Seattle Times

I've been waiting in vain decades for this newspaper to close.

So stuck in its ways, even if it is locally owned.

Why is it, for instance, that the Seattle Times has had one daily regular African-American columnist (Jerry Large) for two decades but no Asian-American, Hispanic-American, Native American, etc. writer on their staff? Seattle is 11% black AND 11% Asian. And of course Latinos are "burgeoning"...

On the editorial page, op-eds by Leonard Pitts and Lynne Varner are regularly published--but barely a peep from other minorities.

How can the Times in good conscience allow Jerry Large to opine on how America must deal with its fear of young black men when it published a few years ago a story on how a group of young blacks (Gates scholarship honorees!) in Tacoma

"... surrounded ...'H' [a Vietnamese Buddhist and nuclear physicist engaged to be married] outside his home, beat him with a hammer when he tried to run away, then robbed him...[he] spent his last conscious moments on his doorstep, his skull fractured by blows from the hammer."

http://seattletim...
http://seattletim...

The murderer's family and friends could not believe he did it ("This is not the same person we know").

Did the three men involved inexplicably have their minds hijacked by "the Evil One" that day? Or were they "a few bad apples among an otherwise bumper crop"?

And let's not forget the teens who beat to death Danny Vega in the Rainier Valley and Tuba Man just outside the Seattle Center. Or the young guy who sucker-punched James Paroline ("the traffic circle gardener") so hard the guy's head hit the pavement, fracturing his skull.

The killers were the products of a culture. They were not isolated incidents.

* * * * *

Or St. Patrick's Day 2012 a tourist in downtown Baltimore was punched, stripped, and robbed:

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The crowd egged the attackers on; they bragged about and filmed it. If it had been white-on-black, it would have provoked an unending parade of national protests, analysis, and editorials.

I do not condemn entire groups of people. I am critical of patterns of behaviors and attitudes. And I think the Seattle Times has been intentionally turning a blind eye to certain violent crimes instead of fully reporting them.

(I hope Korean-Americans would want to reflect on mental health issues within their community as well as whatever common links that the mass killings at Virginia Tech and in Oakland might have).

* * * * *

The Seattle Times once had a semi-regular Asian writer, one with a weird ("Hsing Chou...") name,* who was consigned to writing about cuisine and local restaurants. That's right, all that's Asian--forget about the importance of Chinese exports and imports to and from the Pacific Northwest--can be resumed in "spicy pork fried rice" and "fortune cookies." Back to the kitchen again, you chopstick-lovin' Orientals.

As for Hispanics having an opinion, aren't they busy now with all those new food trucks?

Really, Seattle Times!

* Thus perpetuating the stereotype that Asian-Americans are "exotic" foreigners.

All we really know about them is (1) they like to cook and (2) we like them to cook (for us)! But can they really write?

* * * * *

Someday I hope that from within the African-American community itself there will be a million-man protest against violence, not against white racism but against the violence prevalent within that same community.

93% of murders of African-Americans are committed by African-Americans.

African-Americans don't need white people to solve this problem.

They must and can do it by themselves.

How? In my opinion, by denouncing against the glorification of violence, countering the leniency with which they hold their own children accountable for their actions, as well as the relentless hyper-macho identity ingrained from an early age in the minds of susceptible children, and by finding better role models than star athletes, celebrities, etc.

I'm not sure how becoming teary-eyed watching "The Help" or indignant re-reading Eldridge Cleaver exactly addresses the problem of urban violence, much less helps to reduce it.

The enemy, as is so often the case, within, not outside of ourselves.

Pride goeth before a fall.

* * * * *

My review does not make me "a racist troll." (I thought trolls were found only in Scandinavia. It takes a troll to know one). Some people use "racist" and "troll" to smear another and silence discussion. They should look up the definition of "racism" in a dictionary.

I believe I am acting as a responsible citizen (and "consumer of ideas," how ecologically sound!).

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4/21/2010
The wrong newspaper closed.

(Though the Seattle P.I. had its shortcomings, I preferred reading it over the Times).

I was once, a long time ago, seduced by the sheer bulk of the Times, but I switched over to the P.I. when the Blethren family, owners of the Times, supported George W. Bush in 2000--just because they vehemently opposed the capital gains tax.

And resorting to calling Mayor McGinn a "ventriloquist" in a shrill editorial smacks more of an ad hominem attack than anything else (the Times vehmently supported Mallhan).

http://seattletim...

Anyway, the fact that there appeared to be have news--a thicker newspaper compared to the P.I.--was simply a function of it having more advertising. Lots more.

The news reporting was slim and not up to the quality of the P.I. Much of what does not make into the Seattle Times is picked up in the Seattle Weekly, the Stranger, or the local community newspapers.

It's nice, that in the age of Obama, and we're supposedly more open to talking about race issues, the Seattle Times bows to prudery and refuses to disclose such "details" in cases of violent crime.

Also, nothing like censorship*:

http://seattletim......

Without a description of the criminals (stats including race, ethnicity, height, build, age, clothing, etc.), how are people supposed to identify and/or avoid being victims? *This has apparently changed in recent months.

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