Every picture tells a story

Dennis York has stepped in it, and can't seem to understand why.

It started with an item he posted on his blog Thursday, ridiculing a plan for Milwaukee Public Schools to provide its students with free Internet access. His satirical news story described how young male MPS students were learning all about the female anatomy, thanks to the Internet.

Read by itself, it's amusing. But the photo he put together to illustrate it has sparked a debate, to say the least. The person who e-mailed me to point it out called it "a vile piece of racist crap."

The photo he used, like many on the Internet, is not real. It is a composite put together from other sources. It shows two black boys at the computer, with the image of a barely clad white woman on the screen. One of the boys is pointing to her rear end, with a big grin on his face. You can see it full-size here.

When York got a negative comment, he seemed truly surprised and reacted strongly and defensively:

Welcome to the world of cyberspace, where things might not always be what they seem. At least I hope that's the case with a comment that I received on this post from last Friday.

The post, entitled "MPS Boys Score #1 in Nation on Female Anatomy Tests," was an attempt to poke fun at the ridiculous new program in Milwaukee Public Schools that will provide free wireless internet to students and teachers in their homes. The picture accompanying the post featured two African-American boys doing what young boys of any color would do with free internet - looking at salacious websites.
Let's say that he thinks coming after me for a completely inoffensive, race-neutral joke post is more important than actually taking on the difficult issues that are killing MPS, like fatherless homes and gang violence.

First of all ... MPS is 60% African-American, 20% Hispanic, and only about 16% caucasian... The truly strange thing would have been if I tried to represent typical MPS boys by using a picture of white kids, which apparently would have been just okay ... How dare I ascribe the same characteristics to black kids that are inherent in every white kid? (I used to be a white kid; I know.)

Secondly, the post itself makes no mention of race, and ridicules the policy, not the students. When an idiotic policy to spend a half a million dollars in MPS to give students free internet, it doesn't hurt white kids. It hurts minority kids, who, given the abysmal graduation rate in MPS, seem to need all the classroom resources they can get...

Whether the post mentioned race is really irrelevant, of course. A picture is often worth more than the proverbial 1,000 words. York apparently has a blind spot. Much as we like to pretend, people are not color blind.

I was going to explain why that image would provoke such strong reactions, but someone who commented on York's blog did a better job than I could have, so I will just share this with you. Judging from the initials and link on the comment, it appears to be from Dan Knauss, of Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood:

You put what looks like a white woman on the screen of the computer the (black) boys are looking at. Are you not aware of the history of fear and violence among white people incensed by any remotely sexual interest a black male might have in a white female? This is what allows your picture and post to be read as racist, apart from its re-enforcement of stereotypes of black males being extra-obsessed with sex. It doesn't matter very much what you intended--what you posted fits into a certain context of history and experience for many people, and many are understandably sensitive about it--possibly including white southerners ... who realize your post would be very funny (for racist reasons) to out-and-out racists.

PS--if it bothers you that there is often a double standard for humor and things that can be said or not said by white and black people, it's not looking very deeply at the issue to say this is simply unfair or based on sensitivities that amount to "living in the past." In the wake of the Jude trial, where these sexual antagonisms I'm talking about seem to have been in play, think about how that contributes to the way your post can be read as offensive. Michael McGee Sr's recent on-air racial jokes that have provoked some "conservatives" may superficially represent a double standard--I see the one I heard as a wry acknowledgment and table-turning on the stereotype of black men as defined by sex and the fear and violence this view has provoked against them in the past--and maybe the present as well...

That said, I don't find your posts offensive because I think I understand what you intended and did not intend. I do think they are, if unwittingly, in bad taste, and I can see how the pictures and writing can strike many people as ignorant and offensive. If you think that's others' sensitivity and not your responsibility, then don't complain about their reaction because you're rejecting the main rule in writing: know your audience. Of course this is a mostly hypothetical point, since you haven't received much complaint, but giving [this] comment such attention suggests you're trolling for complaints and are not predisposed to consider what legitimate views and motives might lie behind them.