| Being White in Philly | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 16 2013, 11:38 PM (371 Views) | |
| LTC8K6 | Mar 16 2013, 11:38 PM Post #1 |
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
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I'm not sure what this article is trying to say. I thought it was going to be about what it's like to be white in Philly. http://www.phillymag.com/articles/white-philly/ Apparently, it's a controversial article, though so far it beats me why... http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/03/15/controversial-article-published-in-local-magazine-has-mayor-nutter-asking-for-investigation/ |
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| Baldo | Mar 17 2013, 12:36 AM Post #2 |
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Don't even dare mention reality. It is how we elected our terribly incompetent President who is spending us to oblivion. |
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| kbp | Mar 17 2013, 07:47 AM Post #3 |
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I had gone to those links from Drudge. The mayor link I read, then I quit on the first link after page one. The saying "hello" issue reminded me of that wrist band issue. It was either some move towards being safer by being friendly, done to judge others by their reactions to the greeting, or both. Why does he need to make a special effort to do that to anyone, whatever color they may be? Anyway, judging from page 1, I did not aniticpate the next 3 pages of the article would reveal any brilliant solutions. Edited by kbp, Mar 17 2013, 07:48 AM.
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| abb | Mar 19 2013, 10:34 AM Post #4 |
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http://www.volokh.com/2013/03/18/philadelphia-mayor-suggests-magazine-article-on-race-relations-isnt-protected-by-the-first-amendment/ Philadelphia Mayor Suggests Magazine Article on Race Relations Isn’t Protected by the First Amendment Eugene Volokh • March 18, 2013 2:44 pm Philadelphia magazine published an article called Being White in Philly, with the subtitle, “Whites, race, class, and the things that never get said.” Apparently the Mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, thinks there’s not even a constitutional right to say those things; in a letter to the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission, the mayor argues, While I fully recognize that constitutional protections afforded the press are intended to protect the media from censorship by the government, the First Amendment, like other constitutional rights, is not an unfettered right, and notwithstanding the First Amendment, a publisher has a duty to the public to exercise its role in a responsible way. I ask the Commission to evaluate whether the “speech” employed in this essay is not the reckless equivalent of “shouting ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater,” its prejudiced, fact-challenged generalizations an incitement to extreme reaction. The implication — which I think is very strong — that the “speech” is indeed unprotected by the First Amendment under the “incitement” exception is absolutely wrong: Under Brandenburg v. Ohio and Hess v. Indiana, the speech in the article is clearly protected. (It’s true that a narrow range of speech that is intended and likely to produce imminent illegal conduct, with imminent meaning within hours or at most a few days, rather than at some unspecified future time, is unprotected, but the magazine article definitely does not fit within that.) And it’s quite troubling, I think, when a mayor (who has power over, among others, the Police Department) suggests that the expression of opinions that he disapproves of about race is constitutionally unprotected. The specific call in the mayor’s letter, which is for the Commission to “conduct an inquiry into the state of racial issues, biases, and attitudes within and among the many communities and neighborhoods in the City of Philadelphia,” and to “consider specifically whether Philadelphia Magazine and the writer, Bob Huber are appropriate for rebuke by the Commission,” is not as troubling — both the mayor and the Commission have the right to express their own views, and indeed it is commonly argued that the proper alternative to suppression of speech is counterspeech. But the Mayor’s rationale wasn’t just, “this speech is constitutionally protected but so is our response.” Rather, the Mayor expressly suggested that the speech in the article was unprotected, and therefore punishable outright and not just worthy of public disapproval. Thanks to John Bennett for the pointer. |
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| LTC8K6 | Mar 19 2013, 10:41 AM Post #5 |
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
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I still can't figure out what is upsetting blacks in that article. I was upset because it didn't seem to say much at all about what it's like to be white in Philly. |
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| Quasimodo | Mar 19 2013, 11:17 AM Post #6 |
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Was he talking about something Al Sharpton said? Actually, from the ruckus, I expected an inflammatory article. Instead it was a rather (IMHO) mild look at how whites have a (IMHO) reasonable fear of violence when in certain black neighborhoods; and how certain modern black cultural attitudes make it difficult to be a white student in a predominately black school. Is this news? Is it radical? |
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| Mason | Mar 19 2013, 11:38 AM Post #7 |
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Parts unknown
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. With all the Crime in Philly, with all the RACIAL crime in Philly - this Philly Mayor went to fight for Trayvon Martin some 1,500 miles south and about a 1,000 districts south of his city. What's wrong with this picture? White kid gets his head kicked in by 5 black youths - no news, no one cares, Mayor is business as usual; Teenager beating a Hispanic resident in Southern Florida gets shot - Philly Mayor moves into action. Something is wrong with this picture. . |
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| abb | Mar 19 2013, 01:22 PM Post #8 |
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You should have been in the Jonesboro city council meetings and listened to all the racial invective hurled at me and my newsblog when I dared report what was going on. Of course, they were trying to provoke me into some intemperate outburst, but I just kept on writing. |
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| Quasimodo | Mar 19 2013, 02:04 PM Post #9 |
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Wise...
