Am I a bigot?
We splashed the question across our front page from March 27 until yesterday.
We asked 13 writers to consider the question, and their reflections we published were compelling.
Reactions from readers ranged from one extreme to another.
Some readers demanded to know why we were running it. Even before the series started, readers saw promotional ads teasing to the series and substituted the “Am I” in our question with “Are you.” Some weren’t happy.
Said one: “How dare you make me think.” On the other extreme, an attorney from Swampscott suggested the series be nominated for the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.
Why did we take a sharp departure from strictly traditional community-news coverage to talk about bigotry?
The answer lies in the The Item’s mission statement (including “to provoke thought”) and the one published every day with the series. Bigotry, we concluded, demands introspection.
https://newitemlive.wpengine.com/news/item-staff-discusses-am-i-a-bigot-series/
We sought to engage our readers and contributors in a conversation on bigotry that began with self-analysis.
We achieved our objective: Visits to itemlive.com jumped by 63 percent on March 28 over site visits one week earlier.
Our writers revealed how bigotry — more precisely, the language associated with it — hurts. Item Sports Editor Steve Krause wrote from the perspective of an overweight person about how the language of bigotry “dehumanizes people.”
Lynn City Councilor Hong Net described the bigotry he faced as a Cambodian-American, and admitted that he has made bigoted assumptions about people who are different from him.
We are deeply indebted and grateful for the courageous reflections our writers shared with us over the last nine days. In addition to Net and Krause, we saw through the eyes of Yosra Girdia, a Muslim student from Lynn Classical who embraced America, but wants people to learn about her faith.
Ruben Montano-Lopez, a gay Latino who works for Family and Children’s Service of Greater Lynn, observed how family, not society at large, first familiarized him with prejudices against the LGBT community.
When they witnessed anti-Semitism, Marblehead High students Olivia Schauer and Averi Kaplowitch worried about becoming “the school snitches” if they complained. They were quickly reminded that “as Jewish girls, we could not sit back.”
Examining his own bigotry, history and sociology teacher Anthony Mathieu, who is black, concluded his biases might be shaping the way he guided discussions in his classroom. He had to ask himself if he was creating an unwelcoming culture in his classes.
Former Lynn Community Development Director Edward T. Calnan and Attorney James J. Carrigan examined Irish and American history to illustrate how bigotry has erected barriers of suspicion preventing people from living in harmony.
From the perspective of a disabled person, Trish Malphrus insisted, “Don’t expect anything different from me than anyone else.”
Item Community Relations Director Carolina Trujillo, who was born in Colombia, noted, “We release our bigotry every step of the way as we move through life.” That observation speaks to the question of how bigotry spreads from an individual to a family, to a neighborhood, to a community, to a society.
Item News Editor Thor Jourgensen offered an observation similar to Net’s by concluding, “I must challenge myself to question sincerely how often I work to overcome personal bias.”
Item Night Editor Cheryl Charles, who is black, analyzed bigotry as a cancer and warned, “It doesn’t cure itself. It may seem to go silent, but it festers … and eventually kills its host.”
Bigotry is a cancer. This illness, with all its isms and phobias — racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia and generalized xenophobia — are all branches of the same poisoned tree.
https://newitemlive.wpengine.com/opinion/am-i-a-bigot-series-a-compilation/
As Americans or as citizens of the planet, as people of faith or no faith, as parents, children, siblings, and friends, we owe it to ourselves to open our eyes and see each other as the unique individuals who share this world.
Several of our readers asked why the newspaper they read for community news would call for such introspection.
It is an important question and one we did not ignore or trivialize while running the series.
Our intent in exploring bigotry was to start a dialogue. We believe — we hope — that we achieved that goal, and we believe newspapers have a responsibility to ask tough questions and turn to their readers for answers.
Ultimately, we all benefit from introspection.