As a cultural psychologist and diversity expert, I am in both heaven and hell in this historical period of American politics. In fact, I am in the midst of writing the book, The Cream Always Rises to the Top: Leading a Culturally Diverse Nation in the Twenty First Century, as fast as I can to beat the start of the political party conventions. Yet, I felt compelled to stop for a moment to write this article after hearing Lou Dobbs’ interview with Shelby Steele about Barack Obama’s speech on race relations. Lou is threatening to have a race relations dialog on his CNN show. Any media coverage of race he does will likely be so inept that the country will be torn apart at least temporarily. So, I must write this blog to impart some wisdom before getting back to a more substantive analysis and interpretation of cultural identity in America’s current political atmosphere.
Why am I concerned about media coverage of race relations? I have two reasons. One is that media tends to create more problems than solutions when covering race relations. Journalists must take a stand as Dobbs demonstrates in interviewing Shelby Steele independent of a panel of experts with different viewpoints. A study I conducted a few years ago shows how the media gets it wrong in covering race relations (http://www.dtui.com/bio_billy.html). I analyzed three southern California newspaper coverage of the trial of Sagon Penn, a young African American male who shot and killed one San Diego police officer and wounded the backup officer. While his acquittal after two trials is a race relations story of its own, my focus was on the prominent messages the two year media coverage conveyed about the story. Previous research in European countries indicated that the media tends to reproduce negative stereotypes about “ethnic minorities” in covering stories about them. I wanted to find out if a similar coverage occurs in the U.S. media.
Since most people read the headline more often than the body of the story, I sorted the headlines in thematic categories across the three papers over the two year period. Not surprisingly, the media primarily used negative stereotypes about young black males in characterizing the Sagon Penn incident. This was true over the two-year period even after the evidence became overwhelmingly clear that it was a case of “Driving While Black” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_While_Black) that motivated the police to stop the young man’s vehicle.
The second problem with media coverage of race relations is that it takes the focus off the real issues. Racial tension in America is a symptom of larger identity group politics that play out in group competition within a culture of hierarchical intergroup relations. Lou interviewed Shelby Steele alone because doing so allows him to impress his views about race on the audience. Using a fellow conservative to discuss race relations offers the appearance of different points of view because Steele looks a black American. To his network’s credit, Lou did interview another African American the next day or so. He told his guest that he would be given the last word and proceeded to cut him off shortly afterwards to disagree with a statement that was being made.
In contrast to falling into a neat racial category, Obama’s bi-racial identity makes it easier for him to take different racial perspectives. We know from social science research that it is easier to take the viewpoint of those with whom we share group membership. The ”you are either black or white”racial point of view shared by Lou and even liberal journalists will likely lead to discussions about race with little substance apart from getting people to take an emotional stand. Their need to prove that their point of view is more superior will reproduce the race relations dilemma that limits thoughtful discussion. It is unimportant that Shelby Steele is also bi-racial from Dobbs’. What matters is that he is a conservative and looks black.
I am an expert in getting a diverse group of people to work through difficult discussions about race. Believe me the skill did not come easy, so you can anticipate that 99% of journalists will get caught up in their own emotional baggage rather than lead a balanced and insightful discussion needed to get the country to the next level.
For the remainder of this blog, I will argue that Americans are currently in an identity crisis, which is more important to understand than the poor race relations symptom. Then I will give Lou and other journalists a few tips for facilitating race relations dialog because I know that they can’t help but go with a juicy story than a more meaningful one. It is a dangerous thing to give a list of suggestions because naive readers will no doubt think they “get it” from my sound bites. The result is that they will likely create even more problems. But, I am in the business of training executive level diversity management skills and I feel obligated as an American to offer my expertise whenever possible. In fact, this is a great example of the utility of diversity training contrary to popular media coverage (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/01/19/ST2008011901990.html).
The racial stuff in the presidential campaign started with the brief gender versus race controversy sparked by media coverage of Geraldine Ferraro and some feminists who raised the question of whether Obama was being coddled by the media because he is African American (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqL_sm0J8jc). Their concerns are legitimate, but their assertions suggest that a high stakes competitive race between a woman and man is not the time to make nice and that playing the race card is fair game even for presumed liberals in intergroup competition. After all, only one of the two candidates can win the party’s nomination, and getting either of them in the White House will make history. It is truly a historic moment just having a white female and African American male as serious contenders, but we just might take our country politically backwards in terms of race relations without competent leadership in the oval office.
