I was dismayed by Monday’s headline on the white supremacist rally in Washington: “Foes drown out D.C. rally for whites’ rights.” This headline could have been a tweet by the current president. It advances the false notion that somehow, in this society created by and for white people, white people’s rights are being trampled. Further, to characterize those who showed up to protest the white nationalists as “foes” of “white rights” is incorrect and offensive. As the article itself points out, this is not a debate with two equal, valid perspectives. This is about a handful of people with views that most find detestable and—for many of us who are the target of these views—terrifying.
I appreciate that headline writers face space restraints. But words matter. Framing matters. Headlines matter. For better or worse, they become the sound bites that shape people’s perceptions of the events of the day. All of us who are writers need to understand the weight of our responsibility in presenting the complexities of today’s world, and we need to do better.
Tamiko Beyer
Dorchester
Note from KBJ: Spoken like a true totalitarian.
