October 30, 2002
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Sniper Case
Proves Fallacy
of Stereotypes
(AP) — For several w eeks,
John M organ kept looking for a
white Chevy A stro m inivan or a
white box truck being driven by
a w hite male w ho was resp o n
sible for a string o f sniper-style
killings in the W ashington, D.C.,
suburbs.
So when police announced
they had arrested tw o black men
— John A llen M uham m ad and
John Lee M alvo— driving a dark
blue Chevrolet Caprice, Morgan,
who is black him self, was flab
bergasted.
“W ith everything I had heard
on television and w hat people
were saying, everyone assum ed
they were going to be white m en,”
M organ, a telecom m unications
engineer said Sunday before ser
vices at Ebenezer A frican M eth
odist Episcopal C hurch in this
W ashington suburb.
As the W ashington area cel-
ebrated the end o f the killings,
som e b lacks questioned their
own strongly held stereotypes
about blacks and the types of
crimes they may or may not com
mit.
M any c rim in o lo g ists, p s y
chologists and sociologists who
profile serial killers and other
c rim in a ls h ad su g g e ste d for
w eeks that the sniper was likely
a w hite m ale, probably in his 30s
or 40s, w ho w as a loner with a
background in the m ilitary or
w eapons training.
Beverly Foster, a 49-year-old
black dentist from Arlington, Va.,
believed them , saying she d id n 't
think blacks “killed like that.”
“It ju st seem ed too senseless,
too random . It ju st didn’t fit us,”
she said as she left the A lfred
Street B aptist Church in A lexan
dria, Va. “I ’m not saying that we
c a n ’t, but w ith all o f the past
things that have happened, it
just d id n 't seem like the type of
thing we would do.”
Black leaders said the arrests
prove the fallacy of m ost stereo
types.
“None o f us thought that the
sniper was going to be one o f
us,” Rev. John O. Peterson told
his Alfred Street congregation.
"But this ju st show s that the
devil, he has an affirm ative ac
tion program .”
Stewart Sm all, a 35-year-old
America Online writer-editor from
Alexandria, said he, too, was sur
prised by the arrests.
“T raditionally, m urders like
this that have been taking place
are — quote unquote — typical
o f the w hite m ale, like Theodore
Kaczynski, the U nabom ber, Ted
Bundy, so I think a lot o f us
figured that the sniper would fall
into that pattern,” said Stew art.
“When I found out, 1 was d efi
nitely shocked.”
M organ and Sm all both said
they hoped that M uham m ad's
arrest w on’t create more racism
for black A m erican m ales.
“Historically, it seems like if you
pardon the pun, one bad apple
spoils it for everyone else, and
historically, it seems especially
true for the black male,” Small said.
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Encouraging Voters
Students from the Portland
area will be out in force this
weekend encouraging people
to return their ballots in this
Tuesday's vote-by-mail General
Election.
The kids are taking part in the
Vote forChildren project, a non
partisan voter turnout effort. The
group is working with 23 Port
land public schools to raise voter
tum turnout by five percent.
Get out the vote walks are
planned Saturday departing
from Portsmouth and Ockley
Green Middle Schools in north
Portland and Binnsmead Middle
school in southeast Portland.
County elections officials
must receive the ballots by 8
p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday,
Nov. 5. Postmarks do not count.
Official ballot drop sites are lo
cated at all Multnomah County
libraries and at some Fred Meyer
stores, including Interstate and
Peninsula.
Democracy lesson: Why your vote counts
E ditor’s note: The 4th
grade class at King Elemen
tary School in northeast
Portland is getting a lesson
in democracy with help from
Vote fo r Children, a non
partisan voter turnout effort.
The Portland Observer is
p le a se d to share their
thoughts on voting in their
own words:
play sports. In the past, black
people couldn’t vote and white
and black people couldn't eat or
live together. It is important to
vote in Oregon so we can have
better schools and more money.”
B y S haminique C i . oman
“Voting is important so
people do not make bad laws,
like girls not being able to
B y M ai orinne T homas
“Voting is important because
in 1989 a Lansing, Mich, school
district proposition failed when
B y B rittany G oldsby
“It is important to vote be
cause the wrong person might
win.”
the final count produced a tie
vote of 5,147 for and 5,147
against. The result meant the
school district lost in trying to
get more money to operate
schools and the district had to
reduce its budget by $2.5 mil
lion.”
