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An Embarrassed ‘Recovering Racist’

An Embarrassed ‘Recovering Racist’

Columnist Tells of Man’s Obsession With a Wrong

‘Why Every Black Woman . . . Should Be Concerned’

Border Official Admits Targeting Journalists

Halle Berry: ‘I Can’t Skip’ the Black Reporters

Video Vignettes from Asian American Journalists

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Jeff Purvis cries during a ceremony for Price Joyce, a slave once owned by his great-great-great-grandfather, Alexander Joyce II, (Credit: Mykal McEldowney/IndyStar)
Jeff Purvis cries during a ceremony for Price Joyce, a slave once owned by his great-great-great-grandfather, Alexander Joyce II, (Photos by Mykal McEldowney/IndyStar)

Columnist Tells of Man’s Obsession With a Wrong

This is the story of two boys: one oppressed and one obsessed,” Suzette Hackney, director of opinion and community engagement for the Indianapolis Star, tweeted on Friday. “It is the story of a search for the truth and, ultimately, for redemption. My latest column means a great deal to me. Please give it a read.”

Indeed, Hackney’s tale of the obsession of an Indiana descendant of slaveholders has all the human interest elements that good columnists wish for. The protagonist wanted to give an enslaved boy the dignity in death that he was denied in life.

“Someone wrote me an email and told me about the new headstone and that I might want to poke around,” Hackney explained to Journal-isms. ” I poked.”

A photo caption summarizes, “Jeff Purvis stands in front of his family’s gravesite in southern Marion county on Wednesday, May 1, 2019. The land where the gravesite sits was settled by Purvis’ great-great-great-grandfather, Alexander Joyce, in the late 1830s. When he settled, Joyce brought a slave, Price Joyce, with him from Patrick County, Virginia. The grave of Price was unmarked until Purvis placed a stone where he believes Price’s body lays. ‘I didn’t enslave this man,’ said Purvis, wiping away tears. ‘But I do have it in my power to apologize. And my God, I’m sorry. Too little, too late.’

Hackney says in the column, “Jeff Purvis considers himself a recovering racist. He subscribes to the theory that just as an alcoholic is never cured, a racist is never absent of bigotry. But he also believes one has the capacity to acknowledge and control their weaknesses.

Price Joyce's grave sits in a small, multi-family cemetery plot.
Price Joyce’s grave sits in a small, multi-family cemetery plot.

“Purvis is embarrassed about his past. He was embarrassed to talk to me, an African-American woman, about his family’s transgressions. He apologized to me more than was necessary.

“Purvis has used the N-word, not out of malice, but because it was part of his cultural lexicon. His upbringing in rural Indiana was segregated; for the most part, the only black people he saw were on TV. He grew up convinced African Americans were inferior to white folks because that’s what he was told.

“But mostly Purvis believes that because the blood of racists flows through him, he too is racist. His ancestors have passed. But he said he feels the weight of the stories, stories of bigotry, that he’s heard them tell over the years.

“Some he shared with me.

“I haven’t met many people who cop to being racist, recovering or otherwise. I’m certainly not here to convince Purvis to the contrary. But when we discussed it, I told him that we all have the ability to work to be more virtuous than the previous generation.

“And I believe that’s what he’s done — in large part because of a slave named Price — a boy owned by Purvis’ great, great, great grandfather, Alexander Joyce II. . . .”

Mary Bubala
Mary Bubala

“ ‘We’ve had three female African-American mayors in a row, they were all passionate public servants, two resigned, though,’ Bubala asked. ‘Is it a signal that a different kind of leadership is needed to move Baltimore forward?’ “Since two Black women in power had scandals, Bubala seemed to be asking, wouldn’t all of them? “Video of the question went viral. I saw it when Nicki Mayo, president of the Baltimore Association of Black Journalists, shared it on Twitter. “The question Bubala posed wasn’t only racist and sexist, it put Dr. Kaye in the awkward position of having to speak for every member of her race and sex. How can you even begin to answer that question? . . . “It’s not lost on me that most of the people reporting on, or guiding the reporting on Catherine Pugh’s story don’t look like her, and that matters. How can you understand the nuance of being a Black woman in power if you have never experienced and don’t seem interested in inviting Black women to speak on the subject in a meaningful way? That could have been what happened with Bubala and Whitehead, but it didn’t. . . . ” Snowden-McCray went on to call out both black and white media for their coverage and actions. “One of my complaints about some Black media is that, as much as I love and support it and recognize why it is needed, I often wish they’d be tougher on Black politicians,” Snowden-McCray wrote. She also wrote that the Baltimore Afro-American “critiqued the hawk-like ways reporters have covered Pugh. That critique has merit. Reporters — white reporters primarily — posted up at her home for days began to look cruel rather than dogged. The response to that though, with what is ostensibly a puff piece, is not the answer. It wasn’t something I would have done, but questions like Bubala’s let us know there’s a reason for this overcorrection: White, mainstream media has not been fair to us. . . .” Moreover, the Baltimore Association of Black Journalists  had “demanded that Bubala apologize on-air and also address incorrect reporting from late April that claimed Pugh had left the state. Instead, WJZ fired Bubala. . . . “This incident needs to be more than an unfortunate viral moment to be brushed under the rug by firing. “ ‘We did not call for the firing of WJZ anchor Mary Bubala. We were very specific in asking for an on-air apology because that would have been an apology in the same manner in which the offense was dealt out,’ Mayo told me in a phone call on Tuesday. “It was a great example of news media once again not listening to Black journalists. . . .”

Short Takes

R.C.O. Benjamin
R.C.O. Benjamin
Scholarship fund establlshed
Lorraine Branham
  • A Lorraine Branham scholarship fund at Temple University has raised $25,000 in contributions since Branham, dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, died April 2 after a battle with cancer, according to her friends Roy Campbell and Arlene Notoro Morgan. “We are aiming for $50,000 to endow it,” said Morgan, assistant dean of Temple’s Klein College of Media and Communication. Campbell, a colleague when both were at the Philadelphia Inquirer, called the contributions a testament to Branham’s legacy.
  • Accomplished journalist Robin Washington has joined Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) as the new host of ‘Hear Me Out,’ which is produced in the KUWS studio,” Business North in Duluth, Minn., reported Thursday. “The former editor of the Duluth News Tribune and supervising editor of the Superior Telegram, Washington is an editorial board member of the Boston Globe and a contributing reporter to Boston’s WGBH. His work has also appeared on NPR, BET News and in dozens of newspapers nationwide. . . .”
  • The Charlotte Observer has joined a collaborative reporting project led by ProPublica to track hate incidents across the country, Teo Armus reported Tuesday for the Observer. His story said to readers, “Have you been attacked for your identity — your race, ethnicity, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation? Or have you witnessed a hate crime? Tell us about it.”
  • A crime reporter has been shot and killed in the beach resort of Playa del Carmen on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, authorities said on Thursday, the latest in a rising death toll of journalists under the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador,” Reuters reported. “The body of Francisco Romero, a police reporter for newspaper ‘Quintana Roo, Hoy’ and director of the local news website ‘Ocurrio Aqui’ was found outside a bar in Playa del Carmen in the state of Quintana Roo, local prosecutors said. . . .”
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