Face the State

A Face the State Media Fact Check

Peter Groff is black. You would have had to have spent last week living under a rock to miss this. But ask any ordinary Colorado voter about Groff’s legislative goals as Colorado’s incoming Senate president, you’ll likely come up empty handed. To many in the media, the only thing that matters is Groff’s race.

The Rocky Mountain News devoted the entire front page of its paper last Thursday to Groff, a Democrat. “Capitol Moment: Groff becomes first black to head state senate,” the headline read. Similarly, the Denver Post included a giant photo of Groff, his wife, and his son on the front of its metro section. Nowhere in the Post’s accompanying article was anything mentioned about any of Groff’s legislative goals. Instead, the entire focus was on a black man taking control of the gavel in the state’s most powerful political chamber.

This week, the only print coverage that seemed to verge substantially from discussing Groff’s race was a guest column in the Rocky written by former state Sen. Mark Hillman, a Republican. His column respectfully chronicled Groff’s previous leadership in the legislature. It primarily focused on Groff’s ideas—and not his skin pigment.

The media has long been obsessed with race and gender, but in 2008, minorities and women should be offended that they’re constantly—and still being—tokenized because of genetics that no person has any ability to control. Just a few years ago, the public endured similar media coverage of Groff’s successor—Joan Fitz-Gerald, the first woman to serve as Colorado Senate president. We’ve clearly got more important things to focus on.

So Groff’s skin color is darker than previous senate presidents and Fitz-Gerald was born with a different gender than those who went before her. The differences and similarities mean little in the lives of most voters . Having Fitz-Gerald, a Democrat, in office did nothing to further the priorities of most Republican women, who frequently list access to quality schools, including charter schools, as one of their top concerns. Conversely, having Groff in power gives them a hope they never had under Fitz-Gerald. He might actually fight for true education reform, a priority long ignored by Fitz-Gerald.

As Hillman so eloquently wrote in Thursday’s Rocky, “[Groff] leads Democrats who are bold enough to buck teachers’ union efforts to force all students into the same dysfunctional, top-heavy mold that today fails more than half of its students.” Fitz-Gerald, on the other hand, was one of the union’s strongest advocates during her senate tenure and today benefits from union endorsements and campaign cash as she pursues Colorado’s second congressional district.

While Fitz-Gerald has ignorantly attacked charter schools as vehicles of white flight, Groff continues to embrace them. When fellow Democrat Mike Merrifield, chairman of the House education committee, infamously wrote in a 2006 e-mail that there was a “special place in hell” for parents and other supporters of charter schools, Groff fought back, publicly condemning Merrifield’s remarks. "[The comments] show there's absolutely no good faith on the Rep. Merrifield's part, who is clearly more concerned with defending a crippled and ineffective status-quo public education system then creating opportunities for all kids," he told a reporter.

Peter Groff has worked hard to get where he is today. He deserves to be taken seriously as a man of ideas—and not forever seen simply as a man of color. We’ve got more important things to worry about, like how to free kids of all races from failing schools.