"2020 in review: covering race, equity, and some not-so-brief press briefings" PBS NewsHour 1/2/2021
Excerpt
SUMMARY: NewsHour Weekend producer Zachary Green speaks with Hari Sreenivasan about his most illuminating work in 2020: covering race, equity, and the Black Lives Matter movement in small-town America, and on figuring out the best way to cover -- and fact-check -- the COVID-19 Task Force press briefings.
SUMMARY: In "A United Kingdom," a prince from southern Africa proposes to a British woman in late 1940s London. Not only does race make the relationship fraught, but their marriage will have international consequences. Jeffrey Brown sits down with actor and producer David Oyelowo to discuss the true, historical love story that got caught up in Colonial-era politics.
DAVID OYELOWO, Actor: I'm not asking for an answer this very second. All I ask of you is that you go away and think about it.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): In 1947 London, Seretse Khama, played by David Oyelowo, proposes to Ruth Williams, played by actress Rosamund Pike.
ROSAMUND PIKE, Actress: I know what you're asking. Yes. Yes. Yes.
JEFFREY BROWN: Their races make the relationship fraught. But there's more: He is a prince in his tribe in Southern Africa expected to return to lead his people, and their marriage will have international consequences.
“A United Kingdom” is based on a true story, and it was Oyelowo who first learned of it in a book titled “Color Bar” by Susan Williams. More than just the film's star, he was the producer who brought director Amma Asante and others into the project.
DAVID OYELOWO: What was indisputable to me was the power of the love between these two people, and it was that very thing that helped them overcome so many of these insurmountable obstacles and odds that they faced.
And, you know, as someone who is a real believer in love myself, and I mean, love in the truest sense, not movie love. I'm talking about the unglamorous stuff of sacrifice, of courage.
JEFFREY BROWN: I must say this film has movie love, because it's love at first sight almost, right?
DAVID OYELOWO: But, you see, the thing about that is that we even have a name for it, the meet-cute. You know, we have turned it into something that is so fantastical and so inaccessible that it has become fairy tale-like.
But, actually, what can happen — it doesn't happen every day, admittedly — is that two people see beyond their race, see beyond their cultural differences and their national differences. And they just — two souls meet.
We should be fighting for equality. That is where we should be focusing our minds, not on the wife I have chosen, who means you no harm.
SUMMARY: Jackie Kay is Scotland's first black national poet. Adopted as a child, much of her poetry and prose speaks to her own experience of not feeling entirely welcome in her own country. “I wrote the poems that I wanted to read and I wrote about the experiences that I wanted to find,” she says. Jeffrey Brown reports.
JACKIE KAY, Scottish Poet & Novelist: “And this is my country, says the fisherwoman from Jura. Mine, too, says the child from Canna and Iona. Mine, too, says the Brain family. And mine, says the man from the Polish deli.”
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Jackie Kay wrote her poem “Threshold” for the Scottish Parliament and a special guest, Queen Elizabeth.
JACKIE KAY: Let's blether some more about doors, revolving doors and sliding doors.
JEFFREY BROWN: In the wake to of the recent Brexit vote to leave the European Union, it was a plea to keep doors and the country open to the outside world. As Scotland's new national poet, Kay made it personal.
JACKIE KAY: Scotland's changing faces — look at me!
I like the idea of trying to change the face of Scotland. But, traditionally, when somebody thinks of somebody Scottish, they see a white man with red hair in a kilt and a — and they don't see me.
JEFFREY BROWN: Jackie is the adopted daughter of John and Helen Kay. Her birth mother Scottish. Her father was then a Nigerian student studying in Scotland.
JACKIE KAY: I was an illegitimate child. And being picked to be a national poet is probably a pretty legitimate thing.
(LAUGHTER)
JEFFREY BROWN: I will say.
She grew up in Glasgow in a loving home, but very unaware of her difference in the outside society. She told her story in a bestselling memoir, “Red Dust Road.”
JACKIE KAY: There weren't many positive stories about adoption. And when I was growing up, we just saw negative stories about adoption. Every story that you heard was horrendous. And I wanted to try and tell a positive story about adoption.
So, I felt a bit like one of my favorite writers, Toni Morrison. She said she wrote the story she wanted to read. And I did that, too. I wrote the poems I wanted to read and I wrote about the experiences I wanted to find.
