Forum 2015’s Call to Action: Taking Our Diversity Work into Broader, Deeper & More Inclusive Waters

The following article was written by and reposted with the permission of Capital City Hues Publisher & Editor Jon Gramling. Photos by Andy Manis 

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank converses with Keynote Speaker Clarence Page prior to the opening of this year's forum.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank converses with Keynote Speaker Clarence Page prior to the opening of this year’s forum.

Clarence Page, the Pulitzer-winning columnist who was the keynote speaker at the UW-Madison Diversity Forum 2015 held November 3-4 at Union South, is someone who has seen it all, as much a reflection of his occupation as it is of his years. Page is not an “in-your-face” kind of speaker. Rather he is someone who uses the twist of a phrase to drive a point home, sometimes so subtly that the full depth and meaning of what he has said takes a moment to full appreciate. In addressing diversity, he recounted his own first discovery of segregation when he went to visit relatives in Alabama as a youth. His recounting of the episode reveals a type of loss of innocence as he came abruptly against the forces of segregation.

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank spoke on the University's commitment to diversity.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank spoke on the University’s commitment to diversity.

“I’m old enough to remember when we were ‘colored,’” Page said with a laugh. “Back when I was a kid, they still had the ‘white’ and ‘colored’ signs on the water fountains in public accommodations down South. My first exposure to race relations was when I was seven years old. My parents had taken me to down to what we called ‘The Old Country.’ You may know it better as Alabama. We were in a 5 & 10 Cents store, which shows you how long ago this was. A nickel and a dime could still buy something. We were in the store and I went to find a water fountain. My parents said I went and darted away. Mom told dad that he had better go look for me. And dad found me in front of these two water fountains side by side, one that said ‘white’ and the other said ‘colored.’ And I was turning the water on and off on the colored fountain, very disappointed that the water was coming out clear. I thought that was false advertising. I was very disappointed. I said to my dad, ‘Why do they have two water fountains because it’s the same water?’ That’s the first time that I heard the word segregation. I had never heard it before. It was something new and I always remember that because it really stuck with me all these years.”

20151103_Forum_091Page talked about a statement made by Marshall McLuhan about how a new step in technology often results in a step backward to an earlier form of the technology. He used this concept to illustrate how with all of the new forms of communications technology, in some ways, we know less than we knew before. And this can have a big impact on people’s understanding of diversity.

“I can see the danger of information silos for people who think diversity is important and don’t think it is important to know people who aren’t just like you or have your background,” Page said. “There are increasing, growing examples all around us. I never forget covering the presidential race in 2012. How many of you watched the returns coming in during the 2012 election night? How many of you watched it on Fox News? Oh, hands went down. Lordy! That’s what I get for coming to Madison. Do you all have the little electronic signal that blocks Fox News? I watch Fox News all the time. This kind of reminds me of my late colleague Gene Siskel. He used to say, ‘I watch the bad movies, so you don’t have to.’ That too is the job of the social and cultural critic. I do watch Fox News. I watch MSNBC. I’m on MSNBC. I used to be on Fox News a lot until Obama got elected. I don’t know what happened. Seriously, they stopped inviting me on. Maybe they felt that they were diverse enough at that point. One can cover for all of us. In any case, I think it is important to get outside of your information silo.”

Page talked about how the understanding of diversity — and what it means to be an American — has changed over time. Perhaps 100 years ago, diversity would have meant an equal opportunity to become a part of the melting pot of America where everyone lost their distinct identities and became “homogeneous” Americans of one culture.

But Page noted that concept has changed where people want to retain some of their individual cultural identity while being united as Americans at the same time.

20151103_Forum_077“I’ve noticed in recent years that we are seeing a new metaphor, which I think is useful and that is the salad bowl,” Page observed. “Or as they like to say at my house, the Mulligan Stew. My parents were Depression babies and told me all about Mulligan Stew where you just put everything in the pot that you happened to have in the house. The dynamics were always changing: peas, carrots, potatoes, meats. Spices. You put it all in the pot and you stir it up and it is always different. What is interesting is that everything in the pot lends its flavor to the whole.

