Reader Representative
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Karen Hunter
Off-color, inappropriate, insensitive, misinformed. Whenever those criticisms about Englehart’s View arrive in my office, I dutifully tell readers that as much as I understand their complaints, Editorial Page cartoonist Bob Englehart is more than entitled to his opinions, he is paid for them.
But here’s my opinion: Last Sunday’s View did more than insult a community. It insulted the newspaper and some of the people who work here with its depiction of a black couple telling a black police officer that they would be “acting white” if they gave up the names of known criminals in their neighborhoods.
Beyond the complete disregard for the reality of fear of retaliation was the outrageous implication that black people in Hartford don’t value the safety of their children and their neighborhoods as much as white people do.
As Fanita Borges told The Courant, “As a minority born and living in Hartford all my life, I found that completely offensive. There are ways to make a point regarding any community without having to be offensive and racially biased … It is because of commentaries and articles similar to that one that so many people have such a poor view of the city of Hartford.
“Does [he] have free rein to print whatever he likes without any supervision of someone in that building with any common sense? Did you all have a great laugh about it? To think that we are in 2003 and still minorities have to suffer such racial friction.”
Editorial Page Editor John Zakarian said, “Bob is a cartoonist, and cartoonists frequently aren’t subtle in their graphic pronouncements. If they are any good at all, they are on the edge. Sometimes they are over the edge. Sometimes the cartoons are edited. This one was somewhat.”
Englehart responded to my request for a better understanding of the cartoon by explaining that his commentary was born in part from an editorial board visit with Hartford Police Chief Bruce P. Marquis. “I was being critical of certain aspects of neighborhood culture that are anathema to maintaining law and order in Hartford,” Englehart said.
But what does race have to do with it? No one would deny that Hartford residents have to work with police to address criminal activity. But as Borges made clear in an e-mail, “It is not about the race, it is about the people. Are you saying that only white people care about making their communities safe for children? How do they do that, by driving to Hartford to purchase drugs instead of having a dealer in Simsbury or Granby?”
To tell you the truth, I heard more disgust over the cartoon in the newsroom than from readers.
Copy Desk Chief Harvey Remer shared his feelings with me. “Well, I was outraged because this shames all of us who work here.”
Still, another colleague, columnist Stan Simpson, said the cartoon represents the perceptions of some people, and the paper has a duty to make room for different opinions no matter how distasteful.
“What’s important is that people respond, that people like [Mayor Eddie] Perez, [reader] Andrea Comer and [Courant columnist] Helen [Ubinas] responded,” Simpson said. “If we didn’t have that, then I would be worried.”
Well, I have no problem with open forums, free speech and an uncensored flow of opinions. But when The Courant appears to reinforce instead of dispel negative and inaccurate racial stereotypes and seems so out of touch that it ends up being intellectually dishonest in depicting the reality of the lives of a significant segment of the community it covers, it risks its credibility and its relevance. And I have a problem with that.
We all know this isn’t the first time Englehart’s View has insulted a community. I’m sure it won’t be the last. Relatively recent cartoons that come to mind include one that depicted state workers as overpaid and lazy – as thousands of them faced layoffs – and another that depicted followers of the religion of Islam as terrorists.
Provocative to say the least. But being provocative is pointless if your message is lost in a real or perceived bias.
I’ll say it again: Englehart has a right to his opinion. But last Sunday’s View was just wrong.
