[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 45 (Tuesday, April 11, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E535]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


            THE NATIONAL MEDIA TREATS THE SOUTH DIFFERENTLY

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                           HON. FLOYD SPENCE

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 11, 2000

  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of 
the House the following article from the Lexington County Chronicle, 
Lexington, South Carolina.

          [From the Lexington County Chronicle, Mar. 9, 2000]

                    Where have you gone, Dan Rather?

                           (By Jerry Bellune)

       Before you call me a racist, you should know that I cut my 
     reporting teeth covering the civil rights movement of the 
     early 1960s. It was a beat few white reporters wanted. And at 
     one time, I was the only reporter in Charlotte, N.C., the 
     demonstrators trusted.
       When we went north in 1964, we found racism rampant there, 
     too. One Yankee landlord refused to rent to us because, to 
     her northern ears, our southern accents sounded African-
     American.
       Jump ahead from the 1960s to the Year 2000. Southern 
     schools have been desegregated. Discrimination is illegal. 
     African-Americans have established more than a foothold in 
     business and the middle class. In the arts and sports, they 
     have become a dominant force.
       Yet the national media seems ignorant of--or worse, 
     indifferent to--the Deep South's dramatic social changes. 
     They can't seem to balance changes in attitude with the other 
     big Southern story--the Sun Belt's economic explosion.
       This came home to me last week in two tragic stories. In 
     Pennsylvania, a black man went on a rampage, killing three 
     white people and wounding two others. In Michigan, the 6-
     year-old son of a jail bird took a gun to school and ``got 
     even'' by shooting a white classmate to death.
       Both stories were one-day sensations on TV and the local 
     daily's front page. After that, both stories slipped deep 
     into the inside pages.
       That made me wonder how the two stories would have been 
     handled had the races of the killers and their victims been 
     reversed.
       What might Dan Rather have had to say about a white man 
     going on a rampage, singling out black victims. Or a white 
     boy shooting a black classmate to death? Would the Revs. Al 
     Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have descended on Michigan and 
     Pennsylvania to lead street marches against the perpetrators 
     of these ``racist'' murders?
       If they are for civil rights for everybody, where are they 
     now? And where are the TV cameras?
       If either of these crimes had occurred in the South, would 
     they have been reported as examples of the climate of 
     violence and racism in this backward section of our great 
     nation?

     

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