Game, Set, Match: Reader 1, Barometer 0

A letter in a recent Daily Barometer....

Egregious Errors

In the Barometer's October 26 editorial regarding the October 5 article "Student section... color selection" and Renée Roman Nose's October 26 column "Blackface: what's your opinion?" the editorial staff apologized for their ignorance regarding the historical use of blackface and asked for further discussion on campus and in the Barometer.

To quote: "To all students, we challenge you to contribute and participate actively, with open minds, to the campus conversation. [...] It is important for a thriving student media that all students participate in the conversation. [...] We actually do want to hear what we do wrong. We want to improve as we strive to act professionally in working toward career goals."

I was happy to see that the Barometer staff was desiring a continued discussion regarding this issue.

However, on Wednesday night I was informed by my friend and Barometer columnist, Luke Sugie, that the Barometer would not be printing a column he submitted because the editorial staff had decided they would no longer be printing op-eds regarding the October blackout at Reser Stadium.

The Barometer made an egregious error by printing an image that renders blackface, but it seems that instead of continuing a dialogue as promised on October 26, the editorial staff has instead decided to censor their columnists.

This decision marks not only an affront to those who care about injustices - both current and historical - against people of color, but also an affront to public discourse. The answer to a bad decision isn't to silence discussion of it, but instead to foster more discussion.

I hope the Barometer reverses its policy of not printing op-eds regarding this issue - for the sake of democratic discussion, for the sake of dialoging about racism, and for the sake of the professionalism of its staff.

Michael J. Faris
Instructor
Department of English

Just to be clear, it's a common defense among newspaper editors that 'the answer to bad speech is more speech' (see here). In this case, apparently the Baro felt that censoring someone was a better idea than printing criticism of the paper.

And for the record, whoever posted the letters online apparently did not bother with anything as mundane as checking the formatting. Sad.