Last week, Loyola professor and WEAA radio host Dr. Kaye was survive WJZ, talking about what’s next for Baltimore after Catherine Pugh’s resignation, when anchor Mary Bubala asked the question We’ve had three female African-American mayors during a row, they were all passionate public servants, two resigned, though,” Bubala asked. “Is it a sign that a special quite leadership is required to maneuver Baltimore forward?” Video of the question went viral. I saw it when Nicki Mayo, president of the Baltimore Association of Black Journalists, shared it on Twitter.

The question Bubala posed wasn’t only racist and sexist, it put Dr. Kaye within the awkward position of getting to talk for each member of her race and sex. How are you able to even begin to answer that question Whitehead answered the question by talking about the items that Pugh had accomplished through the course of her career. She addressed the question further Monday on her show.

“It speaks to a much bigger broader issue. It speaks to where we are during this country, it speaks to where we’ve always been during this country, and it speaks to where we would like to travel during this country,” she said. “It is extremely clear to me that we are still having a problem with sharing the problems around race and that we got to get to a point…where race and gender aren’t determining think about how we see ourselves, how we judge our leaders, or how we allow people to possess access to positions of power.”

My initial response to the question was anger. How could the actions of two Black women shut all of Black women out as contenders for the office? Why isn’t an equivalent quite question posed to White race , especially white men?

Because of my work as a journalist, a Black journalist especially , and particularly now as head of Baltimore Beat, I’m sometimes called on to supply similar commentary. In fact, I saw Mayo’s tweet shortly after speaking about Pugh’s resignation myself on WYPR’s “On The Record With Sheilah Kast.” thereon day, a bit like whenever I start speaking into a microphone, I knew I wasn’t just speaking for myself, i used to be speaking for each other one that seems like me. i do know that my being there’s an anomaly. It’s rarely that brown girls are asked for his or her opinions. It’s tons to shoulder.

Bubala’s question solidified what I already knew: that there’s a huge amount of pressure that comes with being a Black woman . You can’t get mad about anything, because then you’re seen as difficult, angry. You can’t be too loud, too happy, too imperfect, too anything—because then you’re dismissed When people ask how it feels to be the primary or one among the few black women at my job, I tell them I feel pressure,” tweeted Black lawyer Alexis Sykes in response to video of the WJZ incident. “These sort of dumb questions are why. a bit like all White race aren’t an equivalent , neither are all black people. We are individual humans a bit like you.”

My next response to Bubala’s question was hurt. Racism may be a painful thing to grasp , and therefore the double shot of hate you get once you also are a lady makes it worse. It hurts to understand that you simply are going to be completely underestimated, completely exclude , regardless of how pure your motivations and the way excellent you’re  It would be easy to write down Bubala’s comment off as just an error of the tongue. She said the maximum amount during a tweet apologizing for the incident. “I asked question that didn’t begin the way I intended,” she tweeted. “I am devastated that the words I used portray me as someone that i do know i’m not.”

Mistake or not, the question didn’t begin of nowhere. There are many of us who doubt Black women are fit lead and they’ve said the maximum amount during the fallout from this incident. we should always be ready to discuss a Black woman ’s political legacy without grouping every single Black woman who ever lived into the conversation. But that’s what a part of what racism does. It doesn’t allow us complexity.

This has never made sense—racism really doesn’t add up anyway — but it’s even more ridiculous as our national political landscape is dominated by rich, white men and ladies doing all types of unethical things. That doesn’t make the scandal that eventually engulfed Pugh’s administration acceptable, it only makes arguments just like the one Bubala tried to form even more ridiculous. Donald Trump is within the White House. Maryland’s governor is Larry Hogan, an official posing because the anti-Trump whilst he dabbles in dogwhistle racism and casts this city as corrupt and mismanaged (and maintains involvement in his land company).

Baltimore Fishbowl wrote about Bubala’s question and therefore the outrage that it sparked soon . On Twitter, Senior Editor Ethan McLeod expressed shock at the way some readers reacted to the story. “The comments we’re aged this @baltimorefishbowl” — ‘sometimes the media gets it right;’ ‘she should run mayor,’ –are exactly why media (yes,us too) deserves close scrutiny. But especially TV news,” he wrote.

It’s not lost on me that the majority of the people reporting on, or guiding the reporting on Catherine Pugh’s story don’t appear as if her, which matters. How are you able to understand the nuance of being a Black woman in power if you’ve got never experienced and don’t seem curious about inviting Black women to talk on the topic during a meaningful way? that would are what happened with Bubala and Whitehead, but it didn’t.

