by Aidan White
Posted: 4 September 2012
The robust United States Presidential campaigns can bring out the worst in people and media as this week’s wind-blown Republican convention in Florida has proved.
Two people attending the event in Tampa, where Mitt Romney was unanimously endorsed as the party’s challenger to Barack Obama in the November election, caused a storm when they threw nuts at a black camerawoman for CNN with the racist taunt – “this is how we feed animals.”
The incident reported by the BBC took place inside the crowded convention centre and was witnessed by many delegates. Security officials with the support of Republican Party leaders promptly removed the two responsible.
CNN is often a target for right-wing criticism in the US where it is regarded as part of a “liberal media” establishment by Republicans.
The incident further highlights the difficulties of a party still trying to shed its image as the diversity-light half of American politics. Among the speakers at the convention shortly after the nut-throwing incident was Mia Love, who is aiming to become the first black Republican woman to be elected to Congress.
But Republicans resent being targeted as the party of racists and some commentators agree with claims that racism is evenly spread across American politics.
But just how sensitive the race issue is on all sides was revealed when Yahoo News fired its Washington bureau chief this week for saying White House hopeful Mitt Romney was “happy to have a party with black people drowning”.
David Chalian was caught on a microphone discussing Hurricane Isaac, which hit Louisiana this week and which had delayed the start of the convention. In a video posted on YouTube, the commentators are heard light-heartedly discussing the hurricane as they watch the Republican convention get underway. Chalian said later that he was sorry for “making an inappropriate and thoughtless joke”.
Joking aside, the race issue casts a long shadow over media and politics in the US. As Patricia Carroll, the CNN camerawoman who was assaulted with peanuts by republicans, later told an interviewer, “This situation could happen to me at the Democratic convention or standing on the street corner. Racism is a global issue.”
Carroll is no stranger to discrimination. “I’m from the Deep South,” she said. “You come to places like this, you can count the black people on your hand.”
With a black President in office and a tense election ahead, she says racism still touches raw nerves. “I’m a proud black woman,” she says. “This should be a wake-up call to black people.”