.
.
Polar bear deconstruction - Smile Politely editorial
Dublin Core
Title
Polar bear deconstruction - Smile Politely editorial
Subject
Police, Crime, Gangs
Description
http://www.smilepolitely.com/opinion/polar_bear_deconstruction/
Full text (with comments)
Polar bear deconstruction
featured_post
Posted in OPINION by Joel Gillespie on Monday, November 8, 2010 at 5:59 am
“Polar bear hunting†has been scaring the hell out of white Champaign-Urbana for almost two months now. Reports of possibly-coordinated, race-motivated attacks by black males on their caucasian counterparts for purposes of sport have captivated the newspaper-devouring public. What in the world is happening? Have you perhaps been able to avoid the media coverage of these attacks, or need a refresher course? Let’s look at the paper of record:
“POLAR BEAR HUNTING†COVERAGE IN REVIEW
Over the course of four weeks from September 9 to October 6, the News-Gazette ran eight front-page stories regarding black-on-white battery incidents in Campustown and Champaign. Battery cases don’t generally get much coverage in the N-G (I’ll come back to that), but on September 6, a piece entitled “Information sought on aggravated batteries†appeared on page A-4. The Champaign Police Department was looking for information on two attacks in August involving groups of black assailants and white victims, both in Campustown. From then on, battery was front-page news:
1. September 9: “Senseless attacks appear to be linked†(titled “Unprovoked attacks appear to be linked“ in its online version). Following two bizarre attacks on pre-adolescent boys—one in Eisner Park and one in Clark Park—possible links are drawn to the August attacks in Campustown. CPD Sgt. Jim Rein puts a undeniably catchy name to this phenomenon: “Years ago, I can’t say a specific year, that was part of a local gang (rite) to see if you could knock out someone with one punch. They call it polar bear hunting.“ The N-G would later run a retraction regarding the use of the phrase, as Rein intended the phrase to describe events in past years and not necessarily describing these attacks in those words, but you can’t put a genie back in the bottle, as they say.
2. September 18: “Two Charged in attack on UI Campus,“ regarding arrests for a separate Campustown battery incident that occurred on September 17.
3. September 20: “Police chief to suspects: we’ll put an end to this,“ noting that two Urbana men had been arrested for aggravated battery and hate crime. CPD Chief R.T. Finney is quoted as saying, “We are familiar with what they’re doing and how they’re operating and we’re beginning to turn the tables on them. We’re basically hunting them.“ State’s Attorney Julia Rietz: “The most appropriate charge for them was aggravated battery and not hate crime. That’s because aggravated battery on a public way is a more serious offense than hate crime and hate crime is harder to prove.“
4. September 29: “The epitome of cowardice“ (or “Former TV weatherman victim of unprovoked attack†if you’re reading online), as Mike Sola was beaten following a Centennial football game, featuring this item: “(Earlier reports indicated a slang term of “polar bear hunting†for these attacks, but police officials say that term is not evident in the recent attacks.)“
5. October 2, 5 and 6: Arrests made of several teens for their role in the aggravated battery of Mr. Sola.
6. October 3: “Embarrassing to our community“ (or “No evidence of coordination in series of attacks†online), featuring statements from local black business owner Seon Williams condemning the attacks. The article included a map (right, click here to embiggen), provided by the CPD, showing locations of “recent battery cases reported in Champaign.“ The article features this statement: “Since Aug. 15, there have been 20 attacks on white males, mostly in the campus area, committed mostly by groups of young black men.“
An editorial, published the following day, October 4, in the N-G, titled “It’s obvious what assaults are about,“ repeats the assertion that “All the victims have been white males and all but one of the attackers have been black males. (One was a Hispanic male).“ Also in the editorial, it’s noted that “[the phrase ‘polar bear hunting’] ... was resurrected by the news media when the recent series of attacks started to show an undeniable pattern.“ If you’re the news media outlet that did the resurrecting, it takes a certain lack of self-awareness to blame “the news media†writ large for that.
Some questions at this point:
* Holy cow, is that true? All of the battery cases reported in Champaign between August 15 and October 4 were perpetrated by black males on white males, except one in which the attacker was hispanic?
* 20 attacks in a period of about six weeks in Champaign sounds like a lot, especially since I’ve been told about several of them in breathless front-page newspaper accounts emphasizing their racial component. But how does that look in context? How many cases of battery and aggravated battery would be expected during that time period, and what is the usual demographic distribution?
* These incidents being reported are all in Champaign. Why doesn’t Urbana have similar problems?
* I’ve heard that the north end of Champaign has problems with crime (in fact, I seem to recall reading about many of those crimes in the N-G on a daily basis), but according to that map, it’s the safest part of town, with nary a battery case to be found. Have my thoughtless perceptions been couched in racial prejudice?
A CLOSER LOOK AT THE MAP
The first question is pretty easy to answer. If you look more closely at the map above, you’ll see that two of the incidents involve victims who are black males, one is an asian male, and there’s an additional hispanic male in a group with three white males who were victimized (the only incident noted as involving multiple victims). Also, the way it was phrased in the editorial made it sound like one of the attackers was a hispanic male, when in fact one of the victims of an individual attack was, and none of the attackers were. Additionally, a subsequent N-G report noted that the victim of the September 12 battery on the 500 block of E. Green was of Polynesian descent, whereas he’s described as a white male on the map.
So, that’s actually only 14 out of the 20 incidents that are “attacks on white males.“ It’s possible that a 100% correlation in a tiny sample size could imply causation, but 70%—especially in a community that is 73.2% white—doesn’t mean much of anything.
The N-G editorial board, Mary Schenk, and whomever her editor is can be given a pass for not being aware of the one victim who was Polynesian. However, missing the other five victims of color is due to either miserable reading comprehension or an over-enthusiastic desire to keep riding the narrative that they’d been presenting to the public. Or perhaps a mixture of the two.
DIGGING INTO THE NUMBERS
In order to answer the rest of the questions, we engaged the Champaign Police Department for more information. Chief Finney, in an email from October 15 in which he’d discussed sending us the updated battery map, said, “I could also send you the various demographics of specific crime codes for 2009. Those would be separated by crime, IE: Robbery, Agg. Battery, etc… It is a hand count so it breaks down only by white, African American, Asian, Hispanic.“
Gary Spear, CPD Crime Analyst, provided us an updated map of battery cases in Champaign (download the pdf here) on October 19. This map included five subsequent incidents in addition to the 20 on the map published in the N-G. They were: a “sexual orientation related†battery of a white male by two unknown-race males at 6th and Green; two white female victims battered by three black females at the Clybourne; an attempted robbery of a white male by two males, one black and one unknown, at 6th and Healey; a black female victim battered and had her clothes stolen by three black males at 100 S. Country Fair; and a victim of unspecified race battered by four black males in the lot behind the Highdive in downtown Champaign.
Spear also provided a list of numbers of crimes by type in Champaign for 2009 and 2010 on October 20. For instance, there were 347 cases of aggravated battery and 217 cases of battery in Champaign in 2009, for a total of 564 (an average of 47 per month). In the first nine months of 2010, there have been an average of 47 batteries and aggravated batteries per month. (Please note that at this rate, it would be expected for there to be about 66 incidents of battery and aggravated battery in the time period (42 days) covered by the map which appeared in the N-G.)
These items were helpful, but didn’t provide the location or demographic information to put the recent attacks into context, and the CPD stalled and finally balked at providing additional statistics. So, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request with both the City of Champaign and the City of Urbana for location and demographics of assailant(s) and victim(s) for all batteries and aggravated batteries for 2006 through 2010.
Urbana supplied the information requested in a timely manner, producing a 138-page printout, and even the data in spreadsheet form upon additional request. The results were eye-opening and very consistent from year to year:
* Urbana experiences slightly more batteries and aggravated batteries than Champaign (an average of 652.6 per year from 2006 to 2010)
* Demographically, the incidents break down as follows: black on black: 280 per year on average; white on white: 133 per year; black on white: 138 per year; white on black: 30 per year; and other combinations or unknown assailants account for the balance (71 per year) of the incidents.
* Phrasing it differently: blacks commit three-fourths of batteries in Urbana, but a white person is just as likely to get battered by a white person as they are a black person, and the number of blacks who are victims of battery is roughly equal to the number of whites. Download a pdf of the chart shown below here.
* The variation from year to year was pretty small, but 2008 notably had increased rates of both black on white (169) and white on black (60) incidents. Download a pdf of the data summary here.
I did not map out the Urbana incidents because of time constraints and lack of ambition, although location information was supplied. If anyone wants to take a crack at it, shoot me an email and I’ll send you the spreadsheet. (UPDATE—11/17/10: Thanks to Tim Green, there are now more maps of this data available than you could ever want.)
Meanwhile, I’d received no response to the Champaign FOIA after a week, and I stopped by the police station last Wednesday to check on it. The records department supplied two pages with maps, one for 2007-2010 cases and one for 2005-2010 cases. You can download both maps here, and the 2005-2010 map is shown below.
I was told by records desk personnel that it was against CPD protocol to supply demographic data for crimes. When I told them that Urbana had supplied the data, I was politely told that I was not in Urbana. An email request to Rene Dunn of the CPD for an explanation for the denial of this portion of the FOIA request—as well as an explanation for the reasoning behind supplying demographic data for crimes on the battery map but not for the bulk of them—was not returned.
