2008 Woodie Awards
Bias should be left out of Bañes commentary
Issue date: 10/11/07 Section: Letters to the Editor
- Page 1 of 1
I appreciated the (unintentional, I'm guessing) irony in Bañes commentary in the most recent Journal. In it, he describes an encounter he had at a MetroLink station with a woman and her children. Bañes reports that the woman asked him a question about train schedules and, when he hesitated before responding, asked him if he spoke English.
First, I find it interesting that Bañes thought it important to point out that both this woman and another individual he encountered in St. Louis some time ago and who made some incorrect assumptions about Bañes because of his skin color weighed more than some arbitrary ideal. Bañes describes the woman at the Metrolink station as "rather fat." He describes the man in his earlier encounter as "obese." Bañes seems to use their body type as a criticism of them, suggesting that Bañes has a bias against heavy adults.
Second, Bañes decides - based on these two encounters - that all St. Louisans, in his words, "suck." There are more than 2 million people living in the St. Louis area. Among them are liberals, conservatives and moderates. Among them are people of German descent, Irish descent, Bosnian descent and Polish descent. There are Brazilians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Ethiopians and men and women from Ghana. There are adults with doctorates and adults who left school after the fifth grade. There are carpenters, physicians, college professors, college students and elementary school students. There are priests, rabbis, and atheists.
I would suggest that Bañes needs to look at his own biases before he uses space in a newspaper to accuse an entire city of a single mindset. I would have hoped that Bañes would have learned in his classes here that to derive a conclusion based on such a miniscule sample would leave an enormous margin for error.
Joe Schuster
Professor and Chair of Department of Communications and Journalism
First, I find it interesting that Bañes thought it important to point out that both this woman and another individual he encountered in St. Louis some time ago and who made some incorrect assumptions about Bañes because of his skin color weighed more than some arbitrary ideal. Bañes describes the woman at the Metrolink station as "rather fat." He describes the man in his earlier encounter as "obese." Bañes seems to use their body type as a criticism of them, suggesting that Bañes has a bias against heavy adults.
Second, Bañes decides - based on these two encounters - that all St. Louisans, in his words, "suck." There are more than 2 million people living in the St. Louis area. Among them are liberals, conservatives and moderates. Among them are people of German descent, Irish descent, Bosnian descent and Polish descent. There are Brazilians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Ethiopians and men and women from Ghana. There are adults with doctorates and adults who left school after the fifth grade. There are carpenters, physicians, college professors, college students and elementary school students. There are priests, rabbis, and atheists.
I would suggest that Bañes needs to look at his own biases before he uses space in a newspaper to accuse an entire city of a single mindset. I would have hoped that Bañes would have learned in his classes here that to derive a conclusion based on such a miniscule sample would leave an enormous margin for error.
Joe Schuster
Professor and Chair of Department of Communications and Journalism
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