Pubdate: 7 March 1999 Source: Chicago Tribune (IL) Section: Sec. 1 Contact: http://www.chicagotribune.com/ Forum: http://www.chicagotribune.com/interact/boards/ Copyright: 1999 Chicago Tribune Company Author: Clarence Page WHEN YOU EXPECT THE WORST IN OTHERS Expect the worst and you won't be disappointed. That's been a slogan of mine for as far back as I can remember. Experience tells me I am not alone. Most of us have at least a trace of misanthropy in us. Unfortunately, some of us let it get carried away. Take, for example, three recent cases of white men who lost their jobs for making statements that offended blacks. Only one was quickly hired back. Each illustrates in strikingly different ways how you can get into trouble these days for expecting the worst in people. In New Jersey, Gov. Christine Todd Whitman fired Col. Carl Williams as superintendent of the state police because of his assertions in a newspaper interview that certain crimes were associated with certain races. He specifically linked minorities with drug trafficking. In Washington, D.C., WARW-FM fired nationally known "shock jock" Doug "The Greaseman" Tracht, who after playing a recording by Grammy-winner Lauryn Hill, remarked, "No wonder they drag them behind trucks," a reference to the dragging murder of James Byrd Jr., in Jasper, Texas. Earlier this year, black District of Columbia Mayor Anthony Williams accepted the resignation of David Howard, a white aide, after some black staffers were offended by Howard's use of the word "niggardly." The Scandinavian-rooted word really means "miserly" and has no racial meaning at all. Yet Williams apparently thought he could score a few points with black voters, many of whom were still unsure of a black candidate who received more white votes than anyone else on the ballot. The local and national uproar was so great that Williams was embarrassed into inviting Howard back. Mayor Williams' sin: He expected too little of his city's black voters. That's nothing compared to the low expectations New Jersey's Col. Williams had about blacks and Latinos. The Garden State's top trooper denied condoning the practice known as "racial profiling" in police stops. But his statement betrayed attitudes far more pernicious in the upper reaches of a department that long has been criticized and occasionally sued by minorities and civil libertarians for enforcing the unwritten crime of DWB, or "driving while black." Federal figures show that more than 70 percent of the nation's cocaine users are white. Yet it is blacks and Latinos who find themselves fending off the presumption of guilt. A 1996 case, for example, revealed that while 13.5 percent of the motorists on the southern end of the New Jersey Turnpike were black, 46 percent of those stopped by police were black. Horror stories abound of innocent black families and individuals being harassed. As a result, the colonel committed the ultimate career sin. He embarrassed his boss. Had she not taken drastic action, she would have been perceived as condoning the same attitudes, presuming the worst of blacks and the best of whites. But narrow-minded as Col. Williams' words may have been, he sounds brilliant compared to the Greaseman, who already was recovering from an earlier offense to decency. In 1986 Tracht was forced off the air briefly for joking that after Martin Luther King's birthday became a federal holiday, if somebody "shot four more" maybe "everyone would get a whole week off." Lost in most of the national buzz about Tracht are the standards, or lack of them, practiced by his bosses. Tracht's broadcasts were delayed by seven seconds and the station positioned a censor on a "dump" button, which would bleep out anything Tracht said that sounded too offensive. Station officials admitted the "dump" button was seldom used. Apparently no one at the station realized (until their switchboard lit up) that jokingly calling for racial murder was stepping over the line. Like Howard Stern, Don Imus and other shock jocks, the Greaseman was addicted to the multimillions of dollars he was making by pandering to his listeners' worst feelings. He was more talented than most, but in a show-business world that was willing to give him all the rope he wanted, he eventually hung himself. Twice. The real test will be whether the Greaseman gets hired again. Chances are remarkably good that, as long as he continues to pull in the ratings, he will find another station as soon as the heat dies down. All three of these cases offer examples of lessons learned the hard way about today's racial attitudes. It would be nice if more of us could learn our racial lessons the easy way, through easy and honest dialogue, instead of waiting for a crisis. But cases like those I cite above could make us Americans even less eager to speak honestly and openly about our racial perceptions, prejudices and suspicions. I hope for better than that, although I expect the worst. - --- MAP posted-by: Rich O'Grady