavery and discrimination still thrive. Also, we'll get some expert advice on driving from someone who knows best. Farai Chideya talks with a taxi driver.

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