In his article on the completion of the top floors of the Portland campus library (The Free Press 35, no.1, 8 Sep. 2003), John Bronson wrote:
“… as swarthy construction workers leered from the
dark recesses of the unfinished development.”
This utterly egregious attempt at journalistic ‘color’ comes in the middle of an otherwise straightforward interview with Barbara Smith, acting director of university libraries. It equates people of darker skin (“swarthy”) with menial and unintellectual tasks (“construction workers”) with sexual threat (“leering”) towards the (equally stereotyped) mild-mannered, white, professional, and female librarian (and all around defender of American culture). Clearly, there remains much remedial work to be done to eliminate such racism, sexism, elitism, and classism in our society generally and in the editorial department of our campus newspaper in particular.
Sincerely,
Matthew Edney
Associate Professor of Geography/Anthropology