B y F ordos J ahr
“It is important to vote be
cause schools could loose
money for materials like paper
and scissors. There could be
shorter school days and fewer
teachers - which is not a good
thing.”
Agents of Barbarism
formative
if it’s news or m
VOU probably saw
ÿgttlawft
Recent tragedies symbolize capacity for evil
by
Surely, it is no ac
H ugh B. P rice
At first glance it
cident o f history that
s e e m s d e s p ic a b ly
he a n d h is id e a s ,
profane to associate
largely unknow n in
the evil m urderous
the W est until now,
ram page o f the m et
com e to our attention
ropolitan W ash in g
at this m ost danger
ton, D.C. sniper at
ous m om ent.
tacks and the m on
M any in the w orld
strous terror bom b
w ere lulled by the es
ing in Bali, Indonesia
tim able progress civi
with the courageous
lite r a te
m a n y fie ld s sin c e
h u m a n ity
Imre K ertesz, this year’s Nobel L aure
W orld W ar II into thinking that hum an
ate in Literature, has practiced all his
kind had largely rid itself o f its chilling
life.
capacity for the greatest cruelty the N a
And I do not.
Rather, I m ention them to contrast
zis had taken to the depths o f depravity.
these killers’ profound brutality with
o f the 1990s in the Balkans and G uate
the outstanding quality K ertesz’ novels
m ala and R w anda and O klahom a City
and essays are said to m ake so com pel-
and so m any others places around the
lingly clear.
T hat is, as the Nobel Prize ju ry ’s
the veneer o f civilization remains.
H ow ever, we know now that the carnage
w orld dem onstrates yet again how thin
proclam ation stated, K ertesz’ w ork “up
The barbaric arbitrariness o f history
holds the fragile experience o f the indi
took the lives o f hundreds o f thousands
vidual against the barbaric arbitrariness
in the last decade, as a half-century
o f history.”
As we contemplate with horror the
earlier it had taken the lives o f m illions.
catastrophe in Bali and, here in America,
grief, have those who have perished at
the sniper deaths, let us understand that
the hands o f the killers in Bali and in
this is the connection: the wrenching
m etropolitan W ashington done to de
juxtaposition o f good and evil— the inno
serve this cruel fate?
cent victims and the cowardly calculating
W hat, one asks now , reeling w ith
T his is the sam e question my col
killers whose inhumanity has transformed
leagues at the W all Street headquarters o f
them into evil spirits in human form.
the N ational U rban League asked 13
Both these tragedies sym bolize so
m onths ago, as the W orld T rade C enter
m uch o f hum an history— on the one
com plex fell to earth less than a m ile from
hand, the great capacity o f som e hum an
our doorstep and the Pentagon exploded
beings to com m it evil, and. on the other,
in fatal flam es. Then, thousands o f lives
the great capacity o f som e hum an be
were taken in m om ents by a cabal o f men
ings to live lives o f great, sim ple dignity.
o f bottom less evil. A nd it is the question
K ertesz, a H ungarian-born Jew , w it
that loom ed large in my mind little more
nessed and survived tw o o f the most
than a w eek ago w hen I kept a speaking
destructive exam ples o f the barbaric
engagem ent in the W ashington suburb o f
arbitrariness o f history. As a teenager,
Bow ie, M aryland— w here the sniper had
he was im prisoned in the Nazi death
shot and w ounded a 13-year-old boy.
cam ps o f A uschw itz and Buchenw ald.
This is the same question that was asked
A fterw ard, he lived in H ungary during
about those who perished in the death
the entire tim e o f its dom ination by the
cam ps sixty years ago. It is the same
Soviet Union.
But, although he lived in an environ
question that is asked about the victims
ment where governm ent dem anded a
ity for large-scale evil can have its way:
rigid, stifling conform ity, Kertesz ex
W hat did they do to deserve this cruel fate?
pressed in his novels and essays a re
W hy them?
lentless resistance to unjust social and
Hugh B. Price is president o f the
National Urban League
political conform ity.
J
lization has made in
Hugh B. Price
J
whenever and wherever the human capac