The Black Community Fools The Mainstream Establishment, Coming Together To Resolve The Controversy Around The Call And Post Aunt Jemima Cartoon
Posted Thursday, December 10, 2009
(National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News)
By Kathy Wray Coleman
Editor of The Determiner Weekly. Com and
The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
The United Pastors in Mission on Tuesday buried the hatchet with the Cleveland Call and Post, a historical Black newspaper that targets the Black community, seemingly putting to rest a controversy that the mainstream media sought to dub as dividing the Black community.
At issue was a stinging cartoon of Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner (D-25) published by the paper two weeks ago with an accompanying editorial linking the former Cleveland Ward 1 councilwoman as a token for the White establishment.
The cartoon was not just a cartoon but one that had Turner dressed in aunt jemima attire, a reference that the United Pastors in Mission, a group of Black Cleveland area preachers, said was stereotypical and anti Black. But the paper's associate publisher and editor, Connie Harper, and its legal counsel George Forbes, also president of the Cleveland Chapter NAACP, said Turner had it coming because she was the only prominent Black politician in Cuyahoga County to support Issue 6, a county reform measure pushed by the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper and county prosecutor Bill Mason. Cuyahoga County voters overwhelmingly adopted the charter reform measure last month, substituting the county's three-member board of commissioners and six other elected positions for a subsequently elected 11 member county council and elected county executive.
“We must put this to rest and move on,” said the Rev. Dr. C J. Matthews, president of the United Pastors in Mission and pastor of Mt. Sinai Baptist Church in Cleveland.
Backing off a prior demand for an apology that Forbes and Harper vehemently refused to give Matthews said that there were more pressing issues to deal with like unemployment and the education of Cleveland's predominantly Black school children. He also emphasized that his organization was proud to continue its long tradition of supporting the Call and Post and that the Call and Post had supported the religious community relentlessly throughout the years. The position was almost a let down for the mainstream establishment where it was gearing up for a fight within the Black community, a fight that in technical terms is known as intra-group hostility, where Blacks are pitted against each other as a byproduct of racism.
“Black folks fooled them this time,” said a Cleveland councilperson speaking on condition of anonymity. “I am proud of them.”
(National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News)
By Kathy Wray Coleman
Editor of The Determiner Weekly. Com and
The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
The United Pastors in Mission on Tuesday buried the hatchet with the Cleveland Call and Post, a historical Black newspaper that targets the Black community, seemingly putting to rest a controversy that the mainstream media sought to dub as dividing the Black community.
At issue was a stinging cartoon of Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner (D-25) published by the paper two weeks ago with an accompanying editorial linking the former Cleveland Ward 1 councilwoman as a token for the White establishment.
The cartoon was not just a cartoon but one that had Turner dressed in aunt jemima attire, a reference that the United Pastors in Mission, a group of Black Cleveland area preachers, said was stereotypical and anti Black. But the paper's associate publisher and editor, Connie Harper, and its legal counsel George Forbes, also president of the Cleveland Chapter NAACP, said Turner had it coming because she was the only prominent Black politician in Cuyahoga County to support Issue 6, a county reform measure pushed by the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper and county prosecutor Bill Mason. Cuyahoga County voters overwhelmingly adopted the charter reform measure last month, substituting the county's three-member board of commissioners and six other elected positions for a subsequently elected 11 member county council and elected county executive.
“We must put this to rest and move on,” said the Rev. Dr. C J. Matthews, president of the United Pastors in Mission and pastor of Mt. Sinai Baptist Church in Cleveland.
Backing off a prior demand for an apology that Forbes and Harper vehemently refused to give Matthews said that there were more pressing issues to deal with like unemployment and the education of Cleveland's predominantly Black school children. He also emphasized that his organization was proud to continue its long tradition of supporting the Call and Post and that the Call and Post had supported the religious community relentlessly throughout the years. The position was almost a let down for the mainstream establishment where it was gearing up for a fight within the Black community, a fight that in technical terms is known as intra-group hostility, where Blacks are pitted against each other as a byproduct of racism.
“Black folks fooled them this time,” said a Cleveland councilperson speaking on condition of anonymity. “I am proud of them.”
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