Jason Mattera, a spokesman with Young America’s Foundation, has responded forcefully to a hit piece in the New York Times that accussed him of using racial overtones in his remarks to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). In an email message to TimesCheck, Mattera offers a possible explaination for what is best described as a smear piece…
Be careful with that Brooklyn accent when The New York Times is on the prowl against young Americans who revere the founding period, eschew political correctness and push for first amendment rights on college campuses.
Jason Mattera, the spokesman for Young America’s Foundation (YAF), has been instrumental in advancing the conservative cause on college campuses. Just a few years ago, Mattera successfully organized a public relations effort aimed against the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul Minnesota, which had blocked a pro-life speaker from appearing.
YAF was not alone in finding it peculiar that no less than a Catholic institution would recoil against a speaker who supports the Catholic position. The administration eventually capitulated thanks in no small part to Mattera’s efforts.
This victory for First Amendment freedoms went uncovered in The Times and other liberal media outlets. But the same paper was not so reticent to turn its ire against Mattera over remarks he made to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington D.C. this past weekend.
Mattera spoke out against the far-left agenda that has been weaved into the curriculum students attending four-year colleges typically endure. He also took on feminists, the Obama Administration and made a pitch to young people. Mattera is the author of an upcoming book entitled: “Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation.”
The reporter Kate Zernik accused the YAF activist of invoking racial stereotypes during his presentation. At least she’s not pretending; Zernik launches into her attack in the first paragraph.
“How can conservatives win the youth vote that overwhelmingly went for Barack Obama in 2008? At the Conservative Political Action Conference, apparently, some are betting on using racial stereotypes.”
The central argument here is that Mattera was supposedly channeling the comedian Chris Rock to suggest that all black people speak the same way. The reporter never made any effort to determine if her supposition was rooted in fact and instead printed the accusations.
“Mr. Mattera, also a television correspondent for the Web site HotAir, said that Mr. Obama had created the “right opportunity to capture what is perceived as the left’s stronghold on the youth vote.
Even Obama Girl, he exclaimed, “said her crush has faded!”
He then mocked what he described, with a Chris Rock voice, as `diversity,’ including, he said, college classes on `cyber feminist’ and `what it means to be a feminist new black man.’”
In an exchange with Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com Mattera explains that he is from Brooklyn and does have a distinct accent that is evident to colleagues and friends. It’s not channeled, it’s part of the Mattera matrix.
“That’s pretty thin gruel, especially if you know Jason,” Morrissey observed in his interview with Mattera. “He’s been calling me his `brothah’ in his pronounced Brooklyn accent since the day I met him.
Mattera suspects that an effort is underway to submarine the content of his book before it is even out in circulation.
“Obama Zombies hasn’t even hit the book shelves and liberals are already in meltdown mode,” told TimesCheck in an email. “They hate that there’s just not a market for their socialist ideas. So enter activist Kate Zernike, who masquerades as a reporter for the New York Times. She stooped so low as to slime and lie about me over the way I talk. I have a special section in Obama Zombies on toolbags like Zernike—reporters who have prostituted their journalism for the cause of liberalism. Unfortunately, many young people are unaware of the activist nature of the news media and therefore have a big, fat zombie target on their foreheads.”
Mattera has asked for a retraction and that the reporter be removed from her position in a recent piece appearing on Andrew Breitbart’s BigJournalism site.
“My alleged “Chris Rock” voice is actually the way I sound every day. Zernike could have figured this out for herself had she spoken with me in person (trust me, I’ll talk to anyone), or at least she could have taken a minute to pull up one of my YouTube videos. Instead, Zernike, who must consider herself some kind of dialect expert, attempted to tarnish my name and stigmatize CPAC for inciting racial animus towards our President. All based on… my Brooklyn accent! You can’t make this stuff up.”
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