Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh
Racism, bigotry, and white supremacy
Fig. 1. Briann Moye participates in a march for affordable housing in Pittsburgh. Photograph by Jessie Wardarski, July 2018, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, fair use.
I think of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as a conservative-leaning newspaper, in part particularly on the matter of race.[1] It’s part of a media landscape criticized for emphasizing the problems faced by Black communities, and in the way that it does so, stigmatizing them.[2]
Though, honestly, I don’t know how you avoid the latter as, for example, Black communities are disproportionately affected by the uptick in violence in Pittsburgh this year,[3] and notably ignored by the jackass we have for an Allegheny County district attorney.[4] You might not know it so much from afar, but with a highly visible intersection of race and class in highly segregated Pittsburgh, you don’t even need to refer directly to race. Speaking the name of the neighborhood alone, but especially when you mention landmarks or intersections, often accomplishes the same thing.
So a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial criticizing Pittsburgh’s Commission on Racial Equity for 1) never having met, and 2) having been set up to fail, because 3) it included busy politicians with already-packed schedules rather than community members,[5] well, I gotta tell you, that comes as a pleasant surprise:
The embarrassing state of the Commission on Racial Equity is an opportunity for Mayor Ed Gainey to work with council to disband it and design a new task force that actually does something about the city’s serious racial disparities. An action-oriented council would place people with on-the-ground experience and expertise in a position to collaborate with existing leaders to craft innovative proposals.
The new commission should be at least half Black women, given the particular headwinds facing Black women in Pittsburgh. It should also be sure to include a representative from the LGBTQIA+ community.[6]
That doesn’t sound so conservative at all.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Pittsburgh’s Commission on Racial Equity is an embarrassment,” December 27, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2022/12/27/pittsburgh-city-council-commission-racial-equity-disparity-disband-mayor-ed-gainey/stories/202212220110
- [1]Miriam Berger, “Pittsburgh paper accused of barring black reporters from covering protests, censoring stories,” Washington Post, June 6, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2020/06/06/pittsburgh-post-gazette/; Kim Lyons, “Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Cartoonist Fired as Paper Shifts Right,” New York Times, June 15, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/business/media/pittsburgh-cartoonist-fired.html↩
- [2]Letrell Deshan Crittenden, “The Pittsburgh problem: race, media and everyday life in the Steel City,” Columbia Journalism Review, October 25, 2019, https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/racism-black-burnout-in-pittsburgh-journalism.php↩
- [3]Jon Moss, “Allegheny County homicides concentrated in small number of neighborhoods, report says,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 28, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2022/07/28/allegheny-county-homicides-concentrated-small-number-neighborhoods-report-says-black-men-pittsburgh/stories/202207270111↩
- [4]Paula Reed Ward, “Zappala criticizes Gainey administration, Pittsburgh police over response to city violence,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, December 16, 2022, https://triblive.com/local/zappala-criticizes-gainey-administration-pittsburgh-police-over-response-to-city-violence/↩
- [5]Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Pittsburgh’s Commission on Racial Equity is an embarrassment,” December 27, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2022/12/27/pittsburgh-city-council-commission-racial-equity-disparity-disband-mayor-ed-gainey/stories/202212220110↩
- [6]Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Pittsburgh’s Commission on Racial Equity is an embarrassment,” December 27, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2022/12/27/pittsburgh-city-council-commission-racial-equity-disparity-disband-mayor-ed-gainey/stories/202212220110↩