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ALBUQUERQUE — Some African-American community leaders are unhappy with the way a story in Thursday’s Albuquerque Journal may unfairly affect the city’s small black community. The front-page story, which carried the banner headline “Cops Bust Memphis Mob,” featured large mug-shot images of six young black men accused of breaking “every law in the book.”
The Albuquerque Police Department worked with a consortium of law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service, to arrest or charge nearly 50 members of the cocaine-dealing gang, nine of whom face federal charges, according to the story. (You can read it online here, but unfortunately the photos are available only in the print edition with the eJournal service.)
According to 2000 Census figures, Albuquerque is slightly over 3 percent black; New Mexico as a whole is less than 2 percent black. There is no mention in the story of the names of the alleged gang members pictured in the mug shots, or the racial makeup of the gang.
While few would disagree that breaking up the gang is a positive development for the city, the image of six young black men’s mug shots on the front page troubled some.
“It’s just another example of — I don’t want to use the regular words like ‘racist’ — but convoluted thinking. It’s just an absence of thought. It’s amazing how people on a major newspaper, who are supposed to be intelligent would do that, unless they’re just trying to sell papers,” Ron Hinson of the African-American Chamber of Commerce told NMI.
Hinson said the story might have bothered him less had it been published on an inside page. He also thought it ironic that the story appeared alongside another item about a bill passed by the Legislature that would create a Department of Hispanic Affairs.
“Not only are we angry, but … today I find that there’s also an article about the governor having some serious thoughts about passing a bill that’s going to make things better for a Hispanic cultural group — which is 42 percent of the population. Now what problems are they having? They just got through stomping a black guy nearly to death, who was supposed to be in protective custody,” Hinson said.
Hinson was referring to a recent incident in which an African-American inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center was beaten so severely by another inmate that he was partially paralyzed. The accused attacker and a correctional officer who is facing charges of intimidating a witness in the case are both Hispanic. Just this week the victim’s family and community groups spoke out about the attack.
“We may have a black president, but we have not changed the hearts and minds of other cultural groups who have been misguided in their zeal to always have someone to step on,” Hinson said.
State Rep. Jane Powdrell-Culbert, a Corrales Republican, had not yet seen the story when reached by NMI, but she quickly located a copy of Thursday’s paper in the doctor’s office where she was waiting for her father.
Rep. Jane Powdrell-Culbert
“They look like thugs,” she said, scanning the front page. Powdrell-Culbert spent six years in the 1980s working for the Albuquerque Police Department as an education coordinator.
“The thing that concerns me, with it being presented like this, is that it may give other folks a … standoffishness toward those of us [African-Americans] who are here, who have never gotten into anything,” she said.
Powdrell-Culbert is one of only two African-American lawmakers in the 112-member New Mexico Legislature.
“When you’re what, 5 percent or less [of the population], it seems that whenever someone does get into something, then … it’s made out to be this major, major issue. They don’t do that with other nationalities,” she added.
The media is often criticized as presenting an unfair picture of African Americans by focusing disproportionately on drugs and crime. This week there is an example from Memphis, Tenn., the home of the “Memphis Mob.”
On Sunday, the Memphis Commercial Appeal published commentary by a local art history professor who recently attended a media conference at which panelists asked: “How do Memphis journalists cover race in their stories? What images, perceptions and stereotypes are portrayed through the news media?” The professor wrote:
Throughout the discussion I repeatedly heard the belief articulated that the media should serve the community by “representing reality.” …The implication was that in reporting, for example, a “breaking” crime story, the media should focus more on reporting content — “what’s actually out there,” as one speaker put it — rather than the race or ethnicity of the perpetrator, victim or witness.
And that’s what has Hinson and Powdrell-Culbert worried. Did the huge mug shots put the focus of the news story disproportionately on race?
“It’s unfair because we do have such a small population,” Powdrell-Culbert said. “I just hope that folks wouldn’t look at this story and think that this is typical of black males in our city — because it’s not.”
Albuquerque Journal Editor Ken Walz did not immediately respond to an e-mail sent Thursday evening seeking comment.