One of my complaints about some Black media is that, the maximum amount as i really like and support it and recognize why it’s needed, I often wish they’d be tougher on Black politicians. Essence, for instance , ran a bit on Pugh even as the scandal was breaking. “Baltimore Mayor Catherine E. Pugh, the city’s 50th mayor, says she is laser-focused on the work at hand,” the piece, published on March 18, read. Editors later amended the story to reference the Healthy Holly scandal, but it never even touched on any of Pugh’s politics that would use a critical eye—like her push for mandatory minimum sentencing on gun possession charges or the way she changed her stance on raising the wage . You see this too with coverage of Marilyn Mosby who deserves—and surely can withstand—a critical eye instead of “black girl magic”-fueled pieces praising her.

The Afro, Baltimore’s historic Black paper, broke the news Pugh was resigning and provided her further cover during this political storm at an equivalent time. during a piece, published on the morning of the day Pugh resigned, it said that Pugh had told Afro publisher Rev. Dr. Frances “Toni” Draper she was resigning. It didn’t feature any quotes from Pugh, so you had to require the Afro entirely at its word (they added quotes to the story later).

The story then noted that Draper was a part of a prayer circle for Pugh and what followed was an overwrought description of the prayer circle that also critiqued the hawk-like ways reporters have covered Pugh. That critique has merit. Reporters—white reporters primarily—posted up at her home for days began to seem cruel instead of dogged. The response thereto though, with what’s ostensibly a puff piece, isn’t the solution . It wasn’t something i might have done, but questions like Bubala’s allow us to know there’s a reason for this overcorrection: White, mainstream media has not been fair to us.

Then when the Baltimore Sun reported that Pugh would be resigning later that day, they made no mention of the Afro, which whatever one thinks of their story, did report the resignation first This summer, I did a bit for the Columbia Journalism Review about minorities in media. As a part of my reporting, I asked the Sun for statistics about what their newsroom seems like . After much hemming and hawing, I finally got the numbers: at the time the piece visited press, just 20 percent of the Sun’s newsroom were people of color. I I even have worked at WJZ, and I’ve worked at the Sun. i do know how few faces in those newsrooms appear as if mine and that i know meaning many parts of the story that we are telling about who were are as a community are missing.

Racism steals tons from us. It steals time—I’d like to specialise in what’s next rather than taking time to deal with racism and sexism that’s almost as old as time. It steals people that are legitimately talented and bright Bubala said the quiet part loud. We already knew, or should have known, that this is able to happen. what percentage Black women are going to be denied opportunities to steer simply because of what happened with Pugh?

And already, people are starting male-dominated lists of who should run the town next. How is it that former Baltimore City Police spokesperson TJ Smith, who has no experience running government and who oversaw the media side of a corrupt local department , considered a winner within the next mayoral election over any number of Black women who are already actively doing the work? Senator Mary Washington has rightly been mentioned. What about Senator Jill Carter, who is that the one that set the Pugh scandal into motion? for many years , Carter has been pushing for several of the police reforms that are just becoming a part of mainstream political conversation. During the last legislative session, she was one among the few voices that spoke out against a personal police for Johns Hopkins University. There’s also City Councilperson Shannon Sneed, Delegates Robbyn Lewis, Stephanie Smith, and Melissa Wells?

How many more women would run position or combat even higher positions, if they didn’t need to wear the load of racism and sexism on their backs along side the very difficult job of holding office? what proportion simpler would they be in helping marginalized communities if they didn’t need to kowtow to respectability politics given life and breath through white media Monday afternoon, the Baltimore Association of Black Journalists released a press release addressing the Bubala question and therefore the television station’s response thereto .

“The implicit bias presented in Bubala’s interview should be addressed company-wide at WJZ-TV, with a concerted effort to avoid marginalizing by race and gender, particularly during a city whose population reflects its leadership demographics,” the letter read The group demanded that Bubala apologize on-air and also address incorrect reporting from late April that claimed Pugh had left the state. Instead, WJZ fired Bubala. “Mary Bubala is not any longer a WJZ-TV employee. The station apologizes to its viewers for her remarks,” head Audra Swain said during a statement.

Firing Bubala debatably, has the effect of addressing the immediate concern (I’m really unsure firing someone is that the solution here). It also allowed WJZ to avoid watching their organization as an entire .

It was also not what the Baltimore Association of Black Journalists requested. I even have reached bent WJZ to ask if they plan on addressing the incident on-air and have thus far received no answer. If WJZ wants to form amends they have to apologize to Whitehead for putting her therein position. This incident must be quite an unfortunate viral moment to be brushed under the rug by firing.

“We didn’t involve the firing of WJZ anchor Mary Bubala. We were very specific in posing for an on-air apology because that might are an apology within the same manner during which the offense was apportioned ,” Mayo told me during a call on Tuesday.