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| abb | Mar 19 2013, 08:51 PM Post #10 |
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http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20130319_Philadelphia_Magazine_editor_faces_critics_on_race_article.html Philadelphia Magazine editor faces critics on race article Robert Moran, Inquirer Staff Writer Posted: Tuesday, March 19, 2013, 6:05 AM Philadelphia Magazine editor Tom McGrath and Robert Huber, author of the controversial "Being White in Philly" cover story, faced their critics at a forum Monday night at the National Constitution Center. McGrath opened by saying he was sorry to anybody who was hurt by the article, because that was not his intent, but adding that he did not regret publishing the story in the March issue. Huber told the packed auditorium of about 200 people that the purpose of the article was to explore "how white people relate to black people in the inner city, or don't relate to them." In his piece, Huber wrote: "We need to bridge the conversational divide so that there are no longer two private dialogues in Philadelphia - white people talking to other whites, and black people to blacks - but a city in which it is OK to speak openly about race." The story, however, was criticized as dwelling on negative experiences that whites had with blacks that often fit into racial stereotypes. In a scathing letter, Mayor Nutter last week requested that the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission consider whether the magazine and Huber deserved to be rebuked for the article. Nutter said Huber ignored positive anecdotes "to feed his own misguided perception" that African Americans are "lazy, shiftless, irresponsible, and largely criminal." McGrath served as moderator for a panel that included Huber; journalists Solomon Jones and Christopher Norris; People's Emergency Center president Farah Jimenez; and University of Pennsylvania lecturer Walter Palmer, who teaches about racism and social change. Jones ripped Philadelphia Magazine for what he said was the publication's history of racial insensitivity - a contention Nutter also raised in his letter. "This is the most infuriating thing about it," Jones said. "I was not surprised." Jimenez said Philadelphia Magazine, which has an all-white editorial staff, was not the right "messenger" for a story encouraging racial dialogue. She also repeatedly said the magazine and its critics were confusing issues of race with problems associated with being poor. Norris said that he understood the outrage over the article, but simply viewed the piece as the work of an older white man writing about his experience. Huber is 58. When McGrath was questioned about his staff's lack of diversity, he replied, "I'm committed to having a more diverse staff," and, "I am committed to do something." He also was asked why the magazine had a different cover for copies distributed to hotels and tourists. McGrath said it was a long-standing practice to use alternate covers when the main cover was controversial. He cited a cover that depicted a gun, saying a different cover was used for hotel copies. The article was criticized for quoting people only by their first names, and one audience member questioned whether they were actual people. McGrath said the magazine contacted everyone quoted in the story as part of its fact-checking process. "We are confident Bob did not make any of this up," McGrath said. Several participants noted that Monday was the fifth anniversary of President Obama's famous Constitution Center speech on race, after his 2008 campaign was rocked by the Jeremiah Wright controversy. While anger was directed at McGrath and Huber, there were several heated exchanges between some black audience members and black panelists about crime and personal responsibility in African American communities. McGrath said the process of guiding the story to publication and the subsequent reaction was "enlightening to me." |
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