Racism Squared: Et tu CBS?

Pathetic racist home seller.

Not only is the story about racism, how about the dig at the end? Local news can be so ugly.

Two questions:

  1. The company doesn't really care about it's image, but what "other website" did that "information" come from?
  2. Who wrote the copy for that news story?

Even if the news copy isn’t meant to have racist overtones, it sure reads like it. I’ve seen this a lot with stories in the local media. They’ll report a horrible thing, then end the story with a bit that sounds like support for the awful thing, making the whole package a nice little bit of ass cracker journalism.

Worse still, I believe CBS owns this affiliate.

UPDATE: Salt Lake Tribune story here. Same racist closing paragraph. Unbelievable.

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  • http://www.blurbomat.com blurb

    I don’t think the author of the story is a racist. I think that the facts were shared in such a way to sound racist. I do think the census data is very important, just higher in the story, like right after the “Lots and lots of white people” sentence in the Salt Lake Tribune piece. Up there, it bolsters the credibility of the report. At the end it seems to be editorializing, and that can be read in a myriad of ways, one of which is that the media outlet(s) seem to be in support of the developer. Another might be that, wow, Utah really IS that white. It’s shoddy, it sounds backwater and backhanded.

    I’ve seen this in Utah with gay rights stories, with women’s rights stories and even Mormon stories. Heather wrote about the coffee story reported on the Mormon-owned station. It’s editorializing when there should be none. In this case, it read racist to me.

  • harry

    This is how ill prepared I am for this format. I honestly thought that my comments would go to a mailbox and that someone on “chucks” staff would read it, and then hit delete.….. When I realized that it had been posted, my first response was simply “oh s**t”…
    Directly below this little box says “comments that suck will be deleted” I expected my rant would easily fall in “suck” parameters and not appear
    So, Michelle, when I did the P.S. that’s what I meant. I find the faceless name calling of the internet cowardly and pathetic and choose not to participate. I am dismayed that my comments appeared. It will not happen again.….
    While I enjoy reading comments, I have neither the wit nor skills to be a participant. Apologies to the board

  • Nobody

    It’s a story about discriminatory marketing, not fraud or misrepresentation. The actual racial composition of the district doesn’t change the purpose of the marketing, and that is the story here. So I’m with blurb, or past him — I don’t think the census data serves any purpose in this story at all, anywhere.

    While this incident might not violate the Fair Housing Act, it could be used as evidence (with other incidents) to demonstrate violations of the Act. The FHA does outlaw discrimination, this is evidence of discrimination, if not yet actual discrimination — yeah, I’d say the FHA is relevant here. Especially if someone wonders if they can do something about such nonsense.

  • http://jonniker.blogspot.com Jonna

    Ah. Okay. For what it’s worth, the first time I read the story, I thought, “hrm. I don’t get it. It’s simply reporting the facts.”

    Upon second read, however, I agree wholeheartedly with Jon that the wording is, however unintentional, a bit inappropriate. Not blatantly racist, but the sentence, “Black residents…are rare…” is completely editorializing the facts. Simply providing census data in parens, or in a simple, straightforward sentence earlier in the story would be an infinitely more appropriate place for it. By leaving it at the end, it does appear to justify the builder’s motivations. And remember, Jon lives in UTAH. As a Massachusetts Democrat recently relocated to Florida, I’m sensitive in the same way he is — when you are surrounded by people with views entirely different from your own, it can become consuming, and even the slightest transgression can throw you over the edge.

    I understand the logic in putting it at the end — I’m an editor — given that it is the least important information in the story, but in this instance, and any case where there is any topic of sensitivity, a more thoughtful read-through was in order.

  • http://smapdi.com smapdi

    Complaining about overt racism in Utah is like walking around in the summertime saying “how about this heat?”

    Take a look at the plaque on the north side of that statue in the middle of the intersection by the temple. It lists the names of the pioneers who survived the trek, 30-some-odd names and then “Colored servants: Hark Lay, Green Flake”.

    That’s the statue, btw, that has Joseph Smith with his back to the temple and his left hand outstretched to the bank.

  • http://www.threequestionmarks.com/blog/blog.html merkley???

    i didn’t read through the comments so pardon me if i repeat anything.

    and i’m NOT just being a contrarian BUT,

    it could easily be said (certainly not proven) that your own racist ideas play in to the way you read this ad or story — regardless of retractions or further investigation, we might want to allow for people to make decisions based on whatever criteria they like. i don’t know if you fault the italian family that moves to little italy, or if you fault the chinese immigrant for wanting to live in china town, hell, i don’t know, there are probably a few examples of chinese immigrants that want to live somewhere without chinese people, after all, i am an ex mormon who was EXCITED to move to one of the american cities with the lowest percentage of mormons. does that make me wrong? does that make me bad? it’s like joining the book of the month club if you ask me. no need to blow it up into something EVIL. freedom of choice is good. freedom of speech is even better.

