TP: National Review symposium on Black unemployment has no Black participants

[agentS]

Seriously? No Black participants?

Of course, this being the NRO, a hyper conservative organization, of course they would not be able to attract any Blacks. Wouldn't want any of us coloreds talking out of turn, now would they?

Yesterday, National Review Online (NRO) posted an article by the American Enterprise Institute’s Kevin Hassett arguing that the fact that the recession has been worse for minorities “suggests that discrimination may well still be a factor in the American labor market.” In response, NRO hosted an online “symposium” for “some economics and civil-rights analysts to share their thoughts on the topic.” Their conclusion was that “Discrimination is an insufficient explanation for black unemployment.” Oliver Willis notes that NRO did not include any black participants in the discussion:

The thing is, there’s no law or rule that only black people can talk about issues affecting black people, or the same for white, Latino, Asian people, etc.

But considering the way the conservative movement insists that it is diverse, they couldn’t find one black person for their symposium? Not one?

National Review’s Daniel Foster responded to Willis on Twitter, saying, “We don’t do quotas. But there’s this Thomas Sowell guy who writes for us a lot. Pretty sure he’s an economist.” Robert A. George, who has written for National Review, tweeted that the “forum should have had black cons. viewpoint.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/01/nro-black-symposium/

If you go to the link, you can see the racial and gender makeup of the symposium.

Now I'm not saying you have to be Black to understand or be an expert on unemployment in the Black community. What I AM saying is that if you're going to hold a conference of some sort about a group, then it should be common sense to have members of that group present to make sure your discussions have some sort of cultural relevance (Or at the very least, avoid the perception of being paternalistic).

The NRO should know that Black people DO use the Internet *cough* *cough* and could have participated IF invited.

Then again, given the history of conservative policy damage to the Black community, why would they want to participate?

[Captain Hilts]

1. You just can't make up stuff like this. You just can't. nt

[agentS]

2. For awhile I thought it was an April Fools Post

Or something from the Onion.

[Captain Hilts]

3. The Republican party has really lost run of itself. It's just not clued in. nt

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Would be hysterical if it were not so ridiculously pathetic.