SACRAMENTO — Gov. George Deukmejian on Friday ordered an inquiry into how and why his appointees to the state Bicentennial Commission approved the sale of a textbook that characterized black children as "pickaninnies" and American slave owners as the "worst victims" of slavery.
The governor acted within two hours after state Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) called a press conference to demand that the three Deukmejian appointees be fired for endorsing what the legislator termed a "racist and bigoted" text published by the ultraconservative National Center for Constitutional Studies.
Hart was joined in his appeal to Deukmejian by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), whose great-great-grandmother was a slave.
"It is outrageous that any group carrying the state's official blessing could associate itself with literature so blatantly racist, not to mention simply inaccurate," Brown said in a statement.
Kevin Brett, deputy press secretary to Deukmejian, said the governor ordered his aides to "contact our appointees to the Bicentennial Commission to ascertain their decision-making process in deciding to market the book--what were the reasons, what was the background." Meantime, he said, Deukmejian was "reviewing" the controversial passages in "The Making of America."
Fund-Raising Device
The book was selected by the five-member commission last March as a fund-raising device to help finance commission activities in the 200th anniversary celebration of the U.S. Constitution. But when controversy erupted Thursday, sales abruptly ceased, said commission spokesman Ray Kabaker.
"We're embarrassed by it," he said of the book. The spokesman said that when the book was suggested to the commission by the publisher, commissioners "leafed through it" but no one "reviewed it thoroughly" before approving it on a 3-1 vote.
He said 215 copies were sold for $24.95 a copy, and the commission netted $2,145.
"An error in judgment was made in selling this book or any book," he said. "We should be perceived as a bipartisan, nonprofit foundation."
The three Deukmejian appointees who voted for the textbook are chairwoman Jane A. Crosby of South Pasadena, a Republican activist; Coanne Cubete of Fountain Valley, and Marguerite P. Justice, a former member of the Los Angeles Police Commission and that panel's first black woman member. Jack Rakove, an appointee of the state Senate Rules Committee and a Stanford University history professor, cast the only "no" vote. (There were only four commissioners at the time because the seat to be filled by Speaker Brown was vacant.)
