[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin Jennifer Wagner Darnell Hunt (@https://fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin040315.mp3″]
This week on CounterSpin: The backlash was immediate and strong against the so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act just passed in Indiana. The law’s proponents, including Gov. Mike Pence, say it’s just intended to “open a door” to conversations about how people can express religious beliefs. Legal scholars and rights advocates say that the law as originally written actually invites conflict and sanctions discrimination, particularly against LGBT people. The scores of organizations saying they will reconsider doing business with and in Indiana seem to know who they believe. What can journalists do to shed light on this story without resorting to a “some say, others differ” approach? We’ll hear from Jennifer Wagner from the group Freedom Indiana on that.
Also on the show (and speaking of backlash): The Internet and Twitterverse made short work of lambasting entertainment-industry outlet Deadline for a piece that legitimized the idea that the presence of a larger than usual number of people of color in broadcast TV series means “the pendulum might have swung a bit too far in the opposite direction”–that white actors, in other words, are now the ones being discriminated against. But the thesis and tone of that piece didn’t come from nowhere, and denouncing the article doesn’t erase the climate that produced it. We’ll talk about Hollywood and race with Darnell Hunt, professor of sociology and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African-American Studies at UCLA.
LINKS:
—Freedom Indiana
–“Darnell Hunt: Hollywood’s Dismal Diversity Data Explained,” by Patt Morrison (LA Times, 3/17/15)
It has taken several decades of “political correctness” but we have now arrived a complete censorship of opinion. You cannot speak of our society without being called a bigot, racist,, misogynist or anti-Semite. Yes, there is now a preponderance of African-Americans on TV and in movies.well-beyond their demographic in our society. It is not racist to count the numbers.
@ “Frank Lucas”
“It is not racist to count the numbers.”
We may suppose that you have done the academic and peer-reviewed social science to back up your claim that “there is now a preponderance of African-Americans on TV and in movies. well-beyond their demographic in our society”, correct?
Absent this work, you invite the risk that your commentary is that of a “bigot, racist,, [punctuation sic] misogynist or anti-Semite.” You also seem to miss the point of the critique that invited FAIR’s response: which is that White actors are being discriminated against in the entertainment industry, and this is demonstrated by a proliferation of televisual entertainment featuring characters portrayed by actors of color. As if the actors of color embodying the roles are evidence of a project of cutting qualified Whites actors out of good acting jobs.
Maybe the hackers employed by the People’s Republic of North Korea could repeat its public service project, as it did in disclosing the pay disparity between the genders in Hollywood movies’ major acting roles for American actors, by hacking into another Hollywood studio’s electronic archives and email systems, to expose the rampant anti-White discrimination in the casting of television and movie actors’ roles.
It’d be quite the bombshell.