Ruben Navarette Has 500 Manic Depressive Words For The African-American Journalism Community

Special CNN correspondent Ruben Naverette, Jr. was so honored to be invited by Tavis Smiley to sit on the panel at last Thursday’s “All-American Forum” Presidential debate on PBS.

It was a beautiful thing. Staring into the audience, I saw gray-haired African-American civil rights leaders and others, all of them proudly basking in how far they’ve come as a people, and how far we’ve come as a country.

Until those bitches went and underrepresented Latinos. Uh-uh. You don’t do THAT to the largest minority in America, okay?

…the event wound up reinforcing the notion of African-Americans as victims — besieged by poverty and bad schools and outsourcing and higher rates of HIV infection, etc. …[It] was marketed to viewers at home as a forum for “people of color,” but those who tuned in — and listened to the questions — only caught a glimpse of one color…The organizers tried to have it both ways, insisting that this had been a triumph for African-Americans but also making the occasional obligatory reference to Hispanics, who, for the record now outnumber African-Americans in the United States.

Everyone’s Ruben’s brother until you cut him. Here’s a thought for him: how about creating your own forum instead of waiting for Tavis Smiley to invite you to one? Or you could just continue reinforcing the notion of Latinos as victims. Your call!

Commentary: All-American forum failed to address Hispanic issues [CNN]