It looks like the intrepid investigator Eric Stoller found a physical copy of the Barometer's front page....I hope he doesn't mind if I steal his image:
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Blackface on the Front Page of the Barometer
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9 comments:
Yes, I am unflappable and intrepid! I had to dig through a recycling bin to find the edition of the Baro with that photo...
You could have just gone to the Barometer offices and asked. I believe they keep archived copies of everything.
For future reference.
It's all new looking here... ahhh.
Um, cannot believe NO ONE raised any issues on that one. NO ONE thought for second, hey maybe we should just strike that part out. I think that's the most amazing part about it - no one was looking at it from a critical angle.
Jen,
I agree. How can it pass through the reporter, a copy editor, the EinC, possibly the advisor, and the page designers without anyone stopping and thinking about it?
I guess the alternative is that someone raised an objection and it was overridden, which I think is worse.
Then again, I can easily see the Baro advisor doing just that. He's a reactionary.
Also, yes, changed format and all that. I wanted something that would highlight all the blocked quotes I do. I'm not really happy with this one yet, but I don't have the HTML or CSS skills to manually change anything.
is the problem really the paper or the organizers of the event in the first place (which was not the paper originally)?
anonymous, if you'd read my original post more closely, I do address that question.
Specifically, there are two problems here: First, that any students thought potentially going blackface would be a good idea; and second, that the Barometer ran the story they did (and more importantly, printed the photo they did). The story was atrocious by any reasonable standard of journalism, and there is no good reason for them to have placed that photo on the front page - or to have run it at all.
So it's both.
First off, I didn't know what blackface was until now. Now I know exactly why it's offensive, no questions asked. Before these posts I didn't know. I hope that doesn't sound ignorant, if anything it probably sounds sheltered. I wouldn't make the connection that it was offensive unless I had known about the history of the term... which is where, as you pointed out, the cultural journalistic training comes in.
Anyway, I make these comments now knowing what a quick google search of "blackface" revealed.
To me it's the picture that seems wrong. OK, so they wanted to "blackout" the student section. Everyone wears black is what I get out of that. Why? Apparently they think it's intimidating?
But why the blackface? Why run this picture? And with the box "Paint your face black, it scares Wildcats"? Really?? That just sounds silly.
Anyway, I get it now. And yeah... definately not good.
Dap: I see what you mean about the paper, but it still seems from what I've heard that a lot of people are like roxy--they just didn't know that it has that history. that may say something about oregon schools, but its not obvious that the organizers or the participants in the event were intentionally racist. they may be unintentionally racist, but it would be hard to blame them for what they didn't know was hurtful. NOW that people know about it, they should reconsider doing it again (which I think I heard they plan to do again). That seems to be the real problem.
GT covered this too.
http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2007/10/26/news/community/5aaa03_blackface.txt
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