Lawyers allege 'stench of prejudice' at
Washington Post
A P Kamath
Gautam Dutta, a Washington lawyer, likes The Washington Post, though on many occasion he has felt the newspaper could do a better job reporting on India and the South Asian community in and around Washington.
But when he read the On the Job column in its Sunday section recently, he found a "stench of prejudice" in it.
Dutta, an attorney with the SEC, not only wrote a letter to the editor (which The Post published in a truncated version) but also organized a meeting with the Washington Post's Ombudsman E R Shipp, also to
discuss other offensive or misleading articles about South
Asians. Several
other lawyers joined Dutta.
The ombudsman acts as a liaison between the public and the newspaper. Only a small number of American newspapers have ombudsmen. On many occasions, the ombudsman writes a column discussing a controversial story, the response of the community and the reaction of the publisher or editor.
"It is not that The Post has deliberately sought to discredit Indians," he told Rediff On The NeT, discussing particularly the article on body odor that appeared in its Sunday section. "Often such articles are published out of ignorance or some times, lack of sensitivity."
The "stench of prejudice" piece began with an anonymous
writer complaining
about a colleague's body odor (click for text).
The writer asked
how a company could address this problem without violating
the
anti-discrimination laws. The writer explained that the
colleague, who was of
Indian descent, suffered from both "an aggravating"
personality and "lack of
hygiene."
"If the writer had not mentioned the co-worker's personality
and ethnicity, I
would have shrugged my shoulders in disbelief,"
Yale-educated Dutta wrote to The Post.
"As a lawyer, I have never heard of a more ludicrous claim:
minorities cannot
be disciplined or fired for failing to wear deodorant but
whites can."
What angered Dutta -- and many other South Asians -- was that
The Post did not
edit out the ethnicity of the woman, and Post reporter
Kirstin Downey Grimsley asked the Indian embassy whether any "unusual
religious sect" of
India forbids the use of deodorant.
"Her assumption: If a religious belief is bizarre, then it
must have come
from India and not America," Dutta wrote. "There are any
number of bizarre
religious beliefs or cults in this country," he said in an
interview after he and group of six Asian Americans had a
"positive" meeting with Shipp. The ombudsman discussed a number of issues with
them including
the setting up of a town meeting with Asian Americans after
a few months and
the possibility of increasing the number of Asian American
reporters atThe Post, he said.
Shipp was not available for comment.
"Had the writer complained about the body odor of a black,
Latino or white coworker, The Post would never have published Grimsley's
column," he continued, "or -- at least not in its present form."
"One must wonder why The Post had to print such a question
in the first
place," his letter continued. "Body odor does not pose an
issue of
discrimination, but of tact."
He was also upset that Grimsley called the embassy for
clarification. "There
are more than 100,000 South Asians in and around
Washington," he told Rediff On The NeT.
"And many of us are born and raised in America. The Indian
embassy does not
represent us."
There are scores of South Asian organizations and places of
worship in
Washington.
"By not calling the local residents for information,
Grimsley committed the
ultimate insult for all immigrants: she treated them like
aliens, inscrutable
foreigners."
Before Dutta met with Shipp, he received a letter from Jill
Dutt, the
assistant managing editor of the business section.
Referring to the problem letters addressed to On the Job
section, Dutt said:
"Some of the letters are shocking and disturbing. That's the
reality."
"What we try to do as journalists is to address the issues --
even if they
make us uncomfortable -- try to find the best answers we can
and shed light on
the topics that can bring greater understanding to all
parties."
"We took the question to the embassy because who else could
best respond
authoritatively to one of the letter-writer's faulty
assumptions: The
question of whether apparently ineffective personal hygiene
was a cultural
thing."
"Obviously, people who have travelled widely or who have been
in situations
that bring together people... would know that hygiene habits
vary widely among
people of all nations and ethnic backgrounds. Someone who
has had little
international exposure might not know this, as obviously,
this letter-writer
did not."
Jill Dutt's letter apparently did not satisfy Dutta and
fellow Asians
Americans. "But after our meeting with Shipp, we felt that
something positive
would come out of this story," Dutta said. "I believe there
is a lesson here
-- don't sit back and complain against the media. Get up and
act. And remember
that we can be heard."
"The purpose of our meeting was not to villainize The Post,"
he continued,
"but to find out how, as South Asians, we could help the
newspaper offer a
better and bigger coverage of our community."
RELATED REPORT:
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