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August 28, 2001 Mr. Hubert G. Locke Dear Mr. Locke,
I would be happy to meet with you to discuss your note of July 30
as well as your complaint filed with the Washington News Council.
Because you are out of town, let this letter open our conversation.
Let me start by saying it is my understanding that Lee Moriwaki
of our editorial page staff previously contacted Matt Griffin, your
co-chair of the Youth Safety Task Force, to solicit a column presenting
his views of the groupĂs work. Mr. Griffin declined. Lee Moriwaki
talked with you and also made it clear The Times op-ed page was open to
you, though we would not run the same column as the one that appeared in
the P-I. Jim Vesely, editorial page editor of The Times, says that
offer is still available to you. A column by Seattle City Councilman Jim
Compton, explaining his views as a member of the task force was
published in The Seattle Times on August 8.
The thrust of your concern is that The Times published three
articles which you say incorrectly represented the work of the Youth
Safety Task Force. Specifically, you assert that the task force
addressed the issue of race in a section of its report. As you wrote in
your note to me, ¦You may well take issue with what the task force had
to say but to repeatedly be accused of ignoring the matter is blatantly
false.˛ July 22 News Story
First is the news story by Beth Kaiman, which The Times published
July 22. You object to the headline which said, ¦Youth-oriented Mardi
Gras task force passes on race issue.˛ The headline was based on a
paragraph in the story, which you say is misinformation. That paragraph
said, ¦Task-force members declined to be motive-seeking investigators.
They passed on the issue of race ł in part because of philosophical
differences over the groupĂs mission, and in part because some
task-force members were reluctant to talk candidly in an open forum.˛
Your note to me indicates that the basis for concluding that the
headline and story are incorrect is the fact that the task-force report
contains a section titled ¦Mardi Gras, the Media, and Race.˛ One might logically ask what the story means by the term ¦passed on.˛ The story reports that you and Mr. Griffin chose to not have the task force discuss race because you were worried that the media would take the comments out of context. That decision was made after a King County Superior Court judge ordered the sessions of the task force to be open. The story quotes task force member Laura Inveen as saying that she thinks race could have been discussed, reinforcing the fact that it was not.
Ms. Kaiman had written another story four days earlier which also
examined the task forceĂs handling of race. That story said:
The
Youth Safety Task Force discussed a draft of its report yesterday. The
final document will be sent to Schell next week.
In
significant ways, the task force did not do what some people, including
the mayor and the groupĂs co-chairmen, promised it would. Until
yesterday, the group did not discuss the role race might have played in
the violence at Mardi Gras.
¦I
was not about to try it,˛ said Hubert Locke, co-chairman of the task
force and a professor emeritus at the University of Washington.
Locke
said that once the meetings he had expected to be closed were ordered
open by a King County Superior Court judge, he did not wish to expose
task-force membersĂ comments on race to the judgments of the community
or to the media. Locke worried they would be taken out of context.
As
to what might have been learned if race had been discussed, co-chairman
Matt Griffin said, ¦I donĂt think weĂll ever know the answer.˛
Griffin helped make the decision not to discuss race once the meetings
were opened—
Yesterday,
the subject of race entered the groupĂs discussion only because Locke
mentioned it in the draft report. He asserted that the age and social
and economic backgrounds of the assailants at Mardi Gras ¦are all
matters of significance. Race is the easiest and least useful of such
characteristics ł least useful because it permits stereotypes to
surface while telling us nothing of value for preventing
reoccurrences.˛
Most
in the group said they had no problem including that comment.
But
Seattle City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, a task-force member,
resisted. ¦IĂd feel more comfortable saying we didnĂt research it
and draw no conclusions.˛ He said. ¦I donĂt think we directly
addressed issues of race.˛ It was only at that last meeting, after you
put comments about race in the draft report that the group talked about
whether those comments should be in the final report. There was no
indication the comments reflected any previous group analysis of
discussion of the usefulness of race as a factor, and Mr. Steinbrueck
was adamant that there was no such discussion.
You
assert that the task force addressed the issue of race in the section
entitled ¦II. Mardi Gras, the Media, and Race.˛ The section
concludes: ¦Multiple characteristics describe the Mardi Gras event and
the participants in its violence. The age of the participants, their
gender (e.g., videotapes show females assaulting other females), their
school records (i.e., half the juveniles arrested had truancy records),
their social and economic background are all matters of significance.
Race is the easiest and least useful of such characteristics ł least
useful because it permits stereotypes to surface while telling us
nothing of value for preventing reoccurrences.˛ The section and its
conclusion clearly dismissed race as an issue for examination. If
anything, the section and conclusion offered explanation of why task
force ¦passed on race˛ as useful. July 24 Editorial
The Seattle Times separates news from editorial functions, so I
have no involvement in the editorial pages and cannot comment on their
work. I did make Jim Vesely, editorial page editor, aware of your
complaints, and here is his response. This response includes the
comments of Lynne Varner, who wrote the subject editorial opinion:
We respectfully contend Professor Hubert Locke is
incorrect when he accused The Seattle Times of developing its editorial
position based on erroneous information. Along with interviewing him,
editorial writer Lynne Varner also interviewed City Council members
Compton, Steinbreuck and McIver:
Lynne Varner responds:
¦I interviewed Pamela Eakes from Mothers Against
Violence in America. I interviewed community activists James Kelly and
Nate Miles to get a street-level perspective. They all were unanimous in
their view that race was the elephant in the living room: prominently
seen but ignored.˛
The TimesĂ editorial did not say the task force did
nothing on race. In the opinion of The Times, Section II of the Task
Force report, titled Mardi Gras, Median and Race, is neither an in-depth
or conclusive section. Professor Locke also acknowledged in a telephone
interview with Varner that section two was inserted based on private
conversations between task force members, and not discussed publicly.
