Some Folks Gag on a Gnat but Swallow a Camel

After years of covering political campaigns and scandals, I’ve just about given up figuring out what issues spur people into action.

I remember, for instance, in Chicago back in 1979, when Mayor Michael Bilandic was running for reelection. Despite an Administration fraught with scandal and a horrid track record in black communities, Bilandic still led in the polls among blacks.

But just before Election Day, the Blizzard of ’79 hit and Bilandic failed to clean up the snow fast enough. Because of the snow, black voters helped boot him out of office.

I bring this up in the shadow of all the hoopla around AT & T, which has much of black Los Angeles abuzz. The communications giant has been apologizing all over about a cartoon that appeared in its monthly in-house Focus magazine.

The drawing shows characters on several continents conversing by telephone. All of the characters are human except the one in Africa--that one is a monkey.

Ouch!!!

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AT & T began apologizing for the mistake before many of its employees had even received the magazine. First the editor of the magazine apologized, then the vice president for public relations and finally the company’s chairman.

How did AT & T end up in this “terrible mess?” as one company spokesman put it. Well, the spokesman explained, a free-lance artist (who has since been fired) was contracted by a New York firm, which designs the magazine, to come up with a drawing. He did and gave it to the art director, who saw nothing offensive and sent it along to the AT & T staff.

AT & T officials say that the person who was supposed to check the drawing didn’t because she was so busy looking at the editorial copy. Besides, she figured, it must be OK because it had been approved by the art director. (He has also been fired.)

There are a couple of ironies here.

By most accounts, AT & T has a good reputation in its treatment of minorities. It was cited last year by Black Enterprise magazine, the African-American version of Fortune, as being one of the best companies for blacks to work in. Black Collegiate magazine came to the same conclusion.

The company gives goo-gobs of money to black organizations. Just last year it donated $7.5 million to the United Negro College Fund. As for its employment record, 25% of the corporation’s staff are minorities. And minorities, mostly African-Americans, make up 18% of the company’s managers.

The editorial staff of the magazine is 28% minority (a figure far higher than most publications). In fact, the woman who was supposed to have checked the offending cartoon is African-American.

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But even the folks at AT & T recognize that right now nobody really gives a damn about those numbers. Everywhere I go, people are talking about that monkey in Africa. I was in the line at the bank recently when a black attorney brought it up.

“I’ve already changed over to Sprint,” she said indignantly.

Our conversation drifted to local affairs, parental concerns and finally to the one thing of which she was most proud--her recent purchase of a new home. She said it did not come easy.

“My bank was giving me all kinds of hell,” she said. “I went through all kinds of paperwork. Finally, they asked me about the ‘financial viability’ of the law firm where I worked. I told them that this is a major law firm with three offices in the United States and one overseas.” Insulted, she said she took her business elsewhere.

“Which bank was that,” I asked of the offending institution.

“This bank right here,” she said incredulously.

I wondered why this woman, who had quickly changed her long distance service, had not dumped the bank that was hassling her about a loan for her home.

It seems that some people will choke on a gnat but swallow a camel. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the reaction--or lack of--to the lending patterns of financial institutions. With none of the uproar flaring around AT & T’s monkey, blacks are rejected for home mortgage loans more often than whites, Latinos, Asians and every other ethnic group at every income level--from families earning $35,000 or less to those making $100,000 or more.

The widest gap between the ability of whites and blacks to get loans was among those making more than $100,000. But blacks keep sticking their money into these institutions, which loan it to others so they can build up their neighborhoods. Meanwhile, black investors, entrepreneurs and prospective homeowners go without.

“Banking is a very personal thing,” says Wayne Bradshaw, president of the black-owned Family Savings Bank. “It’s hard sometimes to say why people won’t put their money in certain banks. Still, it would seem that the impact of people not making loans is greater than that of a cartoon.”