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20. The Breakup
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240 20. The Breakup Farhan Haq joined the City Sun staff in summer of 1991, the season of the Crown Heights riot. His reporting beat was international affairs. Haq was twenty-four and had previously reported for the Amsterdam News after earning his master’s degree in English literature from Yale University. Haq earned his bachelor’s degree at Williams College.1 International affairs at that moment dominated U.S. foreign policy. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, and out of the totalitarian rubble emerged Russia,Poland,several Baltic region countries that wanted to embraceWestern -style capitalism and democracy,and the formerYugoslavia,which splintered into a handful of Balkan states with renewed hatreds among Serbs, Bosnians, and Croatians, and between Christians and Muslims.A continent away in South Africa, slow, painful steps to free the black majority from decades of white minority apartheid had begun. A U.S.-led coalition pummeled Iraq with a brief war in 1991 for invading oil-rich neighbor Kuwait the previous year. Tensions remained predictably high in the Middle East because of relations among Israelis, Palestinians, and a majority of Arabs in dictatorial nations that were hostile toward the democratic Jewish state, which had powerful allies in the United States and United Kingdom. The City Sun made international news coverage an essential part of its weekly report. Haq wrote original stories informed by international sources based in New York, including people within the United Nations. The City Sun also filled its Caribbean and Africa pages with Inter Press Service dispatches . IPS was where Hugh Hamilton had worked as an overseas correspondent before joining the City Sun in the late 1980s as Caribbean editor. Among Haq’s fall 1991 headlines were “‘New World Order’ Brings New Challenges to the Caribbean,” “Palestinians Fear ‘Autonomy’ of Bantustans as Madrid Peace Talks Begin,” and “An Egyptian (Boutros Boutros Gali) Is Named to Top UN Post.”2 By February 1992, Haq’s inside-page reporting shifted to the cover: about 2,500 Haitian demonstrators marched from the Dominican Republic consulate to the Haitian embassy in New York to demand the return of president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was toppled in a coup at the end of September.3 The Breakup 241 In addition to Haq’s and Hamilton’s global-centered local reporting and editing, political cartoonist Abe Blashko used a colorful palate to caricature president George H. W. Bush, secretary of state George Schultz, and major foreign players when Cooper and Leid penned editorials about foreign affairs. Bush was comfortable with foreign affairs and a so-called New World Order, established when the communist Soviet Union disintegrated .At home, a sluggish economy dogged him.America was in the early stages of an emerging postmodern world and a dying Industrial Revolution . Machines were replacing humans in factory jobs, and unemployment swelled. The New York Daily News strike of fall and winter 1990–91—the midpoint of Bush’s first and only term—was a metaphor for the radical makeover of American labor and automation.4 As Bush took a political beating from the struggling U.S. economy, Democrats saw an opportunity to win back the White House in 1992 and thus end a twelve-year lockout. By spring 1992, the front-runner was Bill Clinton, the youthful governor of Arkansas. For years as leader of the Democratic Leadership Council, Clinton had pulled the party away from its left-leaning instincts and toward the political center to appeal to white southern and blue-collar voters who had dumped the Democrats since the late 1960s. Blacks were a reliable voting bloc. Although Bush had far more cordial relations with black America than his hostile predecessor Ronald Reagan, skeptical black poor and the middle-class civil rights establishment stayed overwhelmingly in the Democratic camp.A notable exception was a small number of young black professional“Buppies” who crossed over. Editorially, the City Sun was wary of black GOP professionals. That was evident in its October 16–22 front-page editorial,“Clarence Thomas or Anita Hill? It’s Bad News Either Way.” The conservative Supreme Court justice nominee and the law professor who accused Thomas of sexually harassment when she was his subordinate at a government job were both “sheep” of white elitist sponsors who“shepherded” them, said the editorial, and neither showed any inclination to empower black masses.5 Months later, the City Sun withheld editorial enthusiasm for Clinton. How could it be, when in 1988 the paper had rejected presidential candidate Jesse...