SUMMARY: For the first time in 20 years, all of the Academy Award nominees for leading and supporting acting roles are white. Gwen Ifill asks Mike Sargent of Pacifica Radio and Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post about the surprises and snubs of the 2015 Oscar nominations, and what it says about power and diversity in Hollywood.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): It took only minutes after this year’s Oscar nominations were announced this morning for the criticism to begin.
Much of the reaction centered on what was missing, namely, diversity among nominees for actor, actress, directing and screenwriting. For the first time since 1995, all of the actors nominated for lead and supporting roles are white. One prominent snub, the civil rights film “Selma,” which snagged a best picture nod, but nothing for its director, actors or writers.
What, if anything, does any of this tell us about the Academy or about the films themselves?
For that, we turn to two film critics, Mike Sargent of Pacifica Radio and Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post.
Welcome to you both.
So, Ann Hornaday, what do today’s nominations tell us about the kinds of films that Hollywood is making and the kinds of films that Hollywood is awarding?
ANN HORNADAY, The Washington Post: Well, at least for today, it looks like it’s kind of a boys show.
And even when you look at the best picture nominees — and, gratifyingly, “Selma” did make it into the best picture — to be nominated for best picture. But so many of those are movies are journeys undertaken by men, either the great men of “The Theory of Everything” and “Imitation Game” or the young man of “Boyhood” or the actor of “Birdman.”
So it is a striking sort of tableaux of men and their stories being represented in that group.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): President Obama said today that the United States would respond proportionally and at time of its choosing to the cyber-attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment. The FBI confirmed this morning that North Korea was behind the attack on the company.
Mr. Obama spoke on that and other issues at a year-end news conference.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, all I want for Christmas is to take your questions.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: It was a year-end review dominated by the events of one week. As the fallout continued from the Sony hacking scandal, and the studio’s decision to cancel the release of the movie about assassinating North Korea’s leader, the President weighed in.
BARACK OBAMA: Again, I’m sympathetic that Sony as a private company was worried about liabilities and this and that and the other. I wish they had spoken to me first. I would’ve told them, do not get into a pattern in which you’re intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Without divulging specifics, he said the U.S. will respond to the attack.
Mr. Obama also discussed his move to reopen diplomatic relations with Cuba. He acknowledged the country’s regime still oppresses its people, but did find room for optimism.
BARACK OBAMA: What I know deep in my bones is that if you have done the same thing for 50 years and nothing’s changed, you should try something different if you want a different outcome. And this gives us an opportunity for a different outcome.
JUDY WOODRUFF: His action on Cuba was just the latest instance of Mr. Obama’s using the power of the executive. Last month, he acted to shield millions of illegal immigrants from deportation. Both moves enraged Republicans, who will control both houses of Congress come January.
Despite their differences, and the gridlock that has gripped Washington for much of his tenure, the President said he still believes cooperation is still possible.
BARACK OBAMA: We’re going to disagree on some things, but there are going to be areas of agreement, and we have got to be able to make that happen. And that’s going to involve compromise every once in a while, and we saw during this lame-duck period that perhaps that spirit of compromise may be coming to the fore.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mr. Obama took just a handful of questions, and only from women reporters, including one on race relations in America. It comes as the nation deals with anger over grand jury decisions in New York City and Ferguson, Missouri, not to indict white police officers in the killing of two black men.
The President says the country’s made progress, but work remains.
BARACK OBAMA: I actually think it’s been a healthy conversation that we have had. These are not new phenomena. The fact that they’re now surfacing, in part because people are able to film what have just been in the past stories passed on around the kitchen table allows people to, you know, make their own assessments and evaluations.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The President left tonight for his family’s Christmas vacation in Hawaii.
SUMMARY: President Obama told the White House Press Corps that Sony was wrong to withdraw its film, “The Interview,” and that the U.S. would react “proportionally” to the damaging cyber-attack by North Korea. Judy Woodruff turns to Dmitri Alperovitch of CrowdStrike and Jack Pritchard, the former U.S. special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, about options for an American response.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now, race and justice in America.
Tonight, we look at efforts in Oakland, California, to address bias where it exists in law enforcement.
Special correspondent Jackie Judd has the story.
PROTESTER: If I can’t breathe!
PROTESTERS: You can’t breathe!