Because of the huge number of data points displayed on this map, it’s difficult to get an exact count for how many battery and aggravated battery incidents occur in each part of town, but it’s clear that the north end and Campustown see most of the cases. It’s very unusual that there were no incidents north of Church Street on the battery map printed in the N-G (nor on the updated map supplied to us).
Combined with the low number of incidents catalogued on the “recent battery cases†map (compared with the number of batteries and aggravated batteries expected for that time period), the possibility exists that data was selected for public consumption which fits a particular narrative. I also asked the CPD about this discrepancy in the same email, which was not returned, about the FOIA denial.
MORE RECENT EVENTS
For what it’s worth, there have been at least four incidents of battery or assault involving caucasian assailants in Campustown reported in the N-G in the past two weeks.
At right is Christopher Thamm, arrested in the parking deck beating linked above. The newspaper report didn’t identify his race, but I figured it was worth the trouble to file a FOIA request for his mugshot.
I would really like to begin referring to white-on-white violence as “cracker jacking.“ I think that it’s at least as catchy as “polar bear hunting,“ and more descriptive. Who’s with me?
Also, on October 27, a white Urbana teen was beaten by a black teen who told him, “It’s because you’re white.“
IN CONCLUSION
There is a lot of racial tension in our community for reasons both recent and historical; that much is undeniable. There’s also a clear problem with battery and aggravated battery: there were 691 aggravated batteries in Champaign and Urbana in 2009, and compared to Bureau of Justice statistics for 2008 in Illinois, a community with a population of 112,616 (according to the most recent census figures) should expect to have 341. These are serious crimes which need to be taken seriously, and the frequency with which they occur (three batteries and aggravated batteries, every day of the year, on average) is a real problem.
However, there’s a reason you don’t read front-page stories about each of these three incidents every day: most (about 80%, if Urbana demographic data can be extrapolated to Champaign) don’t fit an inflammatory narrative of black-on-white. Media-driven hysteria which assigns a storyline to statistically-insignificant small sample sizes, cherry-picked data, and attempts to assign motivation and connection to crimes which are ultimately appear to be unrelated (except in their demographic makeup), is an extremely unhealthy way to approach these issues.
38 comments
Rob McColley avatar featured_post
Rob McColley
11/08/10 at 11:46
#1
white on white: 133 per year; black on white: 138 per year
See, we hate us just as much as they hate us. So we’re even.
BTW, I believe “cracker jacking†also refers to self-abuse.
Mark Laughlin avatar featured_post
Mark Laughlin
11/08/10 at 11:58
#2
Joel,
On the plus side, I’m glad you categorized this article in the Opinion rather than the News section.
However, your article reads to me as a good example of the ability of many people (often liberal white people) to rationalize, excuse and minimalize pretty much any criminal behavior, as long as the criminal is black.
In my opinion, the coverage of these attacks in the Gazette has been much more grounded in reality than your assessment above.
It seems kind of transparent to me that you started with a thesis - the polar bear attacks aren’t REALLY racially motivated, that’s just racist Gazette propoganda - and then went after any statistics you could find to support it.
username
David Foster Wallflower
11/08/10 at 11:04
#3
1. Nowhere in this do I see Joel attempting to excuse assault and battery. If it has been “minimizedâ€, it’s only due to proper placement within the larger context of battery cases, something that, in my opinion, gets us a little closer to reality and serves to highlight the problem of violence across the community rather than dismiss individual accounts.
2. If Joel is starting with a thesis and looking for statistics to back that up…well, then I’d say that he and The News Gazette are on pretty equal footing in that regard. And at first glance, Joel’s statistics are looking more “grounded†than the Gazette’s.
Finally, if I were desperate to prove that there’s no basis in the intended assertion of black on white crime to the point that I’d cherry-pick all my statistics — I wouldn’t end my article with an account of a black teenager saying, “It’s because your white.“
Doug Hoepker avatar featured_post
Doug Hoepker
11/08/10 at 11:07
#4
Mark, I gotta agree with Wallflower. Joel went to the extent of seeking (and getting, to some degree) a significant amount of detailed information, then processing that information, before coming to a conclusion. So what if he started with a hunch? (And I’m not convinced he did, other than the hunch that the N-G was doing a suspect job reporting these crimes.) That’s how columnists typically work. The N-G editorial presents its hunch without so much as lifting a finger to prove it right or wrong.
Tracy Nectoux avatar featured_post
Tracy Nectoux
11/08/10 at 11:20
#5
David: If Joel is starting with a thesis and looking for statistics to back that up…
Doug: Joel went to the extent of seeking ... a significant amount of detailed information, then processing that information, before coming to a conclusion. So what if he started with a hunch?
Isn’t that the way the Scientific Method works?
username
Edward Burch
11/08/10 at 11:31
#6
I challenge any reader to point to an instance of rationalizing or excusing of any of the crimes described in this article.
username
Tim
11/08/10 at 11:39
#7
Joel,
Thanks for taking the time and trouble to put this together.
Mark,
You misread the thesis and the poitn of the article. Joel’s point is not whether or not the individual attacks are racially motivated. Some clearly are, but for other it is impossible to show. Nothing here excuses even one of the actual crimes. Joels piece looks at the centrol role played by the NG in blowing this entire story way, way, way out of proportion, and in presenting a skewed picture of reality by focusing on certain events (black on white assaults) over others.
That is incredibly important in a community with racial tensions as high as ours. We don’t need irresponsible NG reporing inflaming the community. These attacks did occur, and some were racially motivated. The experience of individual victims is terrible, and the crimes themselves are inexcusable.
But crime in our community is overwhelmingly not racially motivated black on white crime. In presenting so many stories and editorials that suggest this much, along with giving a name to it, all while minimizing reporting of other crimes and overall data that might put this in perspective, the NG took an active role in creating the problem and how the community should feel about it.
That role deserves to be criticized.
username featured_post
Anna Barnes
11/08/10 at 11:09
#8
Thanks for shedding some light on this Joel.
username
Jose Rodriguez
11/08/10 at 11:20
#9
Joel,
I totally agree with you on how media is being bias on this issue, namely publishing articles that is relevant to the theme of their interest, which is black on white. In fact, your data has proven your thought to be correct.
I am pretty much a conspiracy type of guy, and below are some of the questions that pop-up in my mind.
1) Why doesn’t champaign release demographic data of crimes while urbana does? Could it be an order from the ones in power?
2) Why did the media choose the theme “black on white†instead of the other way around? I understand the fact that about 73% of champaign is white and choosing such a title could possibly boost the sale of the newspaper, but could it be more than that? Could it be the ones in power using the media as a tool to brainwash us to believe that’s what’s going on?
3) Last but not least, who would benefit the most out of all these? The individuals who wrote the articles? Newspaper company? Our community? Extremist who plan on starting something? Or the ones in power?
4) I still haven’t read any news about the mayor’s thought on the issue. Could he be waiting for the right moment to speak to the public so that he could gain support when he makes a move in the future? Could it be a republican vs democrat thing that we are being dragged into?
“http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/ct-met-champaign-mayor-0418-20100416,0,2577579.storyâ€
(It’s a link to an article about how the mayor didn’t believe our president to be an American.)
username
Duncan
11/08/10 at 11:25
#10
An interesting article. It’s interesting to see how these stories fit in with everything else that we don’t hear about.
It would be interesting if it was somehow categorize the assaults,etc. based on some sort of motivation. How many of these assaults start as two (or more) jackasses arguing? How many take place as part of a robbery (do they count that as assault or is it separate?)? How many are just some random guy getting jumped?
I realize that such information is hard to come by, but since there seem to be so many possibilities, having some context would be interesting.
username
Gail Taylor
11/08/10 at 11:48
#11
Does anyone else find it intriguing that the number of attacks by black youths in the community have been on the rise since Kiwane Carrington was fatally shot by a Champaign police officer? I don’t recall seeing the News Gazette explore the possible correlation between the shooting and increase in number of attacks or other news sources. I’m aware that proving this tyep of cause-and-effect is hard to do but also think it’s worth considering due to interrelated and overlapping social relationships that exist among members of the Champaing and Urbana communities.
username
Gail Taylor
11/08/10 at 11:51
#12
Could you add a spellchecker to the commenting feature available on this site? ;-)
Tracy Nectoux avatar featured_post
Tracy Nectoux
11/08/10 at 11:23
#13
Hi Gail. We do have a spellcheck feature. It’s that little “ABC†box furthest right of the coding options.
Joel Gillespie avatar featured_post
Joel Gillespie
11/08/10 at 11:50
#14
@Gail: That’s certainly the subtext with much of this coverage. Without demographic data for crimes committed in Champaign, I couldn’t speak to that directly. There’s been no upward trend in numbers of batteries and aggravated batteries by black perpetrators in Urbana in 2010. Black on white attacks are actually slightly down, and black on black attacks are slightly up. The total number of batteries and aggravated batteries in Champaign are steady from 2009 to 2010, but without the CPD releasing any more information, any conclusions based on that information will be anecdotal and prone to confirmation bias. The amount of news coverage surrounding black-on-white battery cases has certainly skyrocketed in recent months, leading to the perception that the actual number of incidents has increased. One of the points of this article was to demonstrate the lack of statistical basis for that point of view.
username
Robert Knilands
11/08/10 at 11:02
#15
I think you proved your case about the N-G mishandling some things, but I don’t think you have disproved any motives for these crimes.
