Copyright © 1999 by the Boston Phoenix, Inc. All rights reserved.

This Just In: Media

Race and unreason in the liberal press

By Dan Kennedy

You don't have to go to the Web site of the notorious Council of Conservative Citizens to find vicious racial stereotypes. The so-called liberal media will do just fine.

Our first example comes, surprisingly enough, from the Boston Globe, which is more often derided for an excess of political correctness than for race-baiting. In a piece last Friday on the state of hip-hop, music writer Cindy Rodríguez offered a roundup of "the most talked-about contemporaries" -- including DMX, whose skyrocketing popularity Rodríguez attributes to his rap sheet.

"He made headlines when he was arrested on rape charges in New York," she wrote, "but when DNA testing cleared him, few papers reported it. But the charge might have given him the kind of street reputation that makes young people think a person is cool."

Rape is cool? And to think Rodríguez holds a slot once occupied by Patricia Smith -- who was an astute social critic and a damn fine music writer before her meteoric rise and fall.

Our second example was written by the usually trenchant Scott Shuger, who churns out the "Today's Papers" column -- a daily summary of the five national papers -- for the Internet publication Slate. On Monday, Shuger wrote about a New York Times story reporting that 80 percent of first-year students at elite private colleges use computers regularly, as opposed to just 41 percent at black public colleges.

So far, so good. But then Shuger decided to take issue with two academics who told the Times that the findings indicate a widening disparity between "haves and have-nots." Shuger wrote that he recalled "being in Atlanta a few years ago at the annual spring break for traditionally black colleges, 'Freaknik,' and being amazed at the numbers of students' hot cars and loud stereos. Any computer/Internet paucity among students attending traditionally black colleges may be a function of their own interest and choices rather than of affordability."

You could call Shuger's observation a grotesque generalization based on unrepresentative anecdotal evidence. You could call it a Ronald Reagan-like gloss akin to the Gipper's fulminations about "welfare queens" and "young bucks." Or you could just call it what it is: bullshit. And racist bullshit at that.

As one observer put it, "I like 'Today's Papers,' but Shuger showed today why his 4 a.m. deadline might not always be ideal."