JACKIE JUDD (NewsHour): The racial turmoil in the U.S. stemming from encounters between police and black men strikes a chord with Jennifer Eberhardt. The social psychologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, has spent her career exploring racial bias and how that plays out in the criminal justice system.
Still, it came as a shock to her how embedded biases can be, biases we’re not even aware of.
JENNIFER EBERHARDT, Stanford University: I’m on an airplane with my son. And he looks up and he sees a black man, and he says, “Hey, that guy looks like daddy.”
And I look at the guy, he doesn’t look anything like my husband, and I notice he’s the only black guy on the plane. And he says, “I hope he doesn’t rob the plane.”
And I said, “Well, why would you say that?”
And he looked at me and he said, “I don’t know why I said that.”
And so we’re living with such severe racial stratification that even a 5-year-old can tell us what’s supposed to happen next.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Protesters continue to take to the streets around the country following the fatal police shootings in Ferguson, Missouri, and Cleveland, as well as the death of Eric Garner in New York City.
Earlier this week on “NewsHour,” we had a discussion with a panel of young protesters. Tonight, we hear from a panel of law enforcement experts.
I spoke earlier this week with three people who have thought a lot about the subjects of policing, violence and race. Dean Esserman is the chief of police in New Haven, Connecticut. David Klinger is a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri. He’s also a former Los Angeles police officer. And Ronald Hampton, a former 23-year community relations officer in Washington, D.C.
We welcome you all to the “NewsHour.”
Chief Esserman, let me begin with you. Let’s talk first about how police officers evaluate a threat. How — how — is there a universal training that officers learn on how to do that?
DEAN ESSERMAN, Police Chief, New Haven, Connecticut: We’re trained in similar ways, different priorities.
But police officers are trained to go and to serve and to protect. And, sometimes that means using force, and sometimes that means slowing down the tempo and using what we know how to use best, which is a conversation.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Professor Klinger, as someone, as we just said, as a former police officer, how do you strike that balance between a time to — to be prepared to use force it, if necessary, and on the other hand it’s a time to calm things down?
DAVID KLINGER, University of Missouri-Saint Louis: Well, I think you’re always prepared to use force, and that’s the key, is you have to understand that these things can escalate quickly.
But, as the chief indicated, our best tactic is to create some time and talk to people. The vast majority of the time, we’re going to be able to talk people into jail. The vast majority of time, when people are upset, we can calm them down, but there’s times and places where we can’t. And if it doesn’t get to that point, the person remains agitated and a threat emerges, either to an officer or to a civilian, then the police have to move for a forceful action.
Unfortunately, sometimes, the first moment an officer arrives on scene, that’s a moment where there’s a threat, and the officer has to take physical force as the first option, essentially.
SUMMARY: Many of the now-daily protests on race and justice are being led by young people frustrated by recent grand jury decisions in Ferguson and New York City. Gwen Ifill gets perspectives from protester Molly Greiber, Tory Russell of Hands Up United, and Jessica Pierce of the Black Youth Project on what’s driving them personally and the movement at large.
As is the case elsewhere in the country, black San Diegans make up a disproportionate share of crime victims and crime suspects.
In 2013, blacks made up 5 percent of the county population, but 27 percent of violent crime victims and 29 percent of violent crime suspects were black. The 2013 crime data was in line with previous studies by the San Diego Association of Governments, which keeps the data.
According to a SANDAG crime bulletin from last year, “Blacks were overrepresented in every violent crime category in comparison to their proportion in the population.”
Cindy Burke, who keeps the data for SANDAG, said the best available discussion of possible racial bias in the San Diego justice system comes from a 2008 study of the juvenile system.
The study found that “race, along with other legal and social factors, increased the likelihood of a youth being detained following arrest.”
Latino youth were 2.8 times more likely than white youth to be detained, meaning held in custody, while black youth were 1.8 times more likely to be detained.
Despite evidence that a disproportionate number of black youth were serving time in long-term juvenile detention centers, the study did not find that race increased the likelihood of such detention.
Taken together, gang affiliation, prior criminal record and poor school performance were better predictors of long-term detention for youth, according to the study.
“It’s difficult to say the causality is race when there are so many socioeconomic factors tied to it,” Burke told the Watchdog.
