Editorial

Keep Swinging

The fact that a retraction and a concession to hurt minority groups in the form of a multicultural affairs reporter monopolized the editorial pages of the paper was not surprising, but it was disappointing. The Emerald have made a variety of strategic mistakes over the last few days, one of the least of which was an albeit poorly written editorial that addressed a valid cultural concern.

The first mistake the Emerald made was in allowing an issue to go to press with revisions to the editorial page, a page most students are inclined to read from time to time; revisions that did not reflect the opinions of the rest of the editorial board, and that did not follow the established protocol for writing something called an "editorial."

This was the fault of the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor of the Emerald, not some anonymous editorial board member. No issue should ever go to press when the editor, who will be ultimately held responsible, has not seen the editorial.

The second mistake the Emerald made was in responding as though their offices had been fire-bombed, or as though the editors had been blackmailed. The thought process was so blatant it read something like: "Uh-oh, we didn't do our jobs. The ethnic student unions are really mad at us. We'd better cater to their interests by creating a special reporting position just for them." How patronizing.

But the irony will likely be lost on the many who wrote to the Emerald in outrage over what was essentially a poorly written opinion piece with a shock-value introduction.

If former Emerald Editor Jake Berg were here to see this, he'd probably cry. A few years ago, three young black men appeared on the cover of the Emerald. Their photos were mug shots; their crime was sexual assault.

They were University of Washington football players and they assaulted a young woman in the University Inn on our campus. The Emerald was again flooded with letters and phone calls. Demands were made that included a mandatory ratio of white to minority students on staff and a weekly newsletter for ethnic events put on by the major student unions. At the time, the staff already met and exceeded that ratio, and Editor Jake Berg refused to turn the paper into a newsletter for any special interest, reminding the campus that the Emerald is a paper of record.

Berg was right, after all, because the photos ran with a news piece, as they would in any other daily paper, not because they were black perpetrators, but because they were alleged criminals in a high-profile case that directly concerned his readership.

Of course, Berg was also smart enough to keep unapproved editorials off the final page. Wednesday's retractions, apologies and panderings were dissapointing most of all because the Editor and Managing Editor managed to absolve themselves of direct responsibility for the piece while taking second-hand responsibility for apologies. They neglected several key issues that the piece did bring up.

The piece accurately described the ease with which students can be apathetic to the plight of ethnic students on this campus. It attributed this apathy to lack of knowledge, and gave the responsibility for propogating this knowledge to the ethnic student unions. The piece also acknowledged the oft-denied isolationism of many ethnic student unions, and just about any other student group for that matter. And finally, the piece was a call to arms to unite on the issue of race, to inform on the issue of race; not to voluntarily segregate ourselves and bury the information with which we can win the war on racism.

A racism free society is not merely about getting a little piece of the power by creating a fee-funded, recognized student group. A racism free society is about pooling the people, the power and the resources that will change attitudes about race.

But the Emerald just helped take a step back for that cause by burying information, apologizing for information and hanging the messenger. They failed to take responsibility.