My Statement About Mike Lacey’s Use of Racial Slur

April 18, 2008—When I first heard that one of AAN's highest ranking executives had used the n-word to jokingly refer to a deceased friend of his, I assumed his friend was black and was shocked. When I learned that the friend was white, I was just as appalled. The issue, to me, is not who he was talking about; it was about his use of the most notorious white supremacy label as a flippant term of endearment. Even more puzzling to me is why Mr. Lacey, or other white men, would even consider doing such a thing considering the baggage that word continues to carry for so many Americans, black and white.

Mr. Lacey has the right to choose his words, and they were clearly his own words—just as Don Imus chose his and Sen. Trent Lott from my state chose his to honor his good friend Strom Thurmond. But as someone who considers myself a civil libertarian, I always believe that the best response to offensive speech is more speech. Thus my remarks and personal observations today.

Regardless of Mr. Lacey's intent, the most disturbing consideration to me is the message that one public episode, in a roomful of respected journalists including African Americans and their families, could send about our industry, especially if both journalists and readers do not intentionally use the incident as a tool for self-examination and to further racial dialogue on our staffs and in our communities.

Unfortunately, that one incident—which Mr. Lacey says he regrets and which his friends say does not accurately reflect his racial sensitivity—has the potential to say to both readers and potential alternative-news staffers (of color, and white) that this kind of casual use of the most hurtful language is acceptable at the nation's alternative newspapers. It could compel some potential good hires of various races to turn away from our papers, or not to even consider us in the first place—simply because we do not show enough understanding of why the phrase was so wrong (as would have the use of "my ______"; fill in with a gay, Jewish, Latino or Asian one-word perjorative). And it could cost us readers, especially new ones who aren't as familiar with the alternative press and our mission and history.

As the diversity chair of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, I know well the determination of members of the alternative press to diversify our staffs and our coverage, as well as to move more people of color into management positions. Like other media, we do not have a perfect track record in this regard, but we are working hard and deliberately on making progress, and have for years before I took this position last year. For two years in a row, I have been invited to the Gatekeepers gathering at Columbia University, which is a diverse and straight-talking workshop for media "gatekeepers" from around the country led by experts like Keith Woods of the Poynter Institute. Last year, I gathered much information, not only on diverse hiring, but on how hiring and retention is interdependent with diversity content efforts (including images) throughout our newspapers in editorial and advertising, as well as on efforts to ensure that our newsroom cultures are open and sensitive to the concerns of diverse staffs. The diversity committee is also doing extensive demographic research on how our target audience is changing, and how younger attitudes from all races and ethnicities toward media are growing more expectant about diversity.

This summer at our national convention in Philadelphia, AAN has scheduled a business-editorial track presentation by Alden Loury, editor/publisher of the Chicago Reporter, to help us present up-to-date demographic/diversity information and advice to our member papers, which are hungry to address diversity challenges. We will continue that discussion on a new diversity blog and on a listserv that will be open to all AAN members.

We are also continuing our existing efforts at diversity training and hiring—which have focused on both our diversity grant program and the Academy for Alternative Journalism at Northwestern's Medill Journalism School in Chicago every summer. Both of these programs are designed to deliberately reach out to journalists and interns of color in order to get them into the alternative media pipeline for hiring and advancement. And I would be remiss if I did not point out that Mr. Lacey and his company helped fund and launch those programs and have hired many AAJ grads over the years.

In many ways, that is a major reason that his comment in Phoenix was so disheartening to me personally and professionally. Such an insensitive use of such a painful, loaded word has the power to overshadow some of the diversity efforts that AAN in general, and Mr. Lacey and his papers in specific, have made over the years.

I am disappointed that this incident occurred and have high hopes that it will not damage the diversity efforts of any alternative newspaper. However, I urge AAN papers, and the media and public in general, to seize the moment to have more intimate and revealing conversations about race and the language of racial hatred so that good can come from this moment.

Donna Ladd
Editor, Jackson (Miss.) Free Press

Suggested links:

AAN Academy for Alternative Journalism

"Let's Do It Better!" Workshop on Journalism, Race & Ethnicity

Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education

Poynter Online — Diversity

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