For example, crime was high in 2009, too. An equally high rate of batteries in 2010 doesn’t disprove anything. Maybe crime would have fallen but for these assaults.
You have a ways to go here. N-G mess-ups are not exactly the Holy Grail.
Also, to Gail, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for the N-G to correlate much of anything. Their coverage of almost all issues is reactionary at best.
username
johnny
11/08/10 at 11:03
#16
Stupid News-Gazette. Let’s all walk alone late at night to prove how full of it The News-Gazette is.
username
guest
11/08/10 at 11:59
#17
what have you proved exactly? you sound like an apologist. just because the NG screwed up some of the information intentionally or unintentionally doesn’t prove or disprove anything. maybe they should have not used the term polar bear hunting but what does that have to do with the possibility that these attacks are actually racially motivated? just because there are other violent attacks happening in the community says nothing about the possibility of an actual group of people perpetrating these crimes based on race.
username
anonymous
11/08/10 at 11:15
#18
This is the best analysis regarding this issue that I’ve seen yet. Thanks, Joel. I ask the following in an effort to better understand and not to suggest any conclusions. Also because statistics are not intuitive for me…
If the population of CU is somewhere around 70% “whiteâ€, then don’t the Urbana demographics show that batteries are quite disproportionately committed by “blacksâ€? And that the ratio of “black on white†crime vs “white on black†crime is also way out of proportion? In other words - using rounded estimates - there are roughly three times as many white residents in CU, yet “black on white†batteries (in Urbana, at least) are three times as likely as “white on black†batteries. Isn’t that the opposite of what we’d expect if race was in no way whatsoever an issue, or at least a marker of some other issue?
This disparity strikes me as important - not because it shows that “black on white†(or any other) batteries are explicitly or consciously racially motivated (I don’t think stats can tell us what offenders were thinking), but because it shows that “blacks†are much more likely to commit a battery at all, for whatever reason. If we are looking for racially-related causes to this phenomenon, perhaps we shouldn’t be focusing on the concept of “hate crimesâ€, but rather on the subtle, historic, and persistent forms of racism that create social conditions in which blacks are more likely to commit (or at least be apprehended for) battery. Sure, Kiwane’s killing may be a part of that, but maybe we should expand our scope to think about income and educational disparities, as well as culturally reinforced psychological biases, that create these social patterns.
I guess I’m saying something like: The NG is using the absolute wrong data set and sensationalizing the issue. That’s indefensible. But maybe we (as a community, not our conservative newspaper) really do need to ask why “blacks†are so much more likely to commit battery than “whitesâ€, relative to the population ratio of those two groups. Instead of arguing that this disparity really doesn’t exist, should we instead recognize that it is the case and exert some serious effort to figuring out why that is and how we can reverse the trend byh taking positive action?
Or am I totally misinterpreting the stats?
[PS: I use quotes above because I highly doubt that all ofenders and victims fit nicely into the categories wea re discussing.]
username
J Hannah
11/08/10 at 11:40
#19
Thanks for researching and writing this, Joel.
John Steinbacher avatar featured_post
John Steinbacher
11/08/10 at 11:40
#20
The most depressing thing revealed to me in the numbers listed above (and by looking up the racial demographics of Urbana), something that I guess isn’t completely shocking — if you are black in Urbana you are over 4 times more likely to be a victim of an assault, regardless of who is committing it. I’m guessing the situation in Champaign is somewhat similar.
username
Bubba Bourbon
11/08/10 at 11:43
#21
A few thoughts for discussion:
1. It would take quite an exhaustive review of police records, but how many of the assaults last year, or in previous years, involved more than one african-american on a lone white male? I think that stat would make or break the debate on whether or not the N-G is sensationalizing something. You can compare stat numbers about assaults all you want, but I would like to see a comparison of apples to apples.
2.Anonymous makes some interesting points, although I don’t know if I agree with them all. I did however, recently read this news story, and thought it probably plays a role in some of the things anonymous is describing:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UNWED_BIRTHS_72_PERCENT?SITE=OHTOL&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
3. Bottom line is crime is happening in our streets and across our great Nation. Blaming, poor reporting on by both sides of the isle, finger-pointing, sympathy, the judicial system and/or fear aren’t going to solve the problem.
Jason Z. avatar
Jason Z.
11/09/10 at 11:00
#22
I think you’re using faulty logic when saying that 70% of the assaults are on white males, and this isn’t out of the ordinary for a community that’s 73.2% white. Your population for that sample should be the total assaults in Champaign, not the racial composition for the community.
We don’t have demographic information for the assaults in Champaign, but assuming that the demographics of assault are equal for Champaign and Urbana, and using the data Joel provided from the City of Urbana we can expect the percentage of total assaults to play out like this:
Black assaults Black 43%
White assaults White 20%
Black assaults White 21%
White assaults Black 5%
Unknown 11%
So in the time period analyzed by the News-Gazette, the number of black assaulting white incidents increases by ~50 percentage points from what is expected. This leaves me with a number of questions…Does this represent a significant increase in race related violence? Is this a blip in the data that will even out over time? Is this an unexpected number of incidents for the time period in question? And from a policy standpoint, if this does represent a significant uptick in violence at what point is it incumbent on the police to say something about it to keep the populace informed of an observed trend?
Looking at the data this way makes it seem as if there was some sort of an increase in black assaulting white violence at the time of the News-Gazette articles. I’m making assumptions here and I’m not a criminologist, so I’ll leave further analysis or criticism to others. And of course, this is probably a good time to throw out the old line about lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Joel Gillespie avatar featured_post
Joel Gillespie
11/09/10 at 11:35
#23
@Jason: You can draw your own conclusions, but I’ll just point out again that there were less than one-third the number of incidents on the CPD battery map published in the N-G as would have been expected for the time period examined (20 vs. 66), and that the geographic distribution of the crimes was not what was usual for such crimes over the past five years.
@anonymous, et.al.: African-americans are certainly over-represented on both the giving and receiving ends of these crimes. It’s a very relevant part of the story. Thank you for calling attention to it.
Rob McColley avatar featured_post
Rob McColley
11/09/10 at 11:57
#24
I believe this to be an appropriate juncture for me to demand reparations.
username
SF
11/09/10 at 11:52
#25
It’s time for a logic break: the flaw in the News Gazette reporting was twofold - 1) that incomplete statistics were presented selectively to portray an incomplete story about a complex issue; and 2) that the incomplete story is a narrative concerning the “motivation†of certain violent crimes in the area.
I am particularly concerned with the latter issue, motivation. Numbers regarding the occurrence of crime do not provide substantive information, direct or indirect, about the subjective field of motivation - what and why people want and do things. If commenters and the public at large want to discuss the topic of what motivates these attacks, they need to interview the attackers and ask them why they committed the crimes, and they need to be ready, in a posture of listening, for more than one answer. Until then, opinions on racial motivation are at best opinions and at worst, biased speculative assumptions without statistical or sociological rigor.
Thank you, Joel, for addressing this serious issue seriously by doing research, publishing _more complete_ statistics (statistics are never totally complete), and by calling attention to the alarmist rhetoric being used. Your article - which is actually more appropriately news than opinion - reveals that there are some racial patterns in the local assault statistics, but mainly that attackers are more likely to be black, and victims are about equally likely to be white or black. To pretend or believe that white victims deserve more protection or media attention than black victims, or that assault is primarily motivated by racial tension and not by other overlapping factors, is to be a racist. Perhaps not a violent one, but someone who employs irrational fear and assumption to make spurious conclusions that assault us all intellectually, regardless of race. Is that what people aspire to be and to do? And if so, what “motivates†that?
username
Robert Knilands
11/09/10 at 11:56
#26
No offense, SF, but that’s crazy talk, particularly this: “If commenters and the public at large want to discuss the topic of what motivates these attacks, they need to interview the attackers and ask them why they committed the crimes, and they need to be ready, in a posture of listening, for more than one answer.“
So you think they are not only going to admit to the crime, but also provide a complete explanation as to why it was committed? Seriously?
username
SF
11/09/10 at 11:15
#27
Since you asked - Yes, I mean that seriously in the sense that until you try to ask, you can’t say you really looked in every place you could for an answer. There is no guaranteeing what the results will be or that they will follow the same pattern for every person… but after all, that is why assumption should be avoided in the first place. I’ll accept that demanding more out of ourselves and our fellow human beings may be considered “crazy†by some, but I will continue to do it, anyway, and if you were to ask me about my motivations, I wouldn’t consider them so crazy and I’d probably give you a more complete explanation than you wanted (and a less complete explanation than I wanted). Therein lies the problem in general - people have limits on what they want to hear and what they want to believe, but they don’t disclose those limits before they make their proscriptive statements. I appreciate that you that you mean no offense by your response, and I likewise mean no offense with mine. If anything, I appreciate the opportunity to clarify my idea.
username
anonymous
11/10/10 at 11:58
#28
an addendum to #18 (that brings up more questions than answers):
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?src=me&ref=general
username
Kerry Pimblott
11/14/10 at 11:12
#29
Excellent piece Joel. I really appreciate you providing this and I have sent it on to folks that I know would find your FOIA findings helpful in explaining recent events.