    the discrimination laws are there to insure that there is nothing preventing the final transcation from being made.

    in my high school there was only one black kid. his parents moved to an all white neighborhood because they felt it would give him a social advantage, you know, kinda massaging white guilt. they were wise i think. they always said all kinds of smart NO DUH type shit.

    you can’t always look at things through white guilt glasses.

    posts like this are more about proclaiming your own honor than anything else. to me it comes off like “HEY EVERYBODY, LOOK AT ME!! I’M NOT RACIST AT ALL!!” especially given the fact this post was posted from a nice little computer on a nice little desk in a nice little house in an all white neighborhood. and also because the reversal of that ad will change absolutely NOTHING except for eliminating certain data from being presented. dumbing ourselves down and closing our eyes never does anything . it’s all newspeak. it’s like it’s perfectly ok just as long as you DON’T mention it.

    if i were a young black family looking for a place to live, those bold letters might speak something completely differently to me. i might read them as — hmmmmnn, probably a good tax base and a higher amount of money spent per child on eduaction. unless i was brain dead i’d also know that it would mean a significantly lower crime rate. crime is bad i think.

    but you see, that’s because i dont give two shits about my race because i’m an individualist. individualists get to look at the world through FUN glasses. i am perfect.

    the louder she proclaimed her honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/72feetabovesealevel/ 72feetabovesealevel

    The sentence “Black residents in Eagle Mountain, like in the rest of Utah, are rare.” Seems to make the whole ending a bit snide to me. It’s as if they’re boasting about how few blacks live in Utah.

    The SL Tribune article also contains the following: “Eagle Mountain is a burgeoning Utah County community, full of young families, new homeowners and white people. Lots and lots of white people.”

    This also points toward a snide boasting to me.

  • http://www.theblogpound.com FlippyO

    The snide boasting, I see as snarky commentary. Like, “Duh, idiots, we’re white here. No one needs to tell us a neighborhood is going to be predominantly white. What a stupid thing to put in an ad, because everyone knows Utah = white, white, whiteyness.”

    I missed the racism in the last sentence. It just seemed to answer for me the unspoken, “Just how many black people are in Utah, anyway?”

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/72feetabovesealevel/ 72feetabovesealevel

    FlippyO:

    Yeah, I can see where you’re comming from.

  • BeeJay

    It seems to me that the quote from the builder’s site was an open plea to the NAACP to help them raise their black residency numbers. If this were the 60s, they’d have had a line of black potential homeowners strung from there to Texas. Heh.

  • http://www.blurbomat.com blurb

    Merkley, I don’t think this blurb, and my comments and feelings have anything to do with white guilt or how “good” I am. After being exposed to so much editorializing in local news stories, I wanted to say something.

    It has been interesting to see how different people have responded.

    I don’t think comparing minorities using Mormonism quite compares to the history of other minorities, particularly African Americans. Your post reminded me of “Everybody Hates Chris” which deals with some of the white/black race issues you point out.

  • http://johnsthing.blogspot.com John

    I’m honestly not surprised. In the least. People believe they can do whatever they want, and get away with it. Recently at my school, we dealt with a student run television show airing racist programs. It was very disconcerting, because it seemed the people responsible didn’t understand, nor did they make the attempt to understand, why they offended so many people.

    Here is the link to the article: http://​tinyurl​.com/7dfc6

  • http://blogspot.moreperfect.com Timothy Killian

    Inclusion of the census data is in no way racist. You’re reading way too much into it. It seems to me that the news story itself is the entire basis of exposing this practice; so, clearly, it would be a bit ridiculous to conclude that the news outlets, here, are in support of the developer. If they were, they wouldn’t run this story which is a PR nightmare for the developer.

  • http://www.spaces.msn.com/members/MochaMommaTeacher Mocha

    Data is data. For them to include it does not really bother me (as a mulatto I’m speaking from both sides of the fence here). What bothered me is the PLACEMENT of that information. Concluding paragraphs in writing are meant to sum up, leave with you a lasting impression, to be a powerful statement. The writer of this article knows that and capitalizes on it. Was his point made? Sure. Was it information readers wanted anyway? You bet. Does that, in effect, make him a good writer? Damn right it does.

    Is he still an ass for doing it? Hell yeah.

  • Michelle

    This is really a fascinating conversation. After reading all the posts, I have a few questions, that I’d be curious about if this discussion hasn’t already run it’s course:

    If you look at the PDF link in the article that shows the original web site, and then look at the source material (the site from the beginning that shows stats for all American cities), you’ll see that the data was simply cut and pasted in the exact format as the other data IN ITS ENTIRETY. Nothing seems to have been cut or manipulated. Personally, I think the developer was really careless and ignorant, but I’d have to do a WHOLE lot more digging before I called them racist, but I know that a lot of people in this discussion are comfortable making that judgment.Given this, here come my questions:

    1. Is the source material inherently racist because it points out these racial breakouts and averages???

    2. Is it racist to look up this data before moving to a new place?? (I thought it was a no brainer, but I see that view as challenged here.)