Governor Bill Richardson stated that among the reasons he endorses Barack Obama for the presidency is that they both are products of a foreign parent and lived abroad during childhood. Obama is able to get young Americans to vote in record numbers because American youth can identify with him more than Hillary and John McCain. We favor people who share our view of the world more than how much we share racially. Richardson and Obama share a unique perspective as American leaders. They can take a multi-racial and multi-national view of American leadership. No longer can we afford cowboy or southern liberal leadership. It simply will not suffice in our changing world.
An example that stresses my point further is taken from Studs Terkel’s two sets of interviews twenty years apart with Americans on the topic of race (The Great Divide: Second Thoughts on the American Dream 1998, http://www.studsterkel.org/). The example I love to give is about the change in attitude a white male with a history of allegiance to the Ku Klux Klan and an African American female anti-Klan community activist had towards each other in the second interview twenty years later. The change in attitudes took place after the two were encouraged to work together on a race relations team to combat intolerance in their community. The working class Klan member’s incentive was getting paid for his involvement and the African American woman was happy to receive the money and feel part of solving the community’s race relations problems. During their close contact they learned how much they had in common and discovered that the local leadership was using pitting lower class whites and the black community against each other to take attention off their race relations leadership incompetence. In other words, the two individuals discovered their common identity.
I must confess that I think identity politics is also a symptom of a larger problem. We are a society that has not had to come together as Americans. The result is that what it means to be an American varies across class, race, gender, ability, sexual orientation, and a host of other ways in which we have decided to identify ourselves distinctively in the world. But, I think that focusing on identity politics will get us much further than naive discussions of race relations.
“Black” conservatives are finally getting back into the spotlight with Obama on the hot seat about race. They are also a good example of identity politics. Do African American conservatives identify more with their race or conservative Republicans? I predict that the poll will show that many African Americans and white conservative Republicans will both state that political identity is the defining category for this group. I further predict that the African Americans will base their response on not sharing conservative political views with the much smaller group of black conservatives. White Republicans will focus on the conservative ideology they share. If you tease the results out by class differences, gender,and sexual orientation, I predict that identity will account for how people respond.
I am not the first to emphasize identity politics. Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson stated that the politics of identity has turned inward as Democrats struggle with navigating the unfamiliar terrain of choosing between nominating a white female or an African American male to represent their party—given that both are equally capable (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/02/democrats_and_the_politics_of.html). Our white female-African American presidential candidate predicament offers just the right conditions for identity politics to take center stage. The problem is that most of us are like Lou Dobbs. We want to concentrate on race relations, which is a symptom of the problem, because it is a juicy story and we can get emotionally self righteous. That’s the American dilemma and I am afraid it will get very messy before too long if Lou Dobbs gets into the mix.
The American people deserve and sorely need high level discussions about race relations. If you must move into the diversity experts’ territory, Lou, then at least mind your manners by considering the following. My nearly 30 years of teaching and training cultural diversity suggest that the audience benefits from a facilitator that practices the following:
- Avoid taking sides—be the facilitator, rather than the messenger. The journalist who is too wrapped up in her or his ego to work on behalf of public good is doing a disservice and more public harm than good.
- Always have a panel of at least three “experts” with a range of viewpoints about race relations. All too often the Democrat versus Republican dichotomy gets center stage.
- Avoid sound bites. At least stick with one topic or idea, rather than have a “free for all” that gets people wound up without a safety valve. But, maybe getting people so angry that they start hating each other is so newsworthy that you don’t mind irresponsibly contributing to maintaining America’s poor race relations.
- Be aware of your own biases about race BEFORE facilitating the dialog. I know most of us think we are liberal and tolerant, but the research evidence is clear—we tend to hold liberal values, while our intercultural skills are barbaric (http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/07-103.pdf).
- Try your best to empathize with viewpoints that oppose your own. This is the key to critical thinking yet most of us fail at miserably. If you want to be an out of the box journalist, try empathetic and compassionate interviewing and dialoging. It is a transformative experience that will turn your journalistic insight upside down for the better.
I have a list of other suggestions, but I think this is more than enough to deal with as a start. My experience indicates that Americans are desperate to talk about their differences and their identity is the most important thing they want others to understand. Race relations will progress in this country with or without the help of the media. Look at how far we have progressed given the limited media competence in making it happen. Journalists can both do their job well and be responsible citizens in healing long standing animosity and deep wounds across identity groups with good facilitation skills based on compassion.
Billy E. Vaughn, PhD is a certified diversity professional who trains and coaches executives. His clients include organizations across sectors, such as the Central Intelligence Agency, Qualcomm Inc., Costco, Goodwill Industries, and the European Central Bank. Learn more about him at http://www.dtui.com.
Become a Certified Diversity Professional by May 12, 2008. Learn more at http://www.dtui.com/conferences.html