I think the other key piece is that the “Polar Bear†frame is based on the assumption that these supposedly coordinated/correlated attacks had no motive other than race. The NG map belies that claim since several were robbery attempts and, therefore, irrespective of folks race should not be considered as evidence of the larger narrative.
username
Robert Knilands
11/14/10 at 11:04
#30
“The NG map belies that claim since several were robbery attempts and, therefore, irrespective of folks race should not be considered as evidence of the larger narrative.“
Yet there were also attacks that were not robberies.
username
melissa mitchell
11/15/10 at 11:29
#31
<div>
in the “who asked me?“ dept., i realize this will be a decidedly un-hip/old-fart, likely unwelcome response to your investigative editorial, or whatever this piece might be labeled. nonetheless, since i typically find it impossible to keep my mouth shut when i have an opinion ...
i’m sorry, but after 30 years of reading one after another C-U “alternative†bash the N-G’s reporting, i just find this whole premise (N-G, evil; alternative, good) wearisome. yes, the N-G’s editor/publisher/president is an undeniably stodgy conservative who doesn’t reflect “our†views. gee, news flash! U.S. media is owned and run by conservative white men! stop the presses! read what you will into what your local daily newspaper publishes, curse it among your friends and neighbors (as i’m sometimes inclined to do among mine) and please, move on. get over yourselves, already. would it be too much to ask for SP to just REPORT, DAMN IT? (or editorialize, as the case may be, without out the overwrought “us vs. them†supertext?)
you may have a legitimate, misreported-by-local-print/broadcast-media story here. or not. it’s really hard to tell because your lede is buried.
meanwhile, i suggest that you consider walking a mile in the shoes of a real, live journalist, i.e., try daily reporting on for size. the results might be humbling.
</div>
Rob McColley avatar featured_post
Rob McColley
11/15/10 at 11:39
#32
I think it’s a fine rant, Melissa. Personally, I encourage you to open your mouth when you have an opinion.
I disagree about “objective†or “straight†news reporting. It doesn’t exist. You seem to concede that point while also perpetuating the ethos that bore it.
The olde tyme admonition about reporting “just the facts†is outdated because the impetus for it (particularly the “scarcity†concept in broadcasting) disappeared in the wake of new technologies.
SP promotes a variety of voices from various points on the spectrum. To the extent that each voice can buttress its contention with supporting facts, the reader should be able to discern the truth via careful, independent evaluation of the arguments.
You’ll always get a better understanding of history from biography, rather than textbook.
Seth Fein avatar featured_post
Seth Fein
11/15/10 at 11:47
#33
@“MelissaMitchellâ€â€”
Thank you for your “rant†— it’s a welcomed one. And it kind of illustrates the role that SP.com is supposed to play in the world of C-U’s sometimes tepid, half-assed, frequently-misappropriated reporting.
But there is something that you should know, something you should walk away with, as you are screaming at us about how “we should become actual journalists for a day!“ or to JUST REPORT, DAMMIT!“:
That’s not our job. It’s not our role. Of course, it can be, and there have been times where a few of our writers have done straight news pieces akin to something that the N-G would write, but on the whole, that’s not who we are.
That’s why this website isn’t called, “Champaign-Urbana’s Online Newspaper.“ We’re NOT a newspaper. We don’t have beat reporters. We don’t have a “staff.“ No one is listening to the police scanner, and certainly, no one is being assigned any stories on which to report.
We are, to be certain, a collection of wayward writers living and working in Champaign-Urbana, who care enough about this community to help create an alternative voice to the “mainstream†media through passionate and sometimes extremely sophomoric writing.
We are chemists, engineers, stay-at-home-Dads, photographers, lawyers, librarians, tech assistants, promoters — that’s what WE DO for a living.
What we do at Smile Politely is different than what the reporters at The News-Gazette do. Please, remember that. It’s not fair to compare the two.
Your screaming at us to walk in the shoes of a journalist would be an admirable bellow, except for the fact that you are extrapolating our “role†in the community based on what YOU want from us as opposed to what we ACTUALLY are.
What Joel did here is simple: he highlighted a couple of facts, or facts left out, of what the NEWSPAPER — you know, the one that actually stakes a claim as being a SOURCE for NEWS — “reported†on. And he did it with research, and with YES — a certain perspective.
Now, I’ll let Joel speak for himself, on that issue entirely, but from my perspective, the fact that, as you state, “after 30 years of reading one after another C-U “alternative†bash the N-G’s reporting,“ — well, that might speak volumes about the truth.
I recognize that nothing is going to be perfect, but if you can step back from your perspective on the N-G (it’s evident that you are closely tied in), you might see that there is a definitive reason that people find the reporting in the Gazoo to be so troubling AT TIMES.
And please, keep that in mind. It’s only AT TIMES. Much of the time, the reporting is sound, fair, and well-researched. I love writers like Thilmony, Merli, Des Garennes, and the like. =)
But for whatever it’s worth, isn’t this right here a valuable moment? The fact that this is even being discussed in a forum like this one? It likely wasn’t OK to classify these attacks in such a way that inspired controversy, but it was done, and now, the community is calling them out, discussing it, and looking to what comes next.
It’s a proud moment for me, as a co-founder of the magazine.
Now THAT is America. Right there. Boom.
Joel Gillespie avatar featured_post
Joel Gillespie
11/15/10 at 11:46
#34
@Kerry/Robert: Speaking to the robbery/battery issue, it’s worth noting that (at least in the last two years) there are more than five cases of battery and aggravated battery for every case of robbery or armed robbery in Champaign. (564 cases of battery and agg. batt. in 2009, 428 in 2010 through September; 105 cases of robbery and armed robbery in 2009, 79 through 9/30/10) When people want to steal things in Champaign, they’re much more likely to burglarize a home or vehicle (1,117 cases in 2009) than mug someone on the street. So, pointing to the fact that many of these recent attacks didn’t (or did, for that matter) involve robbery isn’t really a relevant point in the grand scheme of the number of people who are beaten up. I’m not qualified to get into the psychology of why one person punches another, but at least in our community, financial gain doesn’t seem to be a prime motivator.
@MelissaMitchell: Would I be wrong in suspecting that you didn’t read the (whole) article? Sorry for “burying the lede,“ but there’s a lot of context that one would or wouldn’t have depending on how much they pay attention to the N-G, and I wanted to make sure my cards were on the table and that everyone understood where I was coming from. It’s not an inverted-pyramid news piece, it’s a magazine-length research article, and I gave my readers enough credit that they could skip over the recap at the beginning if they had been reading the paper every day throughout. I’d make some sort of condescending remark about shortened attention spans of the younger, internet-addled generation, but you’ve already established yourself as older than me.
It’s certainly not productive to just bash on the N-G because they’re unhip, or stodgy, or whatever, but when they get their facts wrong, present information out of the larger context, fan the flames of racial tension with selective reporting, and present cherry-picked evidence of a trend that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, I think it’s the duty of the alternative press to call them on it. Yes, they do this every day as their job, but when they do their job poorly, then there needs to be some accountability.
username
Robert Knilands
11/15/10 at 11:38
#35
My response was aimed at what sounded like another attempt to disregard any and all motives because a portion of data did not agree with those motives. But I’m just about done playing logical chess with the crime issue. The campus area has problems to resolve, and I don’t think a sociology lecture is going to fix them.
Regarding the criticism of the N-G: I don’t agree with some things SP writes. This article and some of the subsequent discussion are among them.
The irritating thing with the N-G, though, is the apparent disregard for anything approaching objectivity for some issues. Rob McColley makes the valid point that no outlet is entirely unbiased.
But the N-G makes little to no attempt in many cases to mask this. I have little patience for trying to sort through the “facts†of an article to figure out which are valid and which are part of an agenda.
Also, the paper has been 180 degrees off with an increasing frequency. A few articles were clearly entered into with a pre-conceived notion, facts be damned.
It is true that many alternative publications have appeared in C-U and then died. That in itself, though, does not make all of them non-credible.
Finally, as someone who was once a “real†journalist, I think the retort of “You don’t know how hard we work!!!!!!“ gets a little tired. (Sports people are notorious for making this excuse, by the way. They are adept at compartmentalizing people into 4-5 groups and then dismissing the concerns of each group. It’s very entertaining but not conducive to improvement.)
To me, journalists’ performances were like a mildly difficult college class. Some people cared enough to push themselves, and they generally did the best, although they also got more work dumped on them. Others worked when they felt like it, but they slacked a little, too, probably to avoid getting more work. Then you had the people who did the bare minimum to pass.
Also, there are/were some hideously awful “writers†hanging out in newsrooms. They could not write a complete sentence, much less turn in a professional article. Based on some of what I see on the Internet, I assume that has not changed. Yet they are somehow always protected by some manager in the workplace. I have various theories on this, but I think many people realized very quickly that they weren’t getting an “F†if they misspelled a source’s name.
username
millie wink
11/15/10 at 11:37
#36
Late to the game, but anyway, thanks very much for this work, Joel. It’s important and worth doing because SOMEONE needs to point out the white bias of the major print “news†source in this town. They seem reluctant to print such critiques in their own opinion pages.
Rob McColley avatar featured_post
Rob McColley
11/16/10 at 11:41
#37
“What happened?“ moaned the student, groggily rubbing the apple-sized bump on the back of his head.
“White bias in the media, son,“ answered the cop. “Did you see their faces?“ he added. “Were they wearing fedoras?“
#38
Rob wins!!
ps-the bias has gotten so bad, C-U has had to bring in extra troops, of other ethnicities, from distant lands such as rantoul to fight the bias. I’d reference the story but don’w want to be blasted for linking to such a racist, poorly-written rag.
