April 25, 2004

Race and double standards
Posted by Jon Henke

This bout of point-missing has been going on for too long. Referencing the similar Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley cases of journalistic fraud, Leonard Pitts writes...

When a white person screws up, it ignites a debate on the screw up. When a black person screws up, it ignites a debate on race.
I've been reading this statement in various forms for quite some time, and the shallowness of the logic astounds me. Let me restate the question he's asking: since race was discussed in regards to the Jayson Blair scandal, shouldn't race be discussed in regards to the Jack Kelley scandal?

Ok, fair enough, let's discuss: Did race have something to do with the Jayson Blair scandal? Well, yes. But don't take my word for it. Here is Howell Raines...

"Our paper has a commitment to diversity and by all accounts he appeared to be a promising young minority reporter," Mr. Raines said. "I believe in aggressively providing hiring and career opportunities for minorities."

"Does that mean I personally favored Jayson?" he added, a moment later. "Not consciously. But you have a right to ask if I, as a white man from Alabama, with those convictions, gave him one chance too many by not stopping his appointment to the sniper team. When I look into my heart for the truth of that, the answer is yes."

Ok, so it's fair to say that race played a part in the promotion of Blair to a position for which he was unready. What about Jack Kelley? Did race have something to do with the Kelley scandal?

Uh. .... Anything?

Nope. At least, not so far as we know. If something comes up, I'm sure we'll hear all about it, but the fact is that race DID play a part in Blair's ascension, while we don't have any reason to believe it played a part in the career of Jack Kelley.

Conflating the two, as Pitts does, is akin to asking why we discuss the state of Scott Peterson's marriage in his trial, but we don't discuss the state of Marth Stewarts marriage in her trial. Well, brain surgeons, it might have a bit to do with relevance. Show me the relevance of Jack Kelley's race to his scandal, and we'll discuss it. Otherwise, why bring it up?

Oh. Right. Race-pimping. Kevin Drum makes the same error, when he writes...

Don't the folks who loudly insisted that affirmative action was to blame for Jayson Blair's transgressions owe us an explantion for their relative silence about the far worse journalistic fabrications of Jack Kelley? Has it given them any second thoughts at all?
I suspect the relative silence has a lot more to do with the fact that...well, jeez, it's USA Today. And it's the second story. We find WMDs in Iraq...that would be a HUGE story. We find a second set? That would be much less of a story. Bloggers have largely had their say on the topic. What's left to say? "Uh...that Jack Kelley guy sucks, too."

Most of all, in light of Pitts statement that "When a white person screws up, it ignites a debate on the screw up. When a black person screws up, it ignites a debate on race", I have to point to this story about a white writer, fired after making a racially charged comment in his column....

The newspaper's editor fired him after he wrote: "I think blacks should be more careful in deciding whom they choose to support. They need to grow beyond the automatic reaction of defending someone because he or she shares the same skin color and is in a dilemma."
....
A similar article, written just two days earlier by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts drew no such outrage. Pitts, who is black, wrote: "Blacks ought to be more thoughtful about whom they choose to rally around, ought to be less automatic in leaping to the defense."
Um. So, tell me again Mr Pitts, about how white people skate on race issues.

UPDATE: Sebastian Holsclaw adds more along these lines at the very good group blog Obsidian Wings.

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Comments

As I keep saying, this was nt about race, but about cultural values. Blair and Kelley did a fair job both on paper and in life, of releflcting the values their paper wanted to project. Their problem is, they got caught at it doing what their papers wanted.

Blair's race did get invlved but only because when he was caught at it, the first knee-jerk liberla reponse is 'well, you're only after him because he's black'.

And if you think I'm off base about their papers wanting those values reflected, a simple read of their current output, even sans these two 'reporters' should dispell any doubts you have.

Posted by: Bithead at April 25, 2004 11:15 PM