But you can look in the pot and you can still see the potatoes and the carrots are still carrots, but they are all contributing to the whole. And they also absorb something from the whole. And that, to me, is the great dynamism of this country. This country is where people, unlike most countries, are not unified by a single historical, familial, ethnic identity or tribal identity. But we are a people who come from many different identities, but we are united by a common vision, a common quest for opportunity. And this is what makes America that salad bowl, that collection of different identities. Or, when I was out in California, I was talking to a Japanese American journalist and he said, ‘I like that.20151103_Forum_080

Of course, in our community, we call it the stir fry.’ I like that. It’s kind of like the Mulligan Stew, only crispier. The main thing is it retains more of the nutrients. And then I was down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I love Baton Rouge. I love saying it. I was talking to a group down there and I was talking about the while Mulligan Stew metaphor. After it was over, a wonderful young lady came up and thanked me for the speech and said, ‘Thank you very much about your remarks about the Mulligan Stew. Around here, we like to call it the gumbo.’ I like that. Again that is America, that diversity of different points of view, the different ways of looking at the world. And that is what has enabled us to be able to work together and be a model for the rest of the world, in certain ways.”

And although people retain their cultural identities, in full or in part, there are also things that bind us as Americans.

Vice Provost & Chief Diversity Officer Patrick J. Sims welcomes Forum participants.
Vice Provost & Chief Diversity Officer Patrick J. Sims welcomes Forum participants.

“We can talk about multiculturalism as a bridge, as a transition that we go through appreciating different cultures on our way to those cultures assimilating into the federal culture, especially after 1-2 generations,” Page said. “We may all come from different backgrounds and different cultures and languages, but all of our kids eat Big Macs, whether it is good for them or not. That’s part of the Big Macization of our mainstream culture. I’m not anxious about bilingual education. It tends to be a transitional notion as well as bicultural awareness. I think as society becomes more diverse, our ability to grasp diversity, to be more aware of differences, that’s where the power will be, that’s where elections will be won, that’s where profits will be made, that’s where development will come as people learn to live with each other more.”

According to Page, each generation has to deal with the issues of diversity in its own way that the attitudes, beliefs and fears of one generation may not hold true for the next.

“We now have young people coming along who are fairly convinced that us older folks are foggies,” Page said. “That is their duty as young people to want to write off us older folks as being behind the times. As I have said in the past, there is a certain wisdom that we bring to the occasion that it is important. Chris Rock had one of the earlier monologues on HBO where he said, ‘All old Black men are racist.’ I realized that he is right. My late father-in-law was a pharmacist by day and a jazz musician by night in Chicago. He was the most courteous and kind and wonderful man, especially with the White folks whom he worked for as long as they were around. When they weren’t around, then we got to hear about all of the terrible things that White folks did today. But he was accustomed to that world. It was a different one than the one that I came up in.”

And yet, Page reminds us, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

20151103_Forum_101“As I’ve told my son, ‘Son, I’m old enough to remember when you were colored,’” Page said. “And then in the early 1960s, we became Negro as in ‘30 Negroes were arrested today trying to register to vote.’ And then in the late 1960s when I came to campus, we became Black. Then in the late 1980s when I was working as a reporter in Chicago, Rev. Jesse Jackson suggested, ‘Why don’t we call ourselves African Americans? It has much more character to it.’ I got very excited. I called my mother. I said, ‘Mom, we have a hyphen too.’ Nowadays, I hear us referred to more often as people of color. So I know we’ve come a long ways, from colored people to people of color. Who says we haven’t made progress?”

Much a reflection of his occupation as it is of his years. Page is not an “in-your-face” kind of speaker. Rather he is someone who uses the twist of a phrase to drive a point home, sometimes so subtly that the full depth and meaning of what he has said takes a moment to fully appreciate.

20151103_Forum_094Page used President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection to make two points about diversity. The first is that American society is a lot more complex than appearances would suggest.

