Hole in the Wall
'Chronicle' Is More Tabloid Than Alternative
RECEIVED Tue., June 30, 2009
Dear Editor,
I read Marc Savlov’s June 26 article “Crime and the City Solution” [Music] with much disappointment. The author failed to ask any of the challenging questions that might interrogate the dominant assumptions about crime, race, class, drug addiction, and criminality and maybe bring us a step closer to some real solutions. Instead, he simply reiterated and reinforced all the overstated and underscrutinized assumptions and stereotypes our society has about crime and in a particularly sensational and fearmongering way. Was the author seeking syndication at Fox News or the New York Post?
After briefly acknowledging that, despite some high-profile incidents recently, Downtown crime has declined significantly, the article continues on its pseudo-apocalyptic narrative of violence and lost city revenue before falling off on a tangent about urban planning. If the Chronicle hopes to remain an “alternative” weekly, instead of just a tabloid, it might consider asking some more difficult questions, such as: What causes crime? (Please don’t say broken glass or dirty alleys.) What prevents crime, instead of just covering it up or pushing it to a part of town that matters less to the city’s power brokers? What causes drug addiction and homelessness? What cures them? Do prisons fix these problems? Why are people blaming evacuees from New Orleans? Why did people have to evacuate New Orleans in the first place? Why can’t they go back to New Orleans? Or maybe, why are we so resistant to asking these question in the first place?
I read Marc Savlov’s June 26 article “Crime and the City Solution” [Music] with much disappointment. The author failed to ask any of the challenging questions that might interrogate the dominant assumptions about crime, race, class, drug addiction, and criminality and maybe bring us a step closer to some real solutions. Instead, he simply reiterated and reinforced all the overstated and underscrutinized assumptions and stereotypes our society has about crime and in a particularly sensational and fearmongering way. Was the author seeking syndication at Fox News or the New York Post?
After briefly acknowledging that, despite some high-profile incidents recently, Downtown crime has declined significantly, the article continues on its pseudo-apocalyptic narrative of violence and lost city revenue before falling off on a tangent about urban planning. If the Chronicle hopes to remain an “alternative” weekly, instead of just a tabloid, it might consider asking some more difficult questions, such as: What causes crime? (Please don’t say broken glass or dirty alleys.) What prevents crime, instead of just covering it up or pushing it to a part of town that matters less to the city’s power brokers? What causes drug addiction and homelessness? What cures them? Do prisons fix these problems? Why are people blaming evacuees from New Orleans? Why did people have to evacuate New Orleans in the first place? Why can’t they go back to New Orleans? Or maybe, why are we so resistant to asking these question in the first place?
Sincerely,
James Clark
James Clark