UI forum on race sparks tension

As a resident of southeast Iowa City, Joyce Barker said she is all too familiar to with troublesome rhetoric surrounding her neighborhood.

To generate community discussion on the topic, the University of Iowa's three-part series “Media, Space and Race: The Case of Iowa City's Southeast Side,” will address the issue in a public forum.

The first seminar on Wednesday night - which dealt with words off online postings from the Iowa City Press-Citizen's Web site - took off with quite a bang.

“It's good to know what kind of arguments are out there are to fight,” Barker said. “It helps you size up your argument.”

Barker, who was one of about 100 people present, echoed the sentiments of many there when she said she thought anonymous blogging or posting on news Web sites can do both good and harm for a community.

“But you still can't talk directly to that person,” she added.

Jeff Charis-Carlson, the opinion page editor for the Press-Citizen said while there is an attempt to monitor comments made, the line has be drawn between censorship and protection.

“The online editors focus on what people are saying, not the way they are saying it,” he said. “We are not thought police, we can't covey what they are thinking.”

Charis-Carlson emphasized no media outlet is exempt from the problem of outlandish comments on their Web sites, but said it was important to offer a way for people to express their views in the community without feeling threatened.

Vershawn Young, a UI rhetoric associate professor, said it is essential to engage everyone in the community in this discussion, regardless of what neighborhoods people come from.

“It disproportionately affects some more than others, but it affects all of us,” he said.

Young said he thinks people's fears of expressing their beliefs in public needs to change, just as the unspoken problems need to be exposed.

Andre Brock, a UI library and information sciences assistant professor, explained during the forum that people use the Internet as a mode of self-expression without having to be held accountable.

“The Internet is a symbolic representation of the best and worst of our lives,” he said.