Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 3 July 2003 — Page 17

The Muncie Times • July 3, 2003 • Page 17

WITNESS FOR JUSTICE

Blair, Wallace: a tale of 2 very different blacks

Two very different young black men. Both talented and articulate. Both at the start of promising careers. Both made headlines in May. The similarities end there. Jayson Blair is the 27-year-old African American New York Times reporter whose inaccurate and, in some cases, fabricated stories were characterized by The Times itself as the low point in the paper’s 152-year history. In mid-May The Times published a 7,000word article detailing the mistakes made by Blair and taking the blame for poor supervision and ineffective editing of his articles. In the firestorm after the announcement, at least one Times editor told of his warnings to his superiors about Blair’s unreliable reporting. A Newsweek cover story on Blair reported that he has been on a selfdestructive path for much of his life. Fighting drug and alcohol addictions and psychological disorders, Blair unraveled over the last years of his journalistic life. As those investigating Blair found, he really had only continued a pattern begun in

his high school journalism days and carried into his college career as well. He manufactured quotes. He told his editors he was traveling to do stories when he was not. He plagiarized from other writers. What Blair seemed to have going for him during all this time was a winning personality, charisma and the ability to “schmooze” with those in power. And then there was his race. For some, it was the fact that Blair is an African American which was responsible for The Times editors’ failure to act on Blair’s spotty journalism. For some, his race was the only reason he was hired and certainly was the reason he was not fired. Indeed, one cannot deny that race was one factor. Howell Raines, The Times’ executive editor and an Alabama native, admits that his own history plays a part in the scenario. But the reality is that there have been many white reporters who have done what Jayson Blair did. They worked for prestigious newspapers and magazines. They just didn’t work for The New York Times, which relishes its many

journalistic awards and prides itself on its reputation. The reality is that while Blair, must certainly take the blame for his actions, so, too, must The Times’ editors take the blame for their inactions. Surely, Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist, journalist and orator who was also the publisher of one of the first black newspapers, The North Star, is turning over in his grave at the actions of this young black man. So, too, are all those who defied the laws which prohibited slaves from learning to read and write. Then there is Normal Wallace, the 30-year-old African American MBA student gunned down in the recent shooting at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He was the only fatality in the shooting by an embittered loner. Wallace was the only African American male in his class and the newly elected president of the Black MBA Student Association at the school. With a 4.0 grade point average, he was not only bright, but also well liked and respected by other students and loved by his native Youngstown, Ohio,

Bernice Powell Jackson

community. Grounded in his faith (his uncle/surrogate father is a Pentecostal bishop,) Wallace was characterized by those who knew him as self-motivated and yet selfless. One of 11 children of divorced parents, one of his sisters had labeled him as the peacemaker of the family. The tragedy of Jayson Blair is that he chose, willingly or not, to undermine the strides made by many African American journalists over the past generations. Like it or not, people of color and women, gay and lesbian people and those with disabilities still must bear the weight of our race or our gender or our sexual orientation or our disability for all the others. When one of us

falters, all eyes turn to the rest of us. The tragedy of Norman Wallace is that he was not given a chance to make his professional mark in a world which desperately needs young African American men with the combination of values and brilliance as positive role models. Not only does the African American community lose, we all lose by his murder. May was a very cruel month for African American men, it seems. Bernice Powell Jackson is executive director of the United Church of Christ’s Justice & Witness Ministries. You can reach her at 700 Prospect Ave., Cleveland, OH. 44115-1110 or phone 216-736-3700.

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