The Declaration of Independence: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
The Stranger: Good Sex, Loud Parties, Hip Politics
William Blake, The Ghost of a Flea (1820), tempera on paper. Tate Gallery, London
[
As predicted, five days after its appearance, the following review was removed by the zealous staff at Yelp.com, a website not noted for its ethical principles].
Putin couldn't do any better in suppressing all facts and points of view contrary to the conventional line. The fact that The Stranger only reveals the race or ethnicity of violent attackers when they are white or Asian and
never when they are African-American was troubling in and of itself. The pattern of concealment and intentional distortion (what they would disingenuously in all likelihood call "reframing the discussion") is as deep as it is broad.
As a member of a racial minority, and a lifelong liberal, I feel compelled to write the following review.
Bigotry by any name is still bigotry, even and especially if by hip young people.
In the marketplace of ideas, though The Stranger may appear to be free, the real price to readers is steep: bags and bags laden with unearned guilt.
In the review of the Anita Hill documentary, The Stranger writes that "the panel [hearing the testimony of Ms. Hill] was full of white men [who] didn't want to touch the issue of race with a 10-foot pole" (April 2-8, 2014).
The newspaper would never make a statement about "a bunch of black men" in the same kind of situation.
In the past year, similar statements about juries being all-white or other organizations being mostly white have been made in this newspaper.
However, it is important not to overlook the fact that it was a Congress of 96% white men who voted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. And it was white men who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of this country.
If The Stranger is so concerned about white men dominating things (in a city 70% white), why doesn't it take the lead and fire its mostly white male staff and replace them with a bunch of black men and women. And move to Judkins Park.
Or Philadelphia, D.C., Detroit, or Atlanta, where blacks are the majority and dominate, and, ergo, social justice reigns.
Heaven help us if the younger generation take such cheap semii- tabloid-quality sources such as The Stranger as its barometer of truth and gospel of freedom.
What we do know, in my opinion, is that the belief--I am referencing cognitive and social psychology here--is the belief that white people have dominated things in the United States==has led to disaffected, destructive behavior of more than one generation of young African-Americans.
(How could Euro-Americans--up to 90% of the total population at times in our history-- possibly not dominate American culture?
What would be possibly unfair is if there were a disproportionate number of white people holding positions in a certain field.
No one complains that African-Americans are disproportionately represented in pro sports or in pop music or in Hollywood films. Or the blacks control local politics in Detroit, Philadelphia, D.C., Atlanta, New Orleans, etc. (where they constitute a demographic majority).
Or would it be better than African-American men--6% of the population--dominate American culture, hold a majority in Congress?
* * * * *
The service The Stranger provides in reporting on local economic issues is invariably drowned out in the sea of expletives, puerile, grotesque humour, one-sided presentation of and careless disregard for facts, shallow moralizing, and, most of all, racial prejudice.
Shock for the sake of shock...the cultural dumbing down despite the ersatz intellectualizing sandwiched inside...the shrill harshness of its attacks, the caricaturing of others' positions...
In the sea of advertising (30+ pages of ads for pop music, restaurants, and sex at the back--I'm no prude, either), ubiquitous potshots at the white race thrown in for good, hearty measure.
The adulation of African-Americans and all things African-American, the relegation of other minorities, especially Asian-Americans--the largest racial minority in Seattle--to an "afterthought" whole sole importance lies in their being people of color and in offering up some great spicy, cilantro-infused rice noodles and who don't seem to have viewpoints distinct from black people...the same could be said for Hispanics.
Bigotry by any other name is still bigotry.