“Karl Rove was begging Fox News not to call Ohio for Obama because, in part, Republicans need to win Ohio in order to win the presidency,” Page said. “He said that he had all of these counties where he had people monitoring the vote turn out and these were good Republican counties and precincts. He knew that they had enough out there to put Romney over the top. But what he didn’t account for, we later found out, was those districts with the key Republican vote, didn’t turn out. A big reason was Romney saying that he would allow Detroit go bankrupt. There were nuances to this. Essentially, Barack Obama let Detroit go bankrupt too. But he didn’t broadcast it and campaign on it. Detroit was going through this cycle of boom or bust on the way to recovery. But in any case, everyone thinks that the auto industry is just Detroit. But it isn’t. It stretches out through Michigan into Ohio along I-75, right down to my hometown.”

M Adams, Co-Executive Director of Freedom, Inc., joined Pulitzer Prize-Wining journalist Clarence Page for a discussion on the intergenerational aspects of the Civil Rights Movement and activism. The discussion was moderated by Vice Provost Patrick J. Sims.
M Adams, Co-Executive Director of Freedom, Inc., joined Pulitzer Prize-Wining journalist Clarence Page for a discussion on the intergenerational aspects of the Civil Rights Movement and activism. The discussion was moderated by Vice Provost Patrick J. Sims.

Another lesson is that a successful candidate for president needs a diverse voter base.

“Romney wound up winning White males and married White women,” Page recalled. “And they lost everyone else. That is not a way to win an election. While the White voters who were normally Republican did not turn out, Black folks, we turned out. We turned out big. For the first time in history, the Black turnout was bigger than the White turnout. This is a new era ladies and gentlemen. But this is what happens when people have someone they want to vote for. People do turn out. In any case, this is the thing. I love political consultants. David Axelrod was an intern of mine back in the 1970s. Yes, I am that old. I make sure that everyone knows that David Axelrod was my intern, by the way, like I taught him everything he knows. But the fact is, David understood diversity. This is why he came to Chicago. He wanted to find out how politics really works at the grassroots. And Chicago is a city of diversity.”

20151103_Forum_159Page reflected on the times when he got his start in journalism back in the 1960s. Someone in the industry noticed that diversity would be good for the industry. One reason was it would appeal to a larger readership. It would make newspapers more profitable.

“The Miami Herald, I’ll never forget, was wondering why they didn’t have more Hispanic subscribers,” Page noted. “And one of their Hispanic staff, not in the newsroom, who was working over on the business side said, ‘It might help if the food section had a few red beans and rice recipes.’ It hadn’t occurred to anyone. It is a basic staple of part of the Caribbean. Of course the Miami Herald ought to have red beans and rice recipes in the newspaper. But it takes someone from the background that eats red beans and rice at home to sometimes point this out.”

The diversity was also important for the newspapers to become more culturally competent in their reporting.

20151103_Forum_175“A colleague and I went to cover a Roberta Flack concert at the Harry Crowne Theater in Chicago,” Page said. “And she was just terrific. It was a fantastic show. My buddy wrote his review in the Daily News talking about her wonderful monologue. In between stories, she would tell stories. I’ll never forget one of the stories she told about getting ready for Sunday school. And the mother would put the Royal Crown in her hair and comb it out. And she would get dressed in her Sunday best. It was a great story and a great punch line. In the next day’s paper, David wrote about Roberta Flack remembering her mother putting cola in her hair. Royal Crown is what we call hair grease. It was not the Royal Crown cola. But coming from his background, he heard Royal Crown and he thought of cola. With my background, I thought of hair grease. This is the value of having a multicultural education and sensitivity.”

Page reflected on the impact of the new media on diversity. While we may have more information at our fingertips than ever before, overall, we might know less than we knew before.

“Marshall McLuhan would step in and say, ‘Well the new communication is a media that is doing a great job of helping us to hook up with people and information all over the planet and broadened our horizons,’” Page speculated. “’At the same time, it has made it easier for us to narrow our horizons.’ In other words, you can tune in to just the information sources and other connections that agree with us, that are just like us and don’t broaden our horizons. They just reinforce all of our earlier prejudices and judgments. And that is something that we need to be aware of because I think it is a negative although it can be a positive depending on certain circumstances. But innovations rub both ways. They can both help us, but also hurt us. Look at the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s an excellent example of a flash mob movement. It rose up when a lot of 20151103_Forum_081people were upset and they set up a hash tag Black Lives Matter. There are all kinds of hash tag movements around. There is also a hash tag TCOT, Top Conservatives on Twitter. A lot of conservatives were weary of constantly bumping into opinions that didn’t agree with theirs on the Internet. And so, the set up a hash tag TCOT, which will take you right to other conservatives. And you can just bypass all of those liberals and half-steppers out there. Of course, it didn’t take long for a number of liberals to hear about TCOT who now put hash tag TCOT on their messages just to irritate conservatives. That’s why I like Twitter. You can just sit there in your living room and it brings the world to you or creates all sorts of disruptions, if you will. This is something about the new world that we are in. I think we all need to find ways to deal with it.”

