Letter to the Editor Nullifies Progress of Racial Harmony

The first week of January 2011, I substituted in a high school English class. One of the Caucasian students in the third block class approached me with a newspaper in his hand. I had never met this young man before. He walked up to the podium where I stood and said, "Read this and tell me what you think."

The small town newspaper (name of town and paper omitted purposely) was turned back and folded to the editorial page. The letter that occupied most of the columns on the page caught my attention. I forget the title, but the gist of the article is this. The author remained anonymous as he or she accused the editors and newspaper staff of being racially biased. According to the letter, the newspaper continually featured stories about African Americans who'd been arrested or who were suspects in crimes on the front page. But when Caucasians from the area had recently been arrested on gaming charges, not a peep or a photo was ever released, until after the news had been featured in larger city newspapers and television outlets

I thought the editorial up to this point, made a valid argument. Biased treatment of the news based on race or any other factor by the purveyors of free speech and journalistic fairness should not be tolerated. I looked up at the young man who'd by this point gone back to his seat. There were question marks floating through my head. Why is he asking for my opinion on this?

Then I kept reading. Oh, boy. If the anonymous letter writer had stopped at this point, he or she and I would have been in total agreement. This person continued his grievance by pointing out that God was going to punish all the *-&-@ white people for how they lie, kill and steal. His grievance turned into a tirade that lashed out at the newspaper and every Caucasian that ever did or will live. For paragraph after paragraph, he or she blasted white folks for everything from slavery, to the bad economy, to violence, to drug problems. They were responsible for everything that had ever gone wrong in his or her community and the world.

Question marks really floated in my head now. I looked up at the student again, who did not make eye contact with me. Is this a trick, I wanted to ask him? What am I expected to say about this person who was looking like a complete idiot with no name? Did he expect me to agree with him or her because I was Black? Who's to say the person who wrote the article was even Black? This could have been someone writing the letter to make Black folks look stereotypically ignorant. We'd never know, since the person didn't have the courage to sign his or her name to it.

The newspaper's integrity was questionable, too. Why would they publish such garbage, especially without a verifiable signature and telephone number where the person could be reached? The newspaper in my city does not publish letters to the editor without the name of the person who wrote it. No ifs, ands or buts. What was this news outlet trying to accomplish?

Then, as if I didn't get enough entertainment from reading the editorial, I decided to re-fold the paper so the front page was showing. What, to my chagrin, stared up at me from the front page above the fold line? You guessed it. There were photos of four African American men wanted for petty larceny, theft, and receiving stolen property. Their photos and the article about them on the front page made a statement about how the newspaper staff felt about the editorial: they didn't care.

I don't read that particular newspaper enough to know if the person who wrote the editorial was telling the truth about racially imbalanced reporting. I do know that publishing the letter was poor taste on the newspaper's part.

What I disliked the most about the letter was, while the accuser pointed out the hatred and wrong that's been levied on blacks throughout the centuries, the accuser was showcasing his or her own hatred and prejudice. If the tables were turned, and the editorial writer owned the newspaper, what would he put on the front page above the fold?

I never did respond to the student who let me read the article. I ended up reading the whole newspaper in search of ideas to write about. When I gave the newspaper back to him, I said, "thank you" and walked away.

No way was I going to make myself look like an idiot. At least not in that instance.