A change of pace, reporting on race

SANDPOINT —This is my first time writing an article about racism. Most reporters would be advised not to admit that, to cling to their credibility and focus on the subject being interviewed, but I am not ashamed about my lack of experience.

And as I sat in the newsroom transcribing my interviews for this story, I questioned what authority I have to write about a topic as complex as racism in the United States, much less in Bonner County. I am a white female and I moved to Sandpoint, Idaho, from Northern Virginia five days ago. Usually, these facts are irrelevant when it comes to reporting, but I believe that transparency is important.

For starters, I did not know about Juneteenth, a holiday that commemorates the official end of slavery in the United States, until a coworker suggested I attend a community sit-in at Fourth and Cedar in Sandpoint. When I walked by each person sitting in their lawn chairs and holding signs, I watched the interaction between the 30-plus individuals. I witnessed smiles under masks that were evident by the up-turned wrinkles under their eyes. I witnessed honking from cars in solidarity and others whom shouted, “Where are the Blacks?”

All the citizens in attendance were white. And in speaking with them, I was privileged to hear each interviewee share their own vulnerabilities and biases that they had discovered about themselves in recent weeks.

Co-organizer Krista Eberle said she began sitting on the street corner the day of George Floyd’s memorial and has been there each Thursday, with or without a crowd to accompany her, in order to prompt conversation about racism in the county.

“We all on some level don’t understand the issues of being Black in America,” Eberle said. “I think we all have little bits of racism inside of us, that we are not even aware of, so for me it was a bit of a personal thing where I would use this time to support Black lives and educate myself on racism and America.”

Making my way through the crowd, I met Randi Lui who recalled the hatred and violence in the ‘70s when riots broke out both in Miami, Florida, and Los Angeles, California.

“It was confusing. I was young … I asked my mom what was happening and she couldn’t explain it to me,” Lui said. “As a teenager I just didn’t understand why people couldn’t get along because of the color of their skin.”

She was holding a black and white sign with a long list of names of Black men and women who were murdered as a result of racial tendencies in society. Even being in an interracial marriage and as a minority in other living communities, Lui admitted that she has never experienced racism.

“I have lived where I was a minority and had white privilege and didn’t suffer racism because even though I was a minority I was white,” Lui said. “This has been my life.”

Lui pointed to the 1985 bombing in Philadelphia as one of the most surprising acts of violence related to racial bias that she found in her research. Pennsylvania State Police dropped two one-pound bombs, referred to as entry devices, on the roof of a Black activist’s house. Eleven people were killed including five children and the founder of the MOVE organization.

“It’s not as far back in history as people think,” Lui said. “It doesn’t make sense that we are still fighting the same thing people of color have had to fight for over 400 years.”

And on the edge of the sidewalk I met an out-of-townie, seventh grade math teacher Danica Lauden who teaches at Aptos Middle School in California. She was visiting her family in Priest River and attended the sit-in after finding the event listed in the online national database for Juneteenth celebrations.

Lauden’s school has a diverse group of students and she is looking for ways to reduce her racial bias such as forming a white educator anti-racist reading group, accommodating student’s individual cultures in the classroom and highlighting more acclaimed colored individuals in her field.

“I have been hearing about a lot of different workplaces and the ways that different colleagues of color are or are not given the same opportunities as their white coworkers,” Lauden said. “I think teachers of color are really valued on one hand for being able to represent those students that we teach. But also, I think people don’t realize being racist could include putting a huge burden on those teachers to speak up for students of color.”

When I left the sit-in to sit in the newsroom, I thought about how President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (1863) took over two years to reach the final population of slaves in Texas during the spring of 1865. I thought about how three states, North Dakota, South Dakota and Hawaii have yet to acknowledge Juneteenth as a holiday. I thought about how realities completely shift the moment you find out new information, and then this quote from a TedTalk I listened to last year entered my mind.

“There’s going to be a time where you have to let go of your idea if you want to understand the bigger picture,” Astronomer Phil Plait said in March of 2019. “The price of doing science is admitting when you’re wrong, but the payoff is the best there is: knowledge and understanding.”

Plait talks about Andrew Lyne’s bravery at a 1992 American Astronomical Society meeting where in presenting his research about a previous discovery of a planet, he admitted that he no longer believed that his data was accurate. He told a crowd of scientists that there was no planet at all.

“And what happened next?” Plait said. “He got an ovation. The astronomers weren’t angry at him, they didn’t want to chastise him. They praised him for his honesty and his integrity. I love that. Science are people.”

Journalism is known as the science of the truth, but journalists ought to have space to admit their bias as well. There is no template for a journalist to use to report racism, but I attest that racism cannot be reported on without vulnerability and the room for error or admit to ignorance.

I may not have known about Juneteenth until today, but I know it now and I will never forget it.

Aly De Angelus can be reached by email at adeangelus@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @AlyDailyBee