Not Quite There Yet

America's "we" needs to be more inclusive

by Aki Soga

To anyone who thinks race and ethnicity are dead issues in our society -- and in the media -- here are three recent items from newspapers that show we're not quite there yet:

The New York Times reported that with her appearance on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine's December issue, Halle Berry became only the fifth African-American woman to appear on the cover of the magazine since 1964 and the first since Naomi Campbell in 1990.

The article by David Carr, which ran on the cover of the business section on Nov. 18, goes on to say:

in many broad-circulation magazines, the unspoken but routinely observed practice of not using nonwhite cover subjects -- for fear they will depress newsstand sales -- remains largely in effect."

The Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch on Nov. 19 ran an article about a bank "offering illegal Mexican immigrants a way to open accounts, establish a credit history and reduce the risk of being robbed," according to the Nov. 24 column by the paper's ombudsman, Jerry Finch.

The Times-Dispatch ran a shortened version of the story in Spanish on an inside page without an explanation in English about what that story said or why the English-language paper was running a story in another language.

The reaction from some readers, as related by Finch, was intense. He quotes one reader: "In this country, we speak English! (People) have a duty and obligation to speak English. If you don't, don't come."

Lastly, the FBI's annual survey on hate crimes shows that hate crimes against Arabs and those who some might feel appear to be Muslim rose from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001, an increase of more than 1,500 percent.

The Associated Press story on the report said: "Largely in the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI counted 481 attacks against people of Middle Eastern decent, Muslims and South Asian Sikhs, who are often mistaken as Muslim."

All three examples point to how narrowly we still define the "we" in this country. The three examples form a continuum, from how we define beauty (a society's ideal of desirable physical traits), to how we define American (someone who speaks English), to how we define the enemy (someone who doesn't look or sound like "Us").

How easily we cast differences as a threat: a threat to being accepted, a threat to the sense of who we are, a threat to our lives.

How different would it be if what we what we read everyday in newspapers and magazines, hear on the radio, watch on television truly reflected the diversity of our communities?

Aki Soga is chairman of AAJA's Media Watch committee, which seeks to promote fair and accurate reporting of Asian Americans. He is business editor at the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press. He has worked as a correspondent for Knight Ridder Financial News in Tokyo, and as a reporter and copy editor at The Asahi Evening News, an English-language daily in Japan. He can be reached at asoga@yahoo.com.

 

 

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY?