Every now and again, the Houston Chronicle blogs surface interesting discussions… and the comments that came in on a recent post by James Campbell is a great example.
Mr. Campbell was addressing an email from a reader who wondered why the Chronicle was late specifying that Quintero (the accused murderer of Officer Rodney Johnson) was here illegally… but right out of the gate, the comments went to race and ethnicity.
How is it that some folks don’t seem to understand that someone’s legal / illegal status in this country does not indicate race or ethnicity… or that their fixation on race says far more about them than it does about the media?
Frankly, I can only think of a single instance where the public is served by reporting racial or ethnic characteristics — When there is a fugitive at large in the community, and folks need to be able to identify him/her.
It is naive to suppose that racial characteristics do not figure into an individual’s unique appearance. If the public is “on the look-out” for someone, it’s every bit as useful to identify straight sandy-colored hair as it is black dreadlocks.
Other than a need to protect the public, though, calling out racial or ethnic characteristics is to underscore them — to highlight them — and this applies to more than race or ethnicity.
Consider the bizarre generalizations that have been made about the Katrina evacuees and New Orleans. Does anybody seriously think that Jim Pruett would have been able to embarrass himself (and the city of Houston) with his gun shop commercial and “Katricians”, if local reporting had not been specifying “Katrina evacuee”?
Such reporting has been, quite frankly, irresponsible.
We don’t hear the place of origin for other suspects in crimes… and the HPD has not distinguished between victims and criminals. Am I the only one who sees a problem here? It’s one thing for the FBI or local police departments to capture statistics, but it’s another thing entirely when information is delivered piecemeal, and focused on a specific population.
So back to Quintero… what people really wanted to know was his status in this country. Was he legal or illegal? As it happens, he was illegal and he’d been deported for prior crimes (against a child, to my disgust)… but that hasn’t got a thing to do with the hair on his head or the shade of his skin. Officer Johnson was black. Does that matter too? No. It doesn’t.
Some commenters suggested that the reporting standard should be to give the race/ethnicity of every suspect. To what purpose? What would people gain?
Polimom’s kitchen must be missing an item that other households possess: a whiteboard so people can put a hash-mark under black, brown, and white. If so, I’m glad… and I’m very sorry that others feel the need to keep score.
The Chronicle — and other news sources — should absolutely be paying close attention to what, and how, they are reporting race, ethnicity, and place of origin. Unless they plan to disclose that a criminal comes from Dallas or Anchorage (as well as New Orleans) — and distinguish between victims and perpetrators — they should drop it from ordinary news stories. The statistics are a separate story altogether, newsworthy in and of itself, but counter-productive at the micro-level.
Unless there is a criminal for whom the police are looking, reports should not include race or ethnicity at all… and when they do, it should apply across the board.
Reporting race, ethnicity, or place of origin has ramifications on the community, and it’s not just the Chronicle that needs to be aware of what they report… and what they don’t.