Full text (with comments)
Polar bear deconstruction
featured_post
Posted in OPINION by Joel Gillespie on Monday, November 8, 2010 at 5:59 am
“Polar bear hunting†has been scaring the hell out of white Champaign-Urbana for almost two months now. Reports of possibly-coordinated, race-motivated attacks by black males on their caucasian counterparts for purposes of sport have captivated the newspaper-devouring public. What in the world is happening? Have you perhaps been able to avoid the media coverage of these attacks, or need a refresher course? Let’s look at the paper of record:
“POLAR BEAR HUNTING†COVERAGE IN REVIEW
Over the course of four weeks from September 9 to October 6, the News-Gazette ran eight front-page stories regarding black-on-white battery incidents in Campustown and Champaign. Battery cases don’t generally get much coverage in the N-G (I’ll come back to that), but on September 6, a piece entitled “Information sought on aggravated batteries†appeared on page A-4. The Champaign Police Department was looking for information on two attacks in August involving groups of black assailants and white victims, both in Campustown. From then on, battery was front-page news:
1. September 9: “Senseless attacks appear to be linked†(titled “Unprovoked attacks appear to be linked“ in its online version). Following two bizarre attacks on pre-adolescent boys—one in Eisner Park and one in Clark Park—possible links are drawn to the August attacks in Campustown. CPD Sgt. Jim Rein puts a undeniably catchy name to this phenomenon: “Years ago, I can’t say a specific year, that was part of a local gang (rite) to see if you could knock out someone with one punch. They call it polar bear hunting.“ The N-G would later run a retraction regarding the use of the phrase, as Rein intended the phrase to describe events in past years and not necessarily describing these attacks in those words, but you can’t put a genie back in the bottle, as they say.
2. September 18: “Two Charged in attack on UI Campus,“ regarding arrests for a separate Campustown battery incident that occurred on September 17.
3. September 20: “Police chief to suspects: we’ll put an end to this,“ noting that two Urbana men had been arrested for aggravated battery and hate crime. CPD Chief R.T. Finney is quoted as saying, “We are familiar with what they’re doing and how they’re operating and we’re beginning to turn the tables on them. We’re basically hunting them.“ State’s Attorney Julia Rietz: “The most appropriate charge for them was aggravated battery and not hate crime. That’s because aggravated battery on a public way is a more serious offense than hate crime and hate crime is harder to prove.“
4. September 29: “The epitome of cowardice“ (or “Former TV weatherman victim of unprovoked attack†if you’re reading online), as Mike Sola was beaten following a Centennial football game, featuring this item: “(Earlier reports indicated a slang term of “polar bear hunting†for these attacks, but police officials say that term is not evident in the recent attacks.)“
5. October 2, 5 and 6: Arrests made of several teens for their role in the aggravated battery of Mr. Sola.
6. October 3: “Embarrassing to our community“ (or “No evidence of coordination in series of attacks†online), featuring statements from local black business owner Seon Williams condemning the attacks. The article included a map (right, click here to embiggen), provided by the CPD, showing locations of “recent battery cases reported in Champaign.“ The article features this statement: “Since Aug. 15, there have been 20 attacks on white males, mostly in the campus area, committed mostly by groups of young black men.“
An editorial, published the following day, October 4, in the N-G, titled “It’s obvious what assaults are about,“ repeats the assertion that “All the victims have been white males and all but one of the attackers have been black males. (One was a Hispanic male).“ Also in the editorial, it’s noted that “[the phrase ‘polar bear hunting’] ... was resurrected by the news media when the recent series of attacks started to show an undeniable pattern.“ If you’re the news media outlet that did the resurrecting, it takes a certain lack of self-awareness to blame “the news media†writ large for that.
Some questions at this point:
* Holy cow, is that true? All of the battery cases reported in Champaign between August 15 and October 4 were perpetrated by black males on white males, except one in which the attacker was hispanic?
* 20 attacks in a period of about six weeks in Champaign sounds like a lot, especially since I’ve been told about several of them in breathless front-page newspaper accounts emphasizing their racial component. But how does that look in context? How many cases of battery and aggravated battery would be expected during that time period, and what is the usual demographic distribution?
* These incidents being reported are all in Champaign. Why doesn’t Urbana have similar problems?
* I’ve heard that the north end of Champaign has problems with crime (in fact, I seem to recall reading about many of those crimes in the N-G on a daily basis), but according to that map, it’s the safest part of town, with nary a battery case to be found. Have my thoughtless perceptions been couched in racial prejudice?
A CLOSER LOOK AT THE MAP
The first question is pretty easy to answer. If you look more closely at the map above, you’ll see that two of the incidents involve victims who are black males, one is an asian male, and there’s an additional hispanic male in a group with three white males who were victimized (the only incident noted as involving multiple victims). Also, the way it was phrased in the editorial made it sound like one of the attackers was a hispanic male, when in fact one of the victims of an individual attack was, and none of the attackers were. Additionally, a subsequent N-G report noted that the victim of the September 12 battery on the 500 block of E. Green was of Polynesian descent, whereas he’s described as a white male on the map.
So, that’s actually only 14 out of the 20 incidents that are “attacks on white males.“ It’s possible that a 100% correlation in a tiny sample size could imply causation, but 70%—especially in a community that is 73.2% white—doesn’t mean much of anything.
The N-G editorial board, Mary Schenk, and whomever her editor is can be given a pass for not being aware of the one victim who was Polynesian. However, missing the other five victims of color is due to either miserable reading comprehension or an over-enthusiastic desire to keep riding the narrative that they’d been presenting to the public. Or perhaps a mixture of the two.
DIGGING INTO THE NUMBERS
In order to answer the rest of the questions, we engaged the Champaign Police Department for more information. Chief Finney, in an email from October 15 in which he’d discussed sending us the updated battery map, said, “I could also send you the various demographics of specific crime codes for 2009. Those would be separated by crime, IE: Robbery, Agg. Battery, etc… It is a hand count so it breaks down only by white, African American, Asian, Hispanic.“
Gary Spear, CPD Crime Analyst, provided us an updated map of battery cases in Champaign (download the pdf here) on October 19. This map included five subsequent incidents in addition to the 20 on the map published in the N-G. They were: a “sexual orientation related†battery of a white male by two unknown-race males at 6th and Green; two white female victims battered by three black females at the Clybourne; an attempted robbery of a white male by two males, one black and one unknown, at 6th and Healey; a black female victim battered and had her clothes stolen by three black males at 100 S. Country Fair; and a victim of unspecified race battered by four black males in the lot behind the Highdive in downtown Champaign.
Spear also provided a list of numbers of crimes by type in Champaign for 2009 and 2010 on October 20. For instance, there were 347 cases of aggravated battery and 217 cases of battery in Champaign in 2009, for a total of 564 (an average of 47 per month). In the first nine months of 2010, there have been an average of 47 batteries and aggravated batteries per month. (Please note that at this rate, it would be expected for there to be about 66 incidents of battery and aggravated battery in the time period (42 days) covered by the map which appeared in the N-G.)
These items were helpful, but didn’t provide the location or demographic information to put the recent attacks into context, and the CPD stalled and finally balked at providing additional statistics. So, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request with both the City of Champaign and the City of Urbana for location and demographics of assailant(s) and victim(s) for all batteries and aggravated batteries for 2006 through 2010.
Urbana supplied the information requested in a timely manner, producing a 138-page printout, and even the data in spreadsheet form upon additional request. The results were eye-opening and very consistent from year to year:
* Urbana experiences slightly more batteries and aggravated batteries than Champaign (an average of 652.6 per year from 2006 to 2010)
* Demographically, the incidents break down as follows: black on black: 280 per year on average; white on white: 133 per year; black on white: 138 per year; white on black: 30 per year; and other combinations or unknown assailants account for the balance (71 per year) of the incidents.
* Phrasing it differently: blacks commit three-fourths of batteries in Urbana, but a white person is just as likely to get battered by a white person as they are a black person, and the number of blacks who are victims of battery is roughly equal to the number of whites. Download a pdf of the chart shown below here.
* The variation from year to year was pretty small, but 2008 notably had increased rates of both black on white (169) and white on black (60) incidents. Download a pdf of the data summary here.
I did not map out the Urbana incidents because of time constraints and lack of ambition, although location information was supplied. If anyone wants to take a crack at it, shoot me an email and I’ll send you the spreadsheet. (UPDATE—11/17/10: Thanks to Tim Green, there are now more maps of this data available than you could ever want.)
Meanwhile, I’d received no response to the Champaign FOIA after a week, and I stopped by the police station last Wednesday to check on it. The records department supplied two pages with maps, one for 2007-2010 cases and one for 2005-2010 cases. You can download both maps here, and the 2005-2010 map is shown below.
I was told by records desk personnel that it was against CPD protocol to supply demographic data for crimes. When I told them that Urbana had supplied the data, I was politely told that I was not in Urbana. An email request to Rene Dunn of the CPD for an explanation for the denial of this portion of the FOIA request—as well as an explanation for the reasoning behind supplying demographic data for crimes on the battery map but not for the bulk of them—was not returned.
Because of the huge number of data points displayed on this map, it’s difficult to get an exact count for how many battery and aggravated battery incidents occur in each part of town, but it’s clear that the north end and Campustown see most of the cases. It’s very unusual that there were no incidents north of Church Street on the battery map printed in the N-G (nor on the updated map supplied to us).