After his speech, Page sat down with The Capital City Hues to talk about the future of media and print journalism. While the print industry over all is hurting, it is a mixed experience within the industry.

20151103_Forum_169“It is only the big newspapers that are hurting,” Page observed. “The small ones are growing. And it is magazines too. You look at the Nation, the New Republic, and the National Review, those intellectual publications that were funded by not-for-profits and they were limited because they couldn’t get news stand space. They don’t need it now. They are on the web. And the web has replaced the news stand. And so, the Nation’s audience has never been bigger. And the same thing goes with these other publications. And that is just one example. This new era is still just so new that we’re still figuring it out. But I don’t see any indication that paper is long for this world as far as news is concerned. The fact that I’m hearing that Amazon is opening up a bookstore verifies it. And I’ve also heard this from the publishing industry that they think they have bottomed out for the time being and are starting to see some improvement in sales. You had some shrinkage at first, but then you have a good Christmas season and book sales go up. People are becoming more sophisticated in how to market in this new age. I do see a future for newspapers and books and other media, but in a different form than they have been in the past.”

Questions from the audience were key to the open discussion.
Questions from the audience were key to the open discussion.

Page is not one to sit back and wring his hands about this new age of journalism. There are some aspects of it that he embraces.

“Tribune Publishing is a different kind of business now,” Page emphasized. “For me as a columnist, I came up in the day when I wrote two columns a week, in the Sunday and the Wednesday paper. The column runs on the web before it goes into the paper now. Before I came here, I filed my Wednesday column. I know it might be on the web today. Now when I turn it in, it immediately goes into the editorial processing. What happens is my Wednesday column appears on the web like noon Tuesday. My Sunday column appears on the web on noon Friday. It already kind of weird enough in Chicago where the Tribune and Sun Times Sunday papers come out at noon on Saturday anyway. But now in the Internet age, we’re coming out at noon on Friday. It’s completely thrown off the old calendar and metabolism that we have traditionally had. But we can do things we couldn’t do before. We can make corrections or we can add other changes. I did a column last Sunday about South Carolina and the policeman who yanked the student out of her desk in the classroom. We just put the video right there with the column. People who hadn’t seen the video could watch it right there. We couldn’t do that on paper. There are so many things that we can do now, which make us more effective. But one thing we haven’t learned how to do is make money.”

And life for journalists has changed. Whereas, most journalists were salaried and had benefits and worked for one outlet at a time, young journalists today work in an entirely different environment.20151103_Forum_181

“I’m on the Livingston Foundation committee, which each year chooses the three top promising journalists who are age 35 and under,” Page said. “I’ve been doing it for about 20 years. And this year, for the first time, all three of our winners were freelancers. They are freelancing for some great publications, from The New York Times to Rolling Stone and Atlantic. They each have a portfolio of 3-4 different publications that they are all writing for in order to pull together enough money to live on. That’s how I started in this business, freelancing. McLuhan once again said, ‘Innovation leads to an earlier form of itself.’ It’s great for the young folks. They are really enthusiastic and gung-ho. They are thoroughly empowered by the Internet. I wanted to be a columnist since I was 16-years-old. It took me 20 years to become one. I had to go through the police beat and the courts and all of that stuff. That first Pulitzer was an undercover assignment on voting fraud. They are all great experiences. But now, these kids aren’t even out of high school. They are already blogging and putting their opinion out there. I have to tell them, ‘Don’t go putting your opinion out there until you have some facts to back it up.’ Facts are a nice thing.”

It’s a complex, less secure world out there for journalists. It’s also a less secure world for something called the truth. It’s a brave new world.

By Jonathan Gramling, Editor and Publisher of the Capital City Hues