Technically, Professor Locke said, race was not discussed until the very
last meeting.
Lynne Varner responds:
¦When I questioned that such an important topic
could be given such short shrift, Professor Locke said, (I am quoting
form my notes of that conversation), that race is the easiest and yet
least useful of the characteristics assigned to the Mardi Gras fiasco.
He said that it would permit stereotypes to surface and tell us nothing
of value in how to prevent a re-occurrence.
¦To prove his point, Professor Locke said that
while the bulk of arrests were of African Americans, this fact ignored
the fracas that took place the night before Mardi Gras when, according
to Locke, the crowd and perpetrators, were overwhelmingly white. I had
no independent record to back up his assertion and thus did not deal
with that point in the editorial.˛
¦Professor Locke, in acknowledging that this
deliberately downplayed race, also said (again IĂm quoting from
written notes) that he was afraid tackling race would have meant the
task force was discussing race and little else.
¦On the prior point, that race was not useful as a
factor, I respectfully disagreed. And did so in the editorial opinion.
Race is as useful a characteristic in understanding and preventing
another Mardi Gras as socio-economic status and education. Many of the
perpetrators are poor and high school dropouts. Who would argue that
this is not useful information? Certainly not Mr. Locke, who led the
task forceĂs recommendation that early childhood and at-risk programs
be given high priority as a preventative measure.
¦The professor laments, and did so during our phone
conversation, that The Seattle Times is creating a race crisis where
there is none.˛
The Times editorial was as honest on the topic of
race and as thoroughly researched as our standards on other issues.
During conversations with Mr. Locke, Lynne Varner
also invited him to submit an op-ed piece.
July 29 ¦Inside The Times˛
The pertinent part of my column of July 29 is three paragraphs
toward the end. I wrote: Much of the news in recent weeks suggests people here canĂt or wonĂt talk about race. Most disappointing was the decision by a mayoral task force on youth safety to ignore race in exploring last springĂs Mardi Gras riots. Task-force members gave several reasons for their decision, including reluctance to talk candidly in an open forum and concern that their remarks would be taken out of context by press.
ItĂs
not my place to judge the panelĂs thinking. As citizen volunteers, the
members likely did what their consciences told them was best. So be it.
In my opinion, which is what I was expressing in the column, the
task force ignored race in exploring last springĂs Mardi Gras riots.
By ¦ignored˛ I mean that I believe race was not seriously
investigated, thoughtfully explored, openly discussed or meaningfully
considered. The task force addressed race only by dismissing it as
useful in determining why the violence occurred or how such problems can
be prevented in the future.
My personal interest in the task force was largely selfish. The
Times was being vigorously criticized by people who felt our coverage
deliberately ignored what they saw as a racially-charged situation.
Other people were criticizing the newspaper for coverage that they felt
inappropriately made race an issue. I was hopeful the task force would
provide some comprehensive view of what occurred and some substantive
evaluation of its meaning. The section ¦Mardi Gras, The Media and
Race˛ certainly didnĂt do that. In my opinion, the section
essentially said, ¦weĂre not even going to go there because it
isnĂt useful and could be harmful.˛ To me, that equates to ignoring
race in exploring the situation, which is what I wrote in my column.
I also wrote that it is not my place to judge the panelĂs
thinking. Only the task force members, and possibly the mayor, can do
that. I still believe that. However, because you feel my
characterization of the task forceĂs handling of the matter is
inaccurate, let me explore what the group might have done.
I would not have felt the task force ignored race had it held
open discussions on the issue, so citizens might present their views.
These could have ranged from people who believe the physical assaults
were racially motivated to those who feel arrests were racially
targeted. IĂve heard both comments.
I would not have felt the task force ignored race had it
investigated the motives behind the violence. I understand this would
have been difficult, but the panel might have at least interviewed
people who were assaulted and who have said they said their race was why
they were attacked.
I would not have felt the task force ignored race had it provided
a comprehensive view of what occurred, instead of just saying that the
tapes turned over to police didnĂt do that. Rather than trying to
truly understand what happened, the task force seemed to use the section
on ¦Mardi Gras, The Media and Race˛ to justify not pursuing that
understanding.
I would not have felt the task force ignored race had it more
openly discussed the proposition that race is the least useful
characteristic for understanding youth violence. The Task force provides
a list of risk factors without acknowledging that racial
disproportionality is a matter of concern regarding several of those
factors.
That the task force did none of these things is why I hold the
opinion that it ignored race in exploring Mardi Gras. You feel that the news story, the editorial and my column misrepresent what the task force did. We donĂt see it that way, but weĂre opened to having our minds changed. You could help us understand that by explaining what the task force did to take up, discuss and deal with race in regard to Mardi Gras. I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, Michael R. Fancher
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