Combined with the low number of incidents catalogued on the “recent battery cases†map (compared with the number of batteries and aggravated batteries expected for that time period), the possibility exists that data was selected for public consumption which fits a particular narrative. I also asked the CPD about this discrepancy in the same email, which was not returned, about the FOIA denial.
MORE RECENT EVENTS
For what it’s worth, there have been at least four incidents of battery or assault involving caucasian assailants in Campustown reported in the N-G in the past two weeks.
At right is Christopher Thamm, arrested in the parking deck beating linked above. The newspaper report didn’t identify his race, but I figured it was worth the trouble to file a FOIA request for his mugshot.
I would really like to begin referring to white-on-white violence as “cracker jacking.“ I think that it’s at least as catchy as “polar bear hunting,“ and more descriptive. Who’s with me?
Also, on October 27, a white Urbana teen was beaten by a black teen who told him, “It’s because you’re white.“
IN CONCLUSION
There is a lot of racial tension in our community for reasons both recent and historical; that much is undeniable. There’s also a clear problem with battery and aggravated battery: there were 691 aggravated batteries in Champaign and Urbana in 2009, and compared to Bureau of Justice statistics for 2008 in Illinois, a community with a population of 112,616 (according to the most recent census figures) should expect to have 341. These are serious crimes which need to be taken seriously, and the frequency with which they occur (three batteries and aggravated batteries, every day of the year, on average) is a real problem.
However, there’s a reason you don’t read front-page stories about each of these three incidents every day: most (about 80%, if Urbana demographic data can be extrapolated to Champaign) don’t fit an inflammatory narrative of black-on-white. Media-driven hysteria which assigns a storyline to statistically-insignificant small sample sizes, cherry-picked data, and attempts to assign motivation and connection to crimes which are ultimately appear to be unrelated (except in their demographic makeup), is an extremely unhealthy way to approach these issues.
38 comments
Rob McColley avatar featured_post
Rob McColley
11/08/10 at 11:46
#1
white on white: 133 per year; black on white: 138 per year
See, we hate us just as much as they hate us. So we’re even.
BTW, I believe “cracker jacking†also refers to self-abuse.
Mark Laughlin avatar featured_post
Mark Laughlin
11/08/10 at 11:58
#2
Joel,
On the plus side, I’m glad you categorized this article in the Opinion rather than the News section.
However, your article reads to me as a good example of the ability of many people (often liberal white people) to rationalize, excuse and minimalize pretty much any criminal behavior, as long as the criminal is black.
In my opinion, the coverage of these attacks in the Gazette has been much more grounded in reality than your assessment above.
It seems kind of transparent to me that you started with a thesis - the polar bear attacks aren’t REALLY racially motivated, that’s just racist Gazette propoganda - and then went after any statistics you could find to support it.
username
David Foster Wallflower
11/08/10 at 11:04
#3
1. Nowhere in this do I see Joel attempting to excuse assault and battery. If it has been “minimizedâ€, it’s only due to proper placement within the larger context of battery cases, something that, in my opinion, gets us a little closer to reality and serves to highlight the problem of violence across the community rather than dismiss individual accounts.
2. If Joel is starting with a thesis and looking for statistics to back that up…well, then I’d say that he and The News Gazette are on pretty equal footing in that regard. And at first glance, Joel’s statistics are looking more “grounded†than the Gazette’s.
Finally, if I were desperate to prove that there’s no basis in the intended assertion of black on white crime to the point that I’d cherry-pick all my statistics — I wouldn’t end my article with an account of a black teenager saying, “It’s because your white.“
Doug Hoepker avatar featured_post
Doug Hoepker
11/08/10 at 11:07
#4
Mark, I gotta agree with Wallflower. Joel went to the extent of seeking (and getting, to some degree) a significant amount of detailed information, then processing that information, before coming to a conclusion. So what if he started with a hunch? (And I’m not convinced he did, other than the hunch that the N-G was doing a suspect job reporting these crimes.) That’s how columnists typically work. The N-G editorial presents its hunch without so much as lifting a finger to prove it right or wrong.
Tracy Nectoux avatar featured_post
Tracy Nectoux
11/08/10 at 11:20
#5
David: If Joel is starting with a thesis and looking for statistics to back that up…
Doug: Joel went to the extent of seeking ... a significant amount of detailed information, then processing that information, before coming to a conclusion. So what if he started with a hunch?
Isn’t that the way the Scientific Method works?
username
Edward Burch
11/08/10 at 11:31
#6
I challenge any reader to point to an instance of rationalizing or excusing of any of the crimes described in this article.
username
Tim
11/08/10 at 11:39
#7
Joel,
Thanks for taking the time and trouble to put this together.
Mark,
You misread the thesis and the poitn of the article. Joel’s point is not whether or not the individual attacks are racially motivated. Some clearly are, but for other it is impossible to show. Nothing here excuses even one of the actual crimes. Joels piece looks at the centrol role played by the NG in blowing this entire story way, way, way out of proportion, and in presenting a skewed picture of reality by focusing on certain events (black on white assaults) over others.
That is incredibly important in a community with racial tensions as high as ours. We don’t need irresponsible NG reporing inflaming the community. These attacks did occur, and some were racially motivated. The experience of individual victims is terrible, and the crimes themselves are inexcusable.
But crime in our community is overwhelmingly not racially motivated black on white crime. In presenting so many stories and editorials that suggest this much, along with giving a name to it, all while minimizing reporting of other crimes and overall data that might put this in perspective, the NG took an active role in creating the problem and how the community should feel about it.
That role deserves to be criticized.
username featured_post
Anna Barnes
11/08/10 at 11:09
#8
Thanks for shedding some light on this Joel.
username
Jose Rodriguez
11/08/10 at 11:20
#9
Joel,
I totally agree with you on how media is being bias on this issue, namely publishing articles that is relevant to the theme of their interest, which is black on white. In fact, your data has proven your thought to be correct.
I am pretty much a conspiracy type of guy, and below are some of the questions that pop-up in my mind.
1) Why doesn’t champaign release demographic data of crimes while urbana does? Could it be an order from the ones in power?
2) Why did the media choose the theme “black on white†instead of the other way around? I understand the fact that about 73% of champaign is white and choosing such a title could possibly boost the sale of the newspaper, but could it be more than that? Could it be the ones in power using the media as a tool to brainwash us to believe that’s what’s going on?
3) Last but not least, who would benefit the most out of all these? The individuals who wrote the articles? Newspaper company? Our community? Extremist who plan on starting something? Or the ones in power?
4) I still haven’t read any news about the mayor’s thought on the issue. Could he be waiting for the right moment to speak to the public so that he could gain support when he makes a move in the future? Could it be a republican vs democrat thing that we are being dragged into?
“http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/ct-met-champaign-mayor-0418-20100416,0,2577579.storyâ€
(It’s a link to an article about how the mayor didn’t believe our president to be an American.)
username
Duncan
11/08/10 at 11:25
#10
An interesting article. It’s interesting to see how these stories fit in with everything else that we don’t hear about.
It would be interesting if it was somehow categorize the assaults,etc. based on some sort of motivation. How many of these assaults start as two (or more) jackasses arguing? How many take place as part of a robbery (do they count that as assault or is it separate?)? How many are just some random guy getting jumped?
I realize that such information is hard to come by, but since there seem to be so many possibilities, having some context would be interesting.
username
Gail Taylor
11/08/10 at 11:48
#11
Does anyone else find it intriguing that the number of attacks by black youths in the community have been on the rise since Kiwane Carrington was fatally shot by a Champaign police officer? I don’t recall seeing the News Gazette explore the possible correlation between the shooting and increase in number of attacks or other news sources. I’m aware that proving this tyep of cause-and-effect is hard to do but also think it’s worth considering due to interrelated and overlapping social relationships that exist among members of the Champaing and Urbana communities.
username
Gail Taylor
11/08/10 at 11:51
#12
Could you add a spellchecker to the commenting feature available on this site? ;-)
Tracy Nectoux avatar featured_post
Tracy Nectoux
11/08/10 at 11:23
#13
Hi Gail. We do have a spellcheck feature. It’s that little “ABC†box furthest right of the coding options.
Joel Gillespie avatar featured_post
Joel Gillespie
11/08/10 at 11:50
#14
@Gail: That’s certainly the subtext with much of this coverage. Without demographic data for crimes committed in Champaign, I couldn’t speak to that directly. There’s been no upward trend in numbers of batteries and aggravated batteries by black perpetrators in Urbana in 2010. Black on white attacks are actually slightly down, and black on black attacks are slightly up. The total number of batteries and aggravated batteries in Champaign are steady from 2009 to 2010, but without the CPD releasing any more information, any conclusions based on that information will be anecdotal and prone to confirmation bias. The amount of news coverage surrounding black-on-white battery cases has certainly skyrocketed in recent months, leading to the perception that the actual number of incidents has increased. One of the points of this article was to demonstrate the lack of statistical basis for that point of view.
username
Robert Knilands
11/08/10 at 11:02
#15
I think you proved your case about the N-G mishandling some things, but I don’t think you have disproved any motives for these crimes.
For example, crime was high in 2009, too. An equally high rate of batteries in 2010 doesn’t disprove anything. Maybe crime would have fallen but for these assaults.
You have a ways to go here. N-G mess-ups are not exactly the Holy Grail.
