Page 4 - aruba-today-20230928

A4 U.S. NEWS
Thursday 28 sepTember 2023
4 in 5 Black adults see racist depictions in the news either often or

sometimes, says new study

By DAVID BAUDER “They should put a lot more
AP Media Writer effort into providing con-
NEW YORK (AP) — In a new text,” said Richard Prince,
study, Black Americans ex- a columnist for the Journal-
pressed broad concerns isms newsletter, which cov-
about how they are de- ers diversity issues. “They
picted in the news media, should realize that Blacks
with majorities saying they and other people of color
see racist or negative de- want to be portrayed as
pictions and a lack of effort having the same concerns
to cover broad segments as everybody else, in addi-
of their community. tion to hearing news about
Four in five Black adults say African American con-
they see racist or racially in- cerns.”
sensitive depictions of their Advertising actually does a
race in the news either of- much better job of showing
ten or sometimes, accord- Black people in situations
ing to the Pew Research common to everybody,
Center. raising families or deciding
Three years after George where to go for dinner, he
Floyd’s killing triggered a ra- said.
cial reckoning in the news Prince said he’s frequent-
media, Pew took its first ly heard concerns about
broad-based look at Black Kevin Richardson, far left, Yusef Salaam, second from left, and Raymond Santana Jr., far right Black crime victims be-
attitudes toward the me- foreground, three of five men exonerated after being wrongfully convicted as teenagers for the ing treated like suspects in
dia with a survey of nearly 1989 rape of a jogger in Central Park, along with Cicely Harris, second from right, chair of Harlem’s news coverage, down to
5,000 Black adults this past Community Board 10, unveil the “The Gate of the Exonerated” at the northeast gateway of Central the use of police mug shots
winter and follow-up focus Park, Monday Dec. 19, 2022, in New York. as illustrations. He recently
groups. Associated Press convened a journalist’s
The survey found 63% of said Charles Whitaker, dissatisfied with their cover- That attitude is reflected in roundtable to discuss the
respondents saying news dean of the Medill journal- age. the Pew study’s finding that lingering, notorious issue of
about Black people is often ism school at Northwestern “There’s a feeling that 57% of respondents say the five Black men who were
more negative than it is to- University. “We’ve known Black Americans are often media only covers certain exonerated after being ac-
ward other racial or ethnic both anecdotally, and depicted as perpetrators or segments of Black com- cused of attacking a white
groups, with 28% saying it is through my personal expe- victims of crime, and there munities, compared to 9% jogger in New York’s Cen-
about equal. rience with the Black press, are no nuances in the cov- who say that a wide variety tral Park in the 1980s.q
“It’s not surprising at all,” that Blacks have long been erage,” Whitaker said. is depicted.

New York bans facial recognition in schools after report finds risks

outweigh potential benefits

By CAROLYN THOMPSON by state education officials later that year. mass school shootings that tentially higher rate of false
Associated Press at the time, including that The western New York dis- have led administrators positives for people of col-
New York state banned no students be entered into trict was among the first nationwide to adopt se- or, non-binary and trans-
the use of facial recogni- the database of potential in the country to incor- curity measures ranging gender people, women,
tion technology in schools threats. The district stopped porate the technology in from bulletproof glass to the elderly, and children.”
Wednesday, following a using the $1.4 million system the aftermath of deadly armed guards. Lockport of- It also cited research from
report that concluded the ficials said the idea was to the nonprofit Violence Proj-
risks to student privacy and enable security officers to ect that found that 70% of
civil rights outweigh poten- quickly respond to the ap- school shooters from 1980
tial security benefits. pearance of disgruntled to 2019 were current stu-
Education Commissioner employees, sex offenders dents. The technology, the
Betty Rosa’s order leaves or certain weapons the sys- report said, “may only offer
decisions on digital finger- tem was programmed to the appearance of safer
printing and other biomet- detect. schools.”
ric technology up to local But an analysis by the Of- Biotechnology would not
districts. fice of Information Tech- stop a student from enter-
The state has had a mora- nology Services issued last ing a school “unless an
torium on facial recognition month “acknowledges administrator or staff mem-
since parents filed a court that the risks of the use of ber first noticed that the
challenge to its adoption (facial recognition tech- student was in crisis, had
by an upstate district. nology) in an educational made some sort of threat,
The Lockport Central In this July 10, 2018, file photo, a camera with facial recognition setting may outweigh the or indicated in some other
School District activated its capabilities hangs from a wall while being installed at Lockport benefits.” way that they could be a
system in January 2020 af- High School in Lockport, N.Y. The report, sought by the threat to school security,”
ter meeting conditions set Associated Press Legislature, noted “the po- the report said.q