WAS 'NO-SNITCH' CARTOON RACIST? EDITORIAL EDITOR REGRETS TERM

Some readers were shocked and angered by a Friday editorial page
cartoon depicting a black man with a smoking gun in his hand standing
over a bullet-riddled victim.

"I didn't see nuttin'!" said a little girl standing nearby. "Now
that's a good little ho!" said the gunman. Both the shooter and the
child wore T-shirts saying "Don't Snitch!"

The cartoon carried a caption: "The new rule of Law!" A billboard in
the background depicted more black characters under lyrics, "Rap your
life away."

Expressions of outrage came quickly, including from the local
president of the NAACP.

"Highly offensive and racist," is how Charles Anderson described the cartoon.

It was wrong to suggest that the growing "Don't snitch" phenomenon is
limited to the African-American community and use of the terms "ho"
and "nuttin' " were over the top, according to Anderson. Phyllis Hall
said everything about the cartoon was offensive.

"Most of us are tired of the crime," she said of Duval County's
murder rate, which is the highest in the state. "But I don't think
demeaning the culture of a race of people is necessary."

She wanted to know who was responsible for allowing the cartoon to
into the newspaper.

Mike Clark, the editorial page editor, reviewed and approved the
cartoon by longtime Times-Union cartoonist Ed Gamble.

"Using the word 'ho' was bad judgment, and I regret that I did not
edit it out,' " Clark said.

The cartoon came after police assertions that a "Don't snitch"
culture has impeded efforts to solve crimes in Jacksonville. A CBS 60
Minutes segment last Sunday focused on the growing problem,
especially in inner-city neighborhoods, and how some rap artists have
encouraged it.

"The object of the cartoon was to comment on the rise of a
no-snitching culture, something that is widely in the news today," Clark said.

"Cartoons, by their nature, take broad strokes that can be
interpreted differently," he said. "There was certainly no intent to
offend the many law-abiding Jacksonville citizens."

Gamble conceded that the term "ho" is demeaning to women, but added,
"I was making a point that rappers are demeaning to women."

He is troubled by the influences of such things as offensive rap
lyrics, drugs and no-snitch messages, Gamble said, and his commentary
is meant to focus on those issues.

Among the outraged was Juan Gray, chairman of the Jacksonville
chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

"This does nothing to mend the divide that seems to be growing wider
in our community," he said.

The NAACP's Isaiah Rumlin's objections focused on stereotyping and
use of the offensive term, but he said the subjects of no-snitching
and rap lyrics are fair game for commentary.

"I know there's a certain segment in our community that wear the
T-shirts and so forth," he said. As for lyrics that might encourage
not cooperating with police, "We're all trying to change those."

But Rumlin was also concerned the cartoon might reinforce a widely
held - albeit wrong - notion in a city that he says is apathetic
about its crime problems.

"This is stereotyping. In reality this is not just a black thing," he
said of the murder problem. "It is a Jacksonville problem."

Rumlin also raised the question of how many people of color are on
the newspaper's staff, asserting the cartoon may have been handled
differently if the newsroom were more diverse.

While the newsroom has people of color among its writers and copy
editors, and has one African-American columnist, no people of color
are involved in the day-to-day operations of the opinion pages, which
are separate from the newsroom.

"If an African-American had seen that before it was printed, it would
not have been printed," Rumlin said.