Also, to Gail, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for the N-G to correlate much of anything. Their coverage of almost all issues is reactionary at best.
username
johnny
11/08/10 at 11:03
#16
Stupid News-Gazette. Let’s all walk alone late at night to prove how full of it The News-Gazette is.
username
guest
11/08/10 at 11:59
#17
what have you proved exactly? you sound like an apologist. just because the NG screwed up some of the information intentionally or unintentionally doesn’t prove or disprove anything. maybe they should have not used the term polar bear hunting but what does that have to do with the possibility that these attacks are actually racially motivated? just because there are other violent attacks happening in the community says nothing about the possibility of an actual group of people perpetrating these crimes based on race.
username
anonymous
11/08/10 at 11:15
#18
This is the best analysis regarding this issue that I’ve seen yet. Thanks, Joel. I ask the following in an effort to better understand and not to suggest any conclusions. Also because statistics are not intuitive for me…
If the population of CU is somewhere around 70% “whiteâ€, then don’t the Urbana demographics show that batteries are quite disproportionately committed by “blacksâ€? And that the ratio of “black on white†crime vs “white on black†crime is also way out of proportion? In other words - using rounded estimates - there are roughly three times as many white residents in CU, yet “black on white†batteries (in Urbana, at least) are three times as likely as “white on black†batteries. Isn’t that the opposite of what we’d expect if race was in no way whatsoever an issue, or at least a marker of some other issue?
This disparity strikes me as important - not because it shows that “black on white†(or any other) batteries are explicitly or consciously racially motivated (I don’t think stats can tell us what offenders were thinking), but because it shows that “blacks†are much more likely to commit a battery at all, for whatever reason. If we are looking for racially-related causes to this phenomenon, perhaps we shouldn’t be focusing on the concept of “hate crimesâ€, but rather on the subtle, historic, and persistent forms of racism that create social conditions in which blacks are more likely to commit (or at least be apprehended for) battery. Sure, Kiwane’s killing may be a part of that, but maybe we should expand our scope to think about income and educational disparities, as well as culturally reinforced psychological biases, that create these social patterns.
I guess I’m saying something like: The NG is using the absolute wrong data set and sensationalizing the issue. That’s indefensible. But maybe we (as a community, not our conservative newspaper) really do need to ask why “blacks†are so much more likely to commit battery than “whitesâ€, relative to the population ratio of those two groups. Instead of arguing that this disparity really doesn’t exist, should we instead recognize that it is the case and exert some serious effort to figuring out why that is and how we can reverse the trend byh taking positive action?
Or am I totally misinterpreting the stats?
[PS: I use quotes above because I highly doubt that all ofenders and victims fit nicely into the categories wea re discussing.]
username
J Hannah
11/08/10 at 11:40
#19
Thanks for researching and writing this, Joel.
John Steinbacher avatar featured_post
John Steinbacher
11/08/10 at 11:40
#20
The most depressing thing revealed to me in the numbers listed above (and by looking up the racial demographics of Urbana), something that I guess isn’t completely shocking — if you are black in Urbana you are over 4 times more likely to be a victim of an assault, regardless of who is committing it. I’m guessing the situation in Champaign is somewhat similar.
username
Bubba Bourbon
11/08/10 at 11:43
#21
A few thoughts for discussion:
1. It would take quite an exhaustive review of police records, but how many of the assaults last year, or in previous years, involved more than one african-american on a lone white male? I think that stat would make or break the debate on whether or not the N-G is sensationalizing something. You can compare stat numbers about assaults all you want, but I would like to see a comparison of apples to apples.
2.Anonymous makes some interesting points, although I don’t know if I agree with them all. I did however, recently read this news story, and thought it probably plays a role in some of the things anonymous is describing:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UNWED_BIRTHS_72_PERCENT?SITE=OHTOL&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
3. Bottom line is crime is happening in our streets and across our great Nation. Blaming, poor reporting on by both sides of the isle, finger-pointing, sympathy, the judicial system and/or fear aren’t going to solve the problem.
Jason Z. avatar
Jason Z.
11/09/10 at 11:00
#22
I think you’re using faulty logic when saying that 70% of the assaults are on white males, and this isn’t out of the ordinary for a community that’s 73.2% white. Your population for that sample should be the total assaults in Champaign, not the racial composition for the community.
We don’t have demographic information for the assaults in Champaign, but assuming that the demographics of assault are equal for Champaign and Urbana, and using the data Joel provided from the City of Urbana we can expect the percentage of total assaults to play out like this:
Black assaults Black 43%
White assaults White 20%
Black assaults White 21%
White assaults Black 5%
Unknown 11%
So in the time period analyzed by the News-Gazette, the number of black assaulting white incidents increases by ~50 percentage points from what is expected. This leaves me with a number of questions…Does this represent a significant increase in race related violence? Is this a blip in the data that will even out over time? Is this an unexpected number of incidents for the time period in question? And from a policy standpoint, if this does represent a significant uptick in violence at what point is it incumbent on the police to say something about it to keep the populace informed of an observed trend?
Looking at the data this way makes it seem as if there was some sort of an increase in black assaulting white violence at the time of the News-Gazette articles. I’m making assumptions here and I’m not a criminologist, so I’ll leave further analysis or criticism to others. And of course, this is probably a good time to throw out the old line about lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Joel Gillespie avatar featured_post
Joel Gillespie
11/09/10 at 11:35
#23
@Jason: You can draw your own conclusions, but I’ll just point out again that there were less than one-third the number of incidents on the CPD battery map published in the N-G as would have been expected for the time period examined (20 vs. 66), and that the geographic distribution of the crimes was not what was usual for such crimes over the past five years.
@anonymous, et.al.: African-americans are certainly over-represented on both the giving and receiving ends of these crimes. It’s a very relevant part of the story. Thank you for calling attention to it.
Rob McColley avatar featured_post
Rob McColley
11/09/10 at 11:57
#24
I believe this to be an appropriate juncture for me to demand reparations.
username
SF
11/09/10 at 11:52
#25
It’s time for a logic break: the flaw in the News Gazette reporting was twofold - 1) that incomplete statistics were presented selectively to portray an incomplete story about a complex issue; and 2) that the incomplete story is a narrative concerning the “motivation†of certain violent crimes in the area.
I am particularly concerned with the latter issue, motivation. Numbers regarding the occurrence of crime do not provide substantive information, direct or indirect, about the subjective field of motivation - what and why people want and do things. If commenters and the public at large want to discuss the topic of what motivates these attacks, they need to interview the attackers and ask them why they committed the crimes, and they need to be ready, in a posture of listening, for more than one answer. Until then, opinions on racial motivation are at best opinions and at worst, biased speculative assumptions without statistical or sociological rigor.
Thank you, Joel, for addressing this serious issue seriously by doing research, publishing _more complete_ statistics (statistics are never totally complete), and by calling attention to the alarmist rhetoric being used. Your article - which is actually more appropriately news than opinion - reveals that there are some racial patterns in the local assault statistics, but mainly that attackers are more likely to be black, and victims are about equally likely to be white or black. To pretend or believe that white victims deserve more protection or media attention than black victims, or that assault is primarily motivated by racial tension and not by other overlapping factors, is to be a racist. Perhaps not a violent one, but someone who employs irrational fear and assumption to make spurious conclusions that assault us all intellectually, regardless of race. Is that what people aspire to be and to do? And if so, what “motivates†that?
username
Robert Knilands
11/09/10 at 11:56
#26
No offense, SF, but that’s crazy talk, particularly this: “If commenters and the public at large want to discuss the topic of what motivates these attacks, they need to interview the attackers and ask them why they committed the crimes, and they need to be ready, in a posture of listening, for more than one answer.“
So you think they are not only going to admit to the crime, but also provide a complete explanation as to why it was committed? Seriously?
username
SF
11/09/10 at 11:15
#27
Since you asked - Yes, I mean that seriously in the sense that until you try to ask, you can’t say you really looked in every place you could for an answer. There is no guaranteeing what the results will be or that they will follow the same pattern for every person… but after all, that is why assumption should be avoided in the first place. I’ll accept that demanding more out of ourselves and our fellow human beings may be considered “crazy†by some, but I will continue to do it, anyway, and if you were to ask me about my motivations, I wouldn’t consider them so crazy and I’d probably give you a more complete explanation than you wanted (and a less complete explanation than I wanted). Therein lies the problem in general - people have limits on what they want to hear and what they want to believe, but they don’t disclose those limits before they make their proscriptive statements. I appreciate that you that you mean no offense by your response, and I likewise mean no offense with mine. If anything, I appreciate the opportunity to clarify my idea.
username
anonymous
11/10/10 at 11:58
#28
an addendum to #18 (that brings up more questions than answers):
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?src=me&ref=general
username
Kerry Pimblott
11/14/10 at 11:12
#29
Excellent piece Joel. I really appreciate you providing this and I have sent it on to folks that I know would find your FOIA findings helpful in explaining recent events.