Of the officers at the San Diego Police Department, 6.4 percent are black, mirroring the city’s 6.7 percent black population.
Lei-Chala Wilson, president of the San Diego chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said there is no doubt racial bias plays a role throughout the justice system in San Diego and other cities.
“The statistics have proven we don’t commit more crimes than anyone else, but we’re more likely to get stopped, detained and arrested,” she said. “The word is getting out and people are more aware of it.”
Inconsistencies in how data on race and police use of force are reported make it difficult to analyze, but Brian Marvel of the San Diego Police Officers Association said it’s imperative for law enforcement to listen to the community’s concerns and improve relationships wherever possible.
“Just because we don’t think there’s a problem, it doesn’t mean the community doesn’t think there’s one,” Marvel said.
Marvel said the events in Ferguson and New York were “a good opportunity for law enforcement to take a look at those incidents and see what we can gain.”
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): We take a closer look now at the situation in Ferguson, how the St. Louis, Missouri, area community is struggling to keep order and heal the divisions that continue to bring protesters out into the streets.
A short while ago, we spoke with USA Today reporter Yamiche Alcindor, who is in Ferguson.
Yamiche Alcindor, thank you for joining us again.
I want to start by asking you about reaction there to Governor Nixon’s decision to ended curfew and to call in the Missouri National Guard.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR, USA Today: The reaction here was really mixed. I talked to a lot of people who were really happy to hear that the National Guard was coming in. People say that the businesses here are losing so much money and people who live in this neighborhood are terrorized because every night there is tear gas and there’s gunshots in their neighborhoods.
However, some people are really upset. I talked to one woman who said she feels like she’s in prison in her own neighborhood. And there, people really thought, you know, this is just even more militarizing of our neighborhoods. This is really the actual military.
And when the National Guard comes in, there is going to be soldiers walking down the street. So I think people are kind of mixed, but I think the majority of people I talked to are worried because that they thought this might get out of hand.
SUMMARY: To discuss the racial divide in reactions to the Ferguson protests, Judy Woodruff looks at data with Carroll Doherty of Pew Research Center. Ronald Hampton, former executive director of the National Black Police Association, and Gil Alba, former detective of the New York City Police Department, discuss the prospects for reconciling the Ferguson community after such upheaval.
SUMMARY: Amid protest and tension over the killing of Michael Brown, the residents of Ferguson, Missouri, are contemplating what the events in their community mean for them and the whole country. Hari Sreenivasan offers an array of voices from Ferguson.
GWEN IFILL (Newshour): Over the weekend, the verdict in another Florida murder case raised hackles in the continuing debate about race and self-defense.
Michael Dunn, a 47-year-old Jacksonville software developer, who is white, was convicted on three counts of attempted murder. But a mistrial was declared in a separate charge that he murdered 17-year-old Jordan Davis, who was black.
In November 2012, Dunn pulled into a gas station where four teenagers were parked in an SUV listening to loud music. After an argument, Dunn fired 10 bullets at the SUV. Three of the teens, who were unarmed, were not hit, but Davis was and later died.
We take a closer look at the verdict now with Judith Browne-Dianis, a civil rights lawyer and co-director of The Advancement Project, a civil rights organization, and David Weinstein, a former state and federal prosecutor in Miami-Dade County. He’s now a partner at the Clarke Silverglate law firm in Miami.
SUMMARY: President Barack Obama offered some personal reflection about the ways persistent racial prejudices inform how African-Americans have reacted to the death of Trayvon Martin and the George Zimmerman trial. Jeffrey Brown gets perspective on his remarks from Jonathan Turley, Carol Swain, Leonard Pitts Jr., and Michael Beschloss.
SUMMARY: The Trayvon Martin murder trial against George Zimmerman has sparked fresh public discourse about race and racial tensions in America. Jeffrey Brown talks to NPR's Michele Norris, creator of The Race Card Project, which asks people to share their thoughts about race, ethnicity and cultural identity in six words or less.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): What we talk about and don't talk about when it comes to race and identity. It's a subject again at the fore after the death of Trayvon Martin and the trial of George Zimmerman.
And it's the subject of The Race Card Project, an effort by NPR journalist and author Michele Norris to engage people in a conversation about, as her website says, their experiences, questions, hopes, dreams, laments or observations about race and identity.
And Michele Norris joins us now.
