THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 11, 1996 TAG: 9611090033
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: ANN SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: 77 lines
Except for a Clinton photo-op at a black church and a bit of last-day Clintonian rhetoric about saying ``no to racial hatred,'' race was forgotten in this presidential election.
Yes, there was debate on affirmative action, mostly California-style. But it never reached the bitter conflicts that divide Americans.
As continued interest in ``OJ, Part II'' and continued talk of ``race wars'' attest, race is a very real, very human issue for most of us.
Where do we, as a people, stand on racial unity?
Too often in the black or the white and not enough in the gray.
And for that, the media, who shoot the photo-ops, report the rhetoric, overexpose the white militia - a mere 15,000 nationwide - and stoke the racial flames of the O.J. Simpson case, must bear some responsibility.
When it comes to race relations, much of the ``watch'' has gone out of the proverbial press (and TV) ``watchdog.''
Take the latest annual report on ``hate crimes,'' which the FBI, at the Justice Department's request, released on election eve. Absent key facts about the reporting process, the results are meaningless. And yet, the headlines trumpet racism.
According to the FBI, 7,947 ``hate crimes'' occurred in 1995, 61 percent of them ``motivated by racial bias.'' Of these, 62 percent (2,988) were directed at blacks, 25 percent (1,226) at whites.
In a population of 260 million, are these numbers at all significant?
And what exactly is a ``hate crime''? It involves ``bias'' - racial, religious, sexual, ethnic - but beyond that, the media aren't asking or telling.
Who determines when a hate crime has been committed? Where's the accountability? Or consistency? Mum's the word.
The FBI says 9,500 law-enforcement agencies in 45 states and the District of Columbia voluntarily sent in data. Were these agencies federal, state or local? Which five states didn't participate?
Are these convictions or just arrests? The Washington Post reports that 41 percent of them were crimes of ``intimidation.'' What does that mean? Is that gang violence?
And what does it mean that only 20 murders and 12 rapes were categorized as hate-motivated crimes?
Nothing. We don't know the gray.
A call to the FBI, a little reportorial vigor, would have made the news story more illuminating but less sensational. For instance, I went in search of the underlying Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990 for definitions.
Syndicated columnist Carl T. Rowan, author of the new book, The Coming Race War: A Wake-Up Call, thinks we're on the eve of racial Armageddon. I don't. I think we're transfixed by race, as presented by surface-deep media, and we don't challenge ourselves to seek the truth. To reach out.
Which is not to say that racism doesn't exist. Ignorance and hatred are as old as time. But we can't ignore the part that uncritical or sensational reporting plays in dividing the races.
O.J. Simpson is the obvious ``case'' in point. Initially it appeared that a jealous, abusive husband had killed his ex-wife. Not an unlikely scenario. Nor a racially charged one.
Then the media arrived. They seized on the black-white ``angle'' in this double homicide - black husband, white wife; black celebrity, white lifestyle. They acted on racist thinking. Later, the defense picked up on black defendant vs. white cops, and outmaneuvered the state. Was the racial polarization that resulted inevitable?
Already in O.J., Part II, the media have reduced the outcome to a racial numbers game - How many blacks on the jury? How many whites? In succumbing to such thinking, they sell out the color-neutral legal process, which, when used as intended, protects all races.
Think not? Well, it's all we have.
I challenge all people, especially those who spent hours watching O.J., Part I, to sit in on a local criminal court (traffic, for example). Take notes. Learn and critique the process. And if there's ``bias,'' speak out. Be a watchdog.
Forget photo-ops, O.J., I and II, and FBI reports. Go for the gray. MEMO: Ms. Sjoerdsma, an attorney, is an editorial columnist and book
editor for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB