RENDALL: And it's not just television — although television has the largest influence on news consumers and is also the best place to challenge irresponsible, racist, inflammatory and divisive speech. You've also got people like Malcolm Browne of The New York Times recommending The Bell Curve, a book that overtly argues African Americans are less intelligent than whites. [Commentator] Andrew Sullivan did the same thing at The New Republic, giving great respect to this racist volume by Charles Murray and [the late] Richard Herrnstein.

At the same time, you've got [conservative author] Dinesh D'Souza saying we've come to "the end of racism," a view that is also held by lots pundits and commentators in our national media.

IR: All this comes at a time when minorities are more visible than ever before.

RENDALL: There is a dual discourse that has been going on for a very long time. We do now have black people and Latinos on commercials, in journalism and entertainment, on television, and so forth, but there is also a very heavy set of messages about you if you are a loser economically — it's because you had it coming. The racial disparities in economic resources, which are huge, are absolutely denied.

There is an enormous media focus on race in the United States, but very little focus on racism. Often, you will hear that race is a problem, but that's not true. Race is not a problem. Racism is a problem.

IR: It also seems like many media outlets manage to find highly conservative black commentators who are generally very unrepresentative of their communities. I think of Ken Hamblin [a.k.a. "The Black Avenger," host of a syndicated radio show that originates on KOA in Denver], who once said on the air that he was a member of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens.

SOLOMON: The 9% or 10% of African Americans who vote Republican are vastly overrepresented compared to the 90% who vote Democratic. I think there is a utility and novelty to having African Americans on the right with a national platform.

RENDALL: You find the same thing across the board. With African Americans, you get [commentators] Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Armstrong Williams, Larry Elder and Ken Hamblin. The most prominent media pundits who are gay include Camille Paglia, Norah Vincent and Andrew Sullivan. It is hard to find progressive blacks or gays or lesbians in any position of punditry in our national mainstream media.

I would say that this even extends to Jews, another generally very progressive voting constituency. We see a plethora of Jewish neo-conservatives and conservatives, but it's getting harder and harder to find a progressive or even liberal Jewish voice in our national media.

IR: What about the anti-immigration movement and right-wing commentators?

RENDALL: Peter Brimelow [current president of the anti-immigration Center for American Unity; see Into the Mainstream], who at the time was a regular writer for Forbes magazine, wrote Alien Nation, a book I believe is racist.

But the problem isn't that we have people like Peter Brimelow or books like [the racist French anti-immigrant novel] The Camp of the Saints [see group descriptions of the American Immigration Control Foundation, in Into the Mainstream]. It's that we don't have a media culture that challenges this. If we did, we'd know that a lot of the same things that are being said about Latin and Asian immigrants today were said about Italian and Russian Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 19th century. It's the same kind of phobia — the immigrants are dirty, more criminal, less intelligent.

It's a script that's been written and performed many times. We can't seem to have any sort of intelligent discussion informed by our past. We seem to have to learn everything all over again every 20 years or so.

Look who Bill O'Reilly [host of Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor"] invites to discuss immigration policy issues — [executive director] Dan Stein from the other FAIR [Federation for American Immigration Reform; see Into the Mainstream], an anti-immigrant group that has taken more than $1 million from racist funders [the Pioneer Foundation]. We've documented time after time when Stein has appeared on shows, completely unopposed, saying things that in many cases were inaccurate and in some cases hateful and even racist about certain ethnic groups.

IR: So what can we do to cure this state of affairs?

SOLOMON: People who want to create progressive change in the media have been way too reticent to do much about it. A.J. Liebling, the press critic, said decades ago that freedom of the press is only guaranteed to those who own one. Those who don't shouldn't pipe down; they should speak up. If you don't organize, you're going to be victimized. There is a grassroots movement around the country to get other voices into the mainstream media, past the gates of the news mansion.

RENDALL: Broad debate and independent information are the oxygen of democracy. Our Bill of Rights only protects one profession, the press. We should do what we can to support and help create independent and non-commercial media. That is why we think the public should take back the airwaves.

The airwaves belong to the public just like water, just like air, just like the national park system. The airwaves are a national resource, and we have a right as the public to demand that a larger chunk of it be dedicated to our interests, and that means more non-commercial broadcasting.