The description in the local newspaper was like so many others, so familiar that anyone who has ever read a headline or watched the nightly news could finish the sentence after knowing only the first few words. It was the sort of description that passes for information in too much of American journalism today, part of a dysfunctional racial discourse that doesn't always mean what it says and seldom says what it means. Language is the brick and mortar of the profession, transmitting in a single word, phrase, or juxtaposed fact countless intended and unintended messages to readers, listeners, and viewers.
Excellent journalism starts with an understanding that language has power.
It demands clear writing. It leaves little to chance interpretations. But the mangled language of race is punctuated with descriptions that underscore ethnicity but describe nothing. It is mired in euphemisms and the tortured, convoluted syntax that betray America's pathological avoidance of straight talk about race relations. And that's the point.