'YDN' addresses insinuations of racism

A room full of Asian-American faces punctuated by the occasional white face of a Yale Daily News (YDN) editor was the visual backdrop for what proved to be an impassioned discussion.

ERIN I. LEWIS/YH

The forum in Dwight Hall on Thurs., Apr. 12, was sponsored by the YDN in conjunction with the Asian American Students Alliance (AASA) in response to the campus uproar against the YDN's decision to publish what many called a racially inflammatory opinion piece in its April Fool's issue.

Michael Bar-baro, DC '02, editor-in-chief of the YDN, held that the YDN would not publish an official apology as has been requested repeatedly. He insisted that the piece was innocuous satire that has unfortunately been misinterpreted by students. He noted the paper's journalistic interest in avoiding censorship and to this affect cited the YDN's dutiful publishing of countless letters of ardent rebuke for Michael Horn's, PC '02, column ("Confessions of a Jewish Asian Worshipper," 4/1/01).

Josh Stein, PC '02, a YDN opinion editor, reiterated that the YDN would not print an official apology. "We are not going to hang our columnists out to dry," he said.

Horn himself circulated a written apology via e-mail to the Yale community expressing regret that the YDN had run the piece. "It was not intended to hurt anyone. That is not who I am, and the piece does not reflect anything I believe." According to Barbaro, the column's intent was to exploit and consequently deflate stereotypes often aimed at Asian Americans. Barbaro employed a Latin aphorism to explain the intended charge of his writer in satirizing such stereotypes: "reductio ad absurdum," which translates into "reduction to absurdity."

Nobody will question the intent of either Horn or the YDN, but many feel that a culture of implicit racism, of which everyone at Yale is a part, has bred an atmosphere of acceptance and complacency by allowing such a joke to be tolerated.

Thuyen Nguyen, TC '02, perceived the column as simply "a racist attack." Some students also wondered whether or not such a "joke" would be tolerated at all if the subjects of the stereotype were African Americans instead of Asian Americans.

The discussion turned quickly from the specific censure of the column to a broader critique of the YDN as a quintessential Yale institution whose legacy of white dominance has largely endured since the paper's founding in 1878.

The far-reaching criticisms proffered by students at the meeting ranged from the dearth of non-white staff members to a complete structural failure in covering news and issues specific to the Asian-American community. To the former, Barbaro responded that two-fifths of the current editorial board are in fact ethnic minorities.

This mere statistic, however, did not satisfy the more doubtful among the crowd. Ting-Ting Liang, TD '02, identified a "disconnection between institutions such as the YDN and ethnic communities at Yale." Liang said that the white majority around campus must have been asking themselves, "What are these people bitching about? Just assimilate!"

Jin-Woo Chung, PC '02, president of Korean American Students at Yale (KASY), echoed sentiments of cultural hostility: "The perception of the YDN is that it is unfriendly towards Asians."

Token coverage of news events that are important to ethnic minorities was a common criticism of the YDN. Expressing frustration with the past two years, he claims that he has sent "over 100 e-mails" to the YDN regarding Asian-American events and issues and has "not once" received a reply unless he has gone up to a reporter in person and asked a "personal favor."

"One of my goals was to diversify the staff, but I found it a remarkably hard thing to do," Ben Trachtenberg, former YDN news editor, said. The YDN is certainly aware of its shortcomings, but the question remains as to whether or not it made enough effort to change the status quo. Trachtenberg said he was "confused" as to why Jews, an historically oppressed ethnic group, have managed to excel at Yale and in America in general while other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, have, by and large, not assumed such leadership roles as of yet.

Trachtenberg's comments prompted a groundswell of opposition. Opponents at the meeting dubbed his statements "overly simplistic" and ignorant of the importance of "skin color."

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