    3. Could I be missing the larger context here, which is that this is all going on in Utah, where there is a tiny black population in the first place, and not in a more diverse environment?

    Truly, I think I may have missed just that point in #3. In NYC, (a liberal city in spite of the party of its mayor) it wouldn’t be considered racist at all for whites/non-whites to look up this data at all before moving to a new place, and I think there’d be a lot of eye-rolling among all groups if someone called that practice racist there. In fact, those kinds of stats are bandied about by everyone because each neighborhood has is so unique (any New Yorkers out there want to weigh in on this?) I honestly don’t think you’d see a newspaper article like this, either. With Amadou Diablo still in the collective memory, there’s a lot more material there!

    But I think that’s a very different experience than living in a place with so little diversity. Perhaps the article rubs salt into an open wound? Or that it exposes something ugly nobody really talks about (because it is so homogenous?)

  • Michelle

    I meant Amadou Diallo–sorry!

  • http://mihow.com mihow

    Amadou Diablo.

    Perhaps that’s what the police thought of him.

  • http://daisy8972.blogspot.com/ Daisy Mae

    I think it is low of David Adams to blame it on the web designer. It’s like Ashley Simpson blaming her SNL snafu on her band.

    I’ve done web design for clients many times and never does one word get on that website without being either written by the client or verified and approved by the client. So I am not buying his story that the web designer did it. And to say that he told him to take it down 2 months ago but it wasn’t done? Well it must not have bothered David Adams too much since he didn’t followup on it and make sure it was taken down.

    Tell the truth for once David Adams.

  • http://www.patatomic.com patatomic

    smapdi:

    How long has it been since you have been to Salt Lake? About ten years ago that statue was moved and is no longer in the middle of an intersection. Also, the statue is the likeness of Brigham Young, not Joseph Smith.

    I really don’t understand what you are trying to say…are you implying that Mormons are racist? “sure is hot”?…what? I don’t get it.

    Marcus:
    “Hell, maybe the mormon church should review it’s recruiting efforts.”

    C’mon now…this has NOTHING to do with the discussion at hand.

  • southerngirl

    Are you _sure_ you want to live in Salt Lake City????

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/72feetabovesealevel/ 72feetabovesealevel

    After reading everyones comments and a good nights sleep you can mark me down as having changed my mind. I’m going with Flippy O’s version of the story: Snarky commentary, not snide boasting, Poking fun at the narrow minded, not being narrow minded.

    The discussion is a good one and points to the importance of having a place where polite, informed dialog can take place.

    Thanks for providing the venue Jon.

  • Teeny-Fae-Troon

    I think (like a few others) that the last paragraph is necessary to the story, but out of place. The census data should have been quoted at the beginning — the fact that it was placed at the end instead somehow does suggest that the writer is proud of the fact that Utah is predominantly white (but you can see from the headline that is surely not the case). He should have picked this up before publishing the piece — nothing but bad writing, if you ask me.

  • BoatSailor

    Trib says: “Black residents in Eagle Mountain, like in the rest of Utah, are rare. According to 2000 Census data, Eagle Mountain is 0.6 percent black. ”

    .06% sounds pretty rare to me.

    Blurb says: “At the end it seems to be editorializing, and that can be read in a myriad of ways, one of which is that the media outlet(s) seem to be in support of the developer.”

    Dictionary​.com says:
    “rac∑ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (rszm)
    n. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
    Discrimination or prejudice based on race.”

    Is it editorializing because they qualify the VERY LOW number with “rare”? Is rare too opinionated for ya when .06% is the number being referenced? What word would pass the test, “uncommon”? “Few”?

    Getting pissed about this is like getting angry because someone uses anotherís race as a descriptor. When trying to describe a person, what could be more helpful and direct than referencing their basic physical characteristics? Yet some will cross their eyes if you describe the one African American in the room as, “the black guy”. It is not racist to reference facts, even if they are regrettable facts.

    I do not understand how the SL Trib is supporting the racist (I agree wholeheartedly) builder here, or even how the statements can be seen to be racist. Facts are facts, they dug them up to provide background, which provide the context (relevance filter/frame of reference) the story resides in. Right? Boasting about the scarcity of blacks in the neighborhood to attract buyers is racist, quoting the facts cannot be — it is emotion/bias free.

    Or am I crazy? I’ve wondered before.…

  • BoatSailor

    Woops. I mistyped above — it’s .6%, not .06%.

    no dif regarding my opinion.

    Thanks for the forum, enjoy the site.

  • http://www.threequestionmarks.com/blog/blog.html merkley???

    “Perhaps the article rubs salt into an open wound”

    michelle, i lived in utah for 30 years. i think you hit the nail on the head.

    i also agree with boat sailor.

    good discussion though, fair, nice and civil, i too appreciate the forum.

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