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Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder – November 16, 2005
Hakeem candidacy exposed media biases
Air America, among others, had trouble getting past ethnicity to the issues
By Shannon Gibney
In the contest for Minneapolis mayor, Green Party Candidate Farheen Hakeem says that her biggest fight was not with her opponents, but rather with the media — both mainstream and community. The struggle to get reporters to represent and interact with her fairly was unrelenting, she says.
In an email message that was widely distributed this summer, Hakeem wrote, “Monday, June 18th, John Manamaker from WCCO radio interviewed many Green party candidates, and his first question to me was, ‘Is Minneapolis ready for a Muslim woman mayor?’ He did not ask my colleague Dave Bicking if Minneapolis Ward 9 is ready to have a white male council member. I’m sure he felt a little left out.
“Monday, June 18th, Beth Sliver from the Pioneer Press printed a story about the Mayoral race, and labeled me as a ‘Black Muslim from Chicago.’ Although I am quite flattered and honored to be seen as African American, I’m not. I hate to break [it] to you Ms. Silver, but not all people of color are Black. Besides, when do I get to read her write about R.T. Rybak as ‘White Christian from Linden Hills’ or Peter McLaughlin as ‘White Christian from Standish- Ericcson?’”
At issue, says Hakeem in a recent interview, is objectivity. “I was told over and over again by many reporters, ‘Well, normally you don’t see this. Well, typically this isn’t usual.’ And then I had to be like, ‘Typical in whose world?’
The paradox, Hakeem says, is that while the novelty of a young Muslim woman running for political office was what piqued most journalists’ interest in her (since the Greens rarely receive much attention, especially from the mainstream press), it was also what prevented them from taking her candidacy seriously.
“I wanted to make the race interesting by talking about more of the issues,” says Hakeem. “I had the chance to really twist the arm of the media, because they kept on wanting to stick to my race and my gender and my youth and my religion, and I would always have to say, ‘What does that have to do with anything?’ I felt that as a person of color, I really had the chance to work it to my advantage and hold the media accountable.”
Hakeem believes that although there are many White reporters who are intimidated by her now, there are a few who have grown from the experience of discussing these issues with her. “I think Craig Cox [Minneapolis Observer editor and publisher] and Rochelle Olson [Star Tribune reporter] definitely think differently now,” she says. “But I don’t think I got David Brauer [Skyway News and Southwest Journal editor] or Scott Russell [Skyway News reporter] to think differently.” …..
Hakeem, who shocked the establishment by garnering 14 percent of the vote in the primary, says that this change is due to one thing and one thing only: “They’re basically recognizing a political power that they’ve never recognized before.”
Whatever happens going forward, Hakeem says that she will not apologize or even explain who she is to make others feel more comfortable…..
http://www.spokesman-recorder.com/News/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=63557&sID=4
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