THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 31, 1995 TAG: 9512300044
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANN G. SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
THE CRIME could have happened, and been investigated and reported in the same manner, anywhere in this nation. In striving to be racially ``sensitive,'' the newspaper reporting it shirked the truth. And it is not an isolated case.
Headlined ``4 Teen-agers Indicted in Rape, Slaying of Girl,'' The Baltimore Sun story told of a November night of partying during which four boys allegedly raped a drunken 15-year-old girl and then dumped her, partially clothed, in a nearby woods, where she later died of exposure.
The youths charged with murder and rape are 14, 19, 15 and 16. The party took place in an Edgewood, Md., townhouse owned by the 14-year-old's mother, who, though home at the time, claims she was ``unaware'' of the party and the drinking and sexual activity going on in the basement. She has not been charged.
Although these facts suggest a severe moral and emotional deficit, they did not prepare me for the outlandish comments issued by the Harford County sheriff's department. Or for the cowardice of the reporter who relayed them. Increasingly, journalists, both black and white, are sacrificing truth and decency to simple-minded race politics.
Said sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Edward Hopkins: ``All of the parents of these boys have been very cooperative with the investigators.''
And well they should be. But what difference does their cooperation make to proper law enforcement? I kept reading:
``Sergeant Hopkins said police hope the arrests warn `teens and their parents about the dangers of alcohol.'
`` `This is a tragedy which could have been avoided if the youths had not been drinking,' he said. `Tiffany became vulnerable to sexual assault because she was drinking.' ''
Oh, I see. This brutalized young girl caused her own death by drinking too much. If she hadn't become intoxicated, the four boys would never have formed the requisite criminal intent to rape and murder her. Besides, any boy who gets drunk can be expected to rape and kill, so, parents, keep alcohol away from your little criminals.
But then I really see. Hopkins denigrates the victim, and arrogantly, all women - who don't scare him - because he's focused on race. And the reporter, through her silence, furthers his wrongheadedness.
My first thought is that Hopkins must be white, the victim black, and therefore, as has been known to be police practice, considered not deserving of respect and vindication. But I soon realize that the horribleness of the crime is being minimized and the victim is being blamed, because this is a mixed-race crime, mixed between victim and perpetrators.
But does the Sun reporter, supposedly a check on both the police and the offenders, straightforwardly tell me this? No. Race-shy and stupid because of it, she obscurely refers to the outrage in this ``racially diverse, middle-class community.'' As has become journalistic custom, she drops clues about race - addresses the fact that the victim lived in a trailer park - but does not identify it outright.
There are times, however, when race matters to the understanding of a crime. It apparently did in the recent alleged murder of a black couple by two white Fort Bragg, N.C., soldiers. Sometimes race is vital to a story's context if not the crime itself, and the public depends on the press to elucidate this context, evenhandedly.
In the Maryland case, as I learned later, the police reluctantly investigated the girl's death, initially treating it as accidental and ignoring the possibility of sexual assault. The perceived threat of violence that might result if four black teen-agers were charged with the rape and murder of a white girl apparently outweighed the interests of a safe society, criminal justice and the victim, who was just poor white trash anyway.
It also matters in the context of humanity: As long as we tiptoe around, acting scared about the perception of racism, when we have no cause to be, we don't reach out to each other in humanness. If we can't stand together and call a crime a crime because it violates the social order that we all need to survive, then we all lose.
The race of the four teen-agers charged in Maryland became of consequence only when the police and the press hedged, thereby stoking the fires of racism instead of extinguishing them. These boys could have been white; the girl could have been black. That these teen-agers may have committed this crime does not mean that other black teen-age boys would. Their race did not cause this crime.
No matter how inflammatory the true story may be to ignorant people, the press must tell it, especially when the police are running scared.
Institutionalized fear and hypocrisy - color-coded journalism - only aggravate racial divisions. (The reporter here did not even question the ``awareness'' of the 14-year-old's mother.)
What we don't know - and aren't told - can, and always has, hurt us. Of all institutions, the press should not need a reminder of this hard-earned lesson. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma is a lawyer and book editor for The Virginian-Pilot.
by CNB