[PEN-L:1370] "Inferior People"

["James Michael Craven" <cravjm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following essay "Inferior People" was taken from "America
Besieged" by Michael Parenti, City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1998

                                  "Inferior People"

For centuries, colonialists have justified their mistreatment of
other peoples by portraying them as lacking ethical, cultural and
political development. If there is turmoil in some part of the Third
World, then the trouble supposedly rests with the people themselves
and not with anything the intruders are doing to them.

In 1973, when the CIA-engineered coup in chile overthrew Salvador
Allende and led to the bloody repression of the Pinochet regime,
'blaming the people' became the media's favorite explanation. CBS
commentator Eric Severeid announced that the Chilean people brought
it on themselves, another Latin American example of 'an instability
so chronic that the root causes have to lie in the nature and culture
of the people.' By way of explaining why Chileans would support
Allende and the Popular Unity government, Bernard Collier wrote in
the 'New York times', 'The Chileans do not believe in facts, numbers
or statistics with the earnest faith of an English speaking people.'
While talking to a correspondent who had just reported on the
rebellion in Tigre, NBC's Tom Brokaw could only think of asking,
'You're in London now, which is one of the most sophisticated and
civilized cities in the world. Do you have much culture shock after
being in that part of Africa?'

During the Cold War years, the Russians were a prime target of
stereotype pronouncements. They were described by one U.S>
correspondent as 'unsmiling', 'rude', and 'unable to look you in the
eye.' A former 'Washington Post' reporter, appearing on ABC's '20/20'
program declared that 'the Russians have a great urge for order. It
is part of their personality.' To which host Barbara Walters
responded that the Russian people lacked 'a sense of responsibility
because they are told what to do and when to do it.' In 1991, at a
time of dramatic transition within the Soviet Union, the 'New York
Times' noted that Russian free-market advocates 'faced the mammoth
task of civilizing their country.'

The Arabs are another people who are treated to a superabundance of
negative stereotypes. A CBS correspondent ended his report on the
Middle East by saying, 'But of course, sound argument has not always
dictated Arab behavior.' 'New York times' columnist Flora Lewis saw
'the Islamic mind' as unable to employ 'step-by-step thinking'. Had
such an assertion been applied to 'the Christian mind' or 'the Hebrew
mind', the 'Times' likely would have rejected it as nonsensical and
bigoted, and rightly so.

The 1990-91 Gulf War waged by the United States against Iraq brought
a wave of anti-Arab stereotypes.(Iraq was an Arab nation but so were
six of the nations allied with Washington.) 'Newsday referred to 'the
treacherous standards of Arab politics.' Judith Miller in the 'New
York Times' claimed that the Gulf Cooperation Council, 'in typical
Arab style' made a 'veiled reference' to the presence of U.S. forces
in the Gulf. Miller would never describe an Israeli leader as making
a veiled reference in 'typical Jewish style'. Nor would that be a
proper or correct usage.

'US News and World Report' quoted 'Middle East specialist' Judith
Kipper on the devious nature of the 'Arab mind': 'We go in a straight
line; they zig-zag. They say one thing in the morning, another thing
at night and really mean a third thing.' 'New Republic editor Martin
Perez warned us, 'Nonviolence is foreign to the political culture of
Arabs generally and of the Palestinians particularly.' 'New York
Times' columnist A.M. Rosenthal listen Iranians as Arabs, leaving his
readers to remind themselves that Iranians are in fact Persians. That
they all live in the Middle East is no reason to lump Arabs and
Persians together, no more than we would think of the French as being
German because they both live in Europe.

One of the media's favorite Middle East 'experts' Fouad Ajami
(praised by columnist William Safire 'for the amazing way he reads
the Arab mind') described Iraq as 'a brittle land...with little claim
to culture and books and grand ideas.' In fact, Iraq was the cradle
of a long and fertile civilization. And before it was destroyed by
American bombs, Baghdad was a major center of literature, art, and
architecture.

NPR's Susan Stamberg interviewing two Arab intellectuals, asked them
to comment on an association in her mind: 'Arabs and death.' They
patiently explained that like everyone else, Arabs preferred life
over death for themselves and their loved ones. Then she gave them
another association: 'Arabs and violence'. Stamberg resides in the
United States, a country with one of the highest violent crime rates
in the world, a country that spends $275 billion yearly on the
military and supports violent repression throughout much of the Third
World, and which at that very moment was waging a murderous war
against a vastly smaller and weaker Arab nation--and she was
wondering why Arabs were so violent.

The U.S. media regularly treat various ethnic groups in a derogatory
way. Thus the news media have little positive to say about the
struggles of African Americans, Native Americans, and others for
jobs, decent housing, safe neighborhoods, and viable political
organizations. Moreover, the efforts of people of color to gain
representation in art, literature, entertainment, music, sports,
religion, labor and education have earned relatively scant notice in
the corporate-owned white media.

African Americans are generously overrepresented in the news when
there is bad news to report. Polling statistics in 'USA Today' show
that only 15 percent of U.S. drug users are African American, but
data from the Black Entertainment Network indicate that 50 percent of
the network news stories on drugs focus on African Americans.

As media commentators, African Americans remain drastically
underrepresented. Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary, Indiana noted '
About the only time you really see blacks giving their opinions, or
given any serious space, is when it relates to minorities or civil
rights. That seems to be the only time when the media feel we are
competent enought to express opinions.' Even in that area, blacks who
express ideas on race that run counter to the predominant ideological
mode are likely to be subjected to attack. REputable African American
scholars and educators have tried to move away from a Eurocentric
approach to history and set the record straight with curricula that
treat the often neglected African and African American experience.
but these efforts have been vehemently denounced by the white media
as 'bad history' and 'ethnic cheerleading'.

In contrast, conservative African American writers and academics like
Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele, who serve as cheerleaders for the
status quo, are given generous exposure as they denounce affirmative
action and other federal programs designed to help ethnic minorities,
and as they praise the established power structure and downplay the
effects of racism in the United States. Unfortunately, but not
surprisingly, Eurocentric racism is alive and well in the
corporate- owned media."

[And sadly, in academia as well ! ]

Jim Craven

 James Craven
 Dept. of Economics,Clark College
 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. Vancouver, WA. 98663
 jcraven@xxxxxxxxx; Tel: (360) 992-2283 Fax: 992-2863
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