SKINS sees news bias

Media coverage that focused on affirmative action and the Rev. Jesse Jackson's visits to SF State and UC Berkeley during last Thursday's Indigenous People's Day has left some organizers of events at SF State feeling that their message is being intentionally repressed.

That message -- that lands taken from indigenous people are illegally occupied by the U.S. government, that that government continues to oppress and persecute Native Americans, and that the history and voices of the indigenous are rarely heard -- was largely ignored by the media last Thursday, the one day of the year that is supposed to be devoted to indigenous people's causes, said several members of the Student Kouncil of Intertribal Nations yesterday.

"We continue to be an invisible people, even when we hold major events -- which can only equate to one thing, and that's flat out racism," said SKINS coordinator Tharon Weighill, referring to the Golden Gater's coverage of Thursday's events.

Weighill called the paper yesterday afternoon and expressed his concern that today's coverage of Indigenous People's Day would ignore the viewpoints of indigenous people -- a problem Weighill said was evident in Gater stories leading up to the event.

That concern was strong enough that Weighill said he would prevent today's paper from being published if he was not satisfied with the Gater's Indigenous People's Day coverage.

"Rest assured, I'll be up there at three o'clock. I'll probably have close to a hundred students with me. When I go over and look at the layout and I'm not completely satisfied, I'll close the paper down. That's not a threat, it's a promise," Weighill said.

Instead, Weighill and the Golden Gater agreed to maintain an ongoing dialogue.

Coverage by other Bay Area newspapers and television stations was also intentionally biased, said SKINS coordinators Michele Maas and Allyn Cadogan. Because local news media focused on confrontations between police and demonstrators at events in Berkeley on Thursday, the cooperation between a variety of groups here went largely unnoticed, Maas said.

"We have a peaceful rally that's inclusive of all peoples, and the news media doesn't want to tell that story. It's as though they are trying to perpetuate the divisiveness in the communities rather than enhance the inclusiveness we tried to portray with our event," Maas said.

Weighill said that intent -- to divide activists -- is also visible in media coverage of yesterday's Million Man March in Washington, D.C.

"People are trying to say this is Farrakhan's attempt at becoming the black African president, and not really paying attention to the issues. The popular news media is manufacturing a consent, which is exactly what had taken place with the Gater. Had I not called the Gater a few minutes ago, we wouldn't be having this conversation now," he said.

"We had discussed it (coverage of Indigenous People's Day) in the editor's meeting on Friday, and we obviously didn't get the result that we wanted," from the meeting, said Tony Edwards, Gater editor in chief.

Cadogan said that media estimates of the crowd at SF State were considerably smaller than her own. Cadogan estimated there were 3,000 to 5,000 in attendance at SF State.

The San Francisco Chronicle on Friday put the number attending at 1,000.

"This event was the biggest event this campus has seen since the '60s," said Weighill.

That the message of indigenous people was in some ways overshadowed by the participation of a public figure like Jackson was not the fault of other event organizers who linked Indigenous People's Day to affirmative action, said Maas.

She said that other student groups involved in organizing the day's events, such as Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, the Pan Afrikan Student Union, and Diversity in Action were allies, not adversaries.

"MECHA, PASU and in particular DIA were completely supportive of us. They stood in solidarity with us. We co-coordinated (the event)," Maas said.

Jackson, said Cadogan, was also supportive.

"We met with him beforehand to discuss issues that we wanted to discuss, and he was totally in agreement with this. He had Rainbow Coalition people with him, and we discussed issues that are not black issues and are not red issues but are people's issues. He was very willing to incorporate issues pertinent to the American Indian community into his talk, and he did that," she said.

Weighill, who is also a member of DIA, said that linking Indigenous People's Day to affirmative action made sense in that there are so few American Indian students and faculty members on campus, and affirmative action is a policy he supports.

But there were concerns that the emphasis on indigenous in Indigenous People's Day would be lost.

"We literally had a month and a half of debate with administrators, faculty and staff as to why they were trying to take the one day when our voices are heard and declare it affirmative action (day)," he said.

"With people of color, our issues tend to get usurped constantly, or they become gentrified. That is the biggest problem that we face. Had we not stood up as a group and said 'hey wait a minute, this isn't a day of affirmative action,'" the emphasis would've been lost, he said.

Cadogan thought that the fact that many of the day's events had been organized by students had also been missed by the Gater.

"This was not a faculty event -- the faculty, staff, administration, had nothing to do with putting this event on. It was the Indian students on campus who did this, and a very small number of them -- and a coalition with other student groups," said Cadogan.

"We put that on as Indian students. The usurpation of our voice is a continuous reality," said Weighill.

Of Indigenous People's Day, Weighill said:

"We need to clarify the language here. This isn't Indigenous People's Day, a celebration of indigenous people. This is a celebration of our resistance, and the fact that we are still here, and have our languages, culture, traditions and history," said Weighill.

Of indigenous people, Cadogan added:

"We have 500 years of concerted efforts at genocide -- of our bodies, our language, our culture. This is another issue -- cultural appropriation. People move in, they think they know what we're about, they start using it and selling it and reselling it, and pretty soon it has nothing to do with us. And then we get these people teaching classes in our universities, telling us what our cultures are, because they've read a book by Sun Bear. And it has nothing to do with us as people," Cadogan said. "We are very individual nations here ... these are big issues for us -- that we tend to get lumped together as Indian Cultures, singular. We are not Indian, and we do not have a singular culture, we have 500 cultures."

Although tribes are "nothing alike culturally," she said, "There are 500 of us, and we manage to work together when we have common cause."

[ Golden Gater Online October 17, 1995 ]

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