I think the other key piece is that the “Polar Bear†frame is based on the assumption that these supposedly coordinated/correlated attacks had no motive other than race. The NG map belies that claim since several were robbery attempts and, therefore, irrespective of folks race should not be considered as evidence of the larger narrative.
username
Robert Knilands
11/14/10 at 11:04
#30
“The NG map belies that claim since several were robbery attempts and, therefore, irrespective of folks race should not be considered as evidence of the larger narrative.“
Yet there were also attacks that were not robberies.
username
melissa mitchell
11/15/10 at 11:29
#31
<div>
in the “who asked me?“ dept., i realize this will be a decidedly un-hip/old-fart, likely unwelcome response to your investigative editorial, or whatever this piece might be labeled. nonetheless, since i typically find it impossible to keep my mouth shut when i have an opinion ...
i’m sorry, but after 30 years of reading one after another C-U “alternative†bash the N-G’s reporting, i just find this whole premise (N-G, evil; alternative, good) wearisome. yes, the N-G’s editor/publisher/president is an undeniably stodgy conservative who doesn’t reflect “our†views. gee, news flash! U.S. media is owned and run by conservative white men! stop the presses! read what you will into what your local daily newspaper publishes, curse it among your friends and neighbors (as i’m sometimes inclined to do among mine) and please, move on. get over yourselves, already. would it be too much to ask for SP to just REPORT, DAMN IT? (or editorialize, as the case may be, without out the overwrought “us vs. them†supertext?)
you may have a legitimate, misreported-by-local-print/broadcast-media story here. or not. it’s really hard to tell because your lede is buried.
meanwhile, i suggest that you consider walking a mile in the shoes of a real, live journalist, i.e., try daily reporting on for size. the results might be humbling.
</div>
Rob McColley avatar featured_post
Rob McColley
11/15/10 at 11:39
#32
I think it’s a fine rant, Melissa. Personally, I encourage you to open your mouth when you have an opinion.
I disagree about “objective†or “straight†news reporting. It doesn’t exist. You seem to concede that point while also perpetuating the ethos that bore it.
The olde tyme admonition about reporting “just the facts†is outdated because the impetus for it (particularly the “scarcity†concept in broadcasting) disappeared in the wake of new technologies.
SP promotes a variety of voices from various points on the spectrum. To the extent that each voice can buttress its contention with supporting facts, the reader should be able to discern the truth via careful, independent evaluation of the arguments.
You’ll always get a better understanding of history from biography, rather than textbook.
Seth Fein avatar featured_post
Seth Fein
11/15/10 at 11:47
#33
@“MelissaMitchellâ€â€”
Thank you for your “rant†— it’s a welcomed one. And it kind of illustrates the role that SP.com is supposed to play in the world of C-U’s sometimes tepid, half-assed, frequently-misappropriated reporting.
But there is something that you should know, something you should walk away with, as you are screaming at us about how “we should become actual journalists for a day!“ or to JUST REPORT, DAMMIT!“:
That’s not our job. It’s not our role. Of course, it can be, and there have been times where a few of our writers have done straight news pieces akin to something that the N-G would write, but on the whole, that’s not who we are.
That’s why this website isn’t called, “Champaign-Urbana’s Online Newspaper.“ We’re NOT a newspaper. We don’t have beat reporters. We don’t have a “staff.“ No one is listening to the police scanner, and certainly, no one is being assigned any stories on which to report.
We are, to be certain, a collection of wayward writers living and working in Champaign-Urbana, who care enough about this community to help create an alternative voice to the “mainstream†media through passionate and sometimes extremely sophomoric writing.
We are chemists, engineers, stay-at-home-Dads, photographers, lawyers, librarians, tech assistants, promoters — that’s what WE DO for a living.
What we do at Smile Politely is different than what the reporters at The News-Gazette do. Please, remember that. It’s not fair to compare the two.
Your screaming at us to walk in the shoes of a journalist would be an admirable bellow, except for the fact that you are extrapolating our “role†in the community based on what YOU want from us as opposed to what we ACTUALLY are.
What Joel did here is simple: he highlighted a couple of facts, or facts left out, of what the NEWSPAPER — you know, the one that actually stakes a claim as being a SOURCE for NEWS — “reported†on. And he did it with research, and with YES — a certain perspective.
Now, I’ll let Joel speak for himself, on that issue entirely, but from my perspective, the fact that, as you state, “after 30 years of reading one after another C-U “alternative†bash the N-G’s reporting,“ — well, that might speak volumes about the truth.
I recognize that nothing is going to be perfect, but if you can step back from your perspective on the N-G (it’s evident that you are closely tied in), you might see that there is a definitive reason that people find the reporting in the Gazoo to be so troubling AT TIMES.
And please, keep that in mind. It’s only AT TIMES. Much of the time, the reporting is sound, fair, and well-researched. I love writers like Thilmony, Merli, Des Garennes, and the like. =)
But for whatever it’s worth, isn’t this right here a valuable moment? The fact that this is even being discussed in a forum like this one? It likely wasn’t OK to classify these attacks in such a way that inspired controversy, but it was done, and now, the community is calling them out, discussing it, and looking to what comes next.
It’s a proud moment for me, as a co-founder of the magazine.
Now THAT is America. Right there. Boom.
Joel Gillespie avatar featured_post
Joel Gillespie
11/15/10 at 11:46
#34
@Kerry/Robert: Speaking to the robbery/battery issue, it’s worth noting that (at least in the last two years) there are more than five cases of battery and aggravated battery for every case of robbery or armed robbery in Champaign. (564 cases of battery and agg. batt. in 2009, 428 in 2010 through September; 105 cases of robbery and armed robbery in 2009, 79 through 9/30/10) When people want to steal things in Champaign, they’re much more likely to burglarize a home or vehicle (1,117 cases in 2009) than mug someone on the street. So, pointing to the fact that many of these recent attacks didn’t (or did, for that matter) involve robbery isn’t really a relevant point in the grand scheme of the number of people who are beaten up. I’m not qualified to get into the psychology of why one person punches another, but at least in our community, financial gain doesn’t seem to be a prime motivator.
@MelissaMitchell: Would I be wrong in suspecting that you didn’t read the (whole) article? Sorry for “burying the lede,“ but there’s a lot of context that one would or wouldn’t have depending on how much they pay attention to the N-G, and I wanted to make sure my cards were on the table and that everyone understood where I was coming from. It’s not an inverted-pyramid news piece, it’s a magazine-length research article, and I gave my readers enough credit that they could skip over the recap at the beginning if they had been reading the paper every day throughout. I’d make some sort of condescending remark about shortened attention spans of the younger, internet-addled generation, but you’ve already established yourself as older than me.
It’s certainly not productive to just bash on the N-G because they’re unhip, or stodgy, or whatever, but when they get their facts wrong, present information out of the larger context, fan the flames of racial tension with selective reporting, and present cherry-picked evidence of a trend that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, I think it’s the duty of the alternative press to call them on it. Yes, they do this every day as their job, but when they do their job poorly, then there needs to be some accountability.
username
Robert Knilands
11/15/10 at 11:38
#35
My response was aimed at what sounded like another attempt to disregard any and all motives because a portion of data did not agree with those motives. But I’m just about done playing logical chess with the crime issue. The campus area has problems to resolve, and I don’t think a sociology lecture is going to fix them.
Regarding the criticism of the N-G: I don’t agree with some things SP writes. This article and some of the subsequent discussion are among them.
The irritating thing with the N-G, though, is the apparent disregard for anything approaching objectivity for some issues. Rob McColley makes the valid point that no outlet is entirely unbiased.
But the N-G makes little to no attempt in many cases to mask this. I have little patience for trying to sort through the “facts†of an article to figure out which are valid and which are part of an agenda.
Also, the paper has been 180 degrees off with an increasing frequency. A few articles were clearly entered into with a pre-conceived notion, facts be damned.
It is true that many alternative publications have appeared in C-U and then died. That in itself, though, does not make all of them non-credible.
Finally, as someone who was once a “real†journalist, I think the retort of “You don’t know how hard we work!!!!!!“ gets a little tired. (Sports people are notorious for making this excuse, by the way. They are adept at compartmentalizing people into 4-5 groups and then dismissing the concerns of each group. It’s very entertaining but not conducive to improvement.)
To me, journalists’ performances were like a mildly difficult college class. Some people cared enough to push themselves, and they generally did the best, although they also got more work dumped on them. Others worked when they felt like it, but they slacked a little, too, probably to avoid getting more work. Then you had the people who did the bare minimum to pass.
Also, there are/were some hideously awful “writers†hanging out in newsrooms. They could not write a complete sentence, much less turn in a professional article. Based on some of what I see on the Internet, I assume that has not changed. Yet they are somehow always protected by some manager in the workplace. I have various theories on this, but I think many people realized very quickly that they weren’t getting an “F†if they misspelled a source’s name.
username
millie wink
11/15/10 at 11:37
#36
Late to the game, but anyway, thanks very much for this work, Joel. It’s important and worth doing because SOMEONE needs to point out the white bias of the major print “news†source in this town. They seem reluctant to print such critiques in their own opinion pages.
Rob McColley avatar featured_post
Rob McColley
11/16/10 at 11:41
#37
“What happened?“ moaned the student, groggily rubbing the apple-sized bump on the back of his head.
“White bias in the media, son,“ answered the cop. “Did you see their faces?“ he added. “Were they wearing fedoras?“
#38
Rob wins!!
ps-the bias has gotten so bad, C-U has had to bring in extra troops, of other ethnicities, from distant lands such as rantoul to fight the bias. I’d reference the story but don’w want to be blasted for linking to such a racist, poorly-written rag.
Creator
Joel Gillespie
Publisher
Smile Politely
Date
2010
Contribution Form
Online Submission
No
Scripto
Document Item Type Metadata
Files
Collection
Citation
Joel Gillespie, "Polar bear deconstruction - Smile Politely editorial ," in eBlack Champaign-Urbana, Item #715, https://eblackcu.net/portal/items/show/715 (accessed May 16, 2024).
Social Bookmarking