n There was a story that may have been easy to miss (“Three arrested in attempted robbery at Guitar Center,” Mar. 9, p. 1) which appeared just before Spring Break. However, for those who read the article, one thing that wasn’t easy to miss was that the three men arrested were black men.

One line of the article identified one of the men arrested as a “6-foot-2-inch black male,” which I initially dismissed as descriptive more than anything else.

However, a subsequent line raised my eyebrows by unnecessarily noting the race of the other two men arrested: “. . . while the man and his two companions, both black men, walked single-file toward the exit.”

Then, as if the race of the men wasn’t already clear enough, the reporters and editors reached the point of excess in the article’s photo caption: “Brookline Police Department officers arrested three black men last night for attempted robbery at the Guitar Center at 750 Commonwealth Ave.” The photo, of course, was of one of the men arrested — a black man — being handcuffed by a Brookline police officer.

The editors of The Daily Free Press should think for a moment about what kind of message that sends to its readers. Would the reporters or editors have made three references to race if the men in question were white, Asian or Arab? What about if the men were gay? Would the caption have read ‘Brookline Police Department officers arrested three gay men last night for attempted robbery…’?

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? So, too, should the real caption which noted the men were black. Unless the Free Press can make some direct connection between the men being black and their alleged committing of this crime, then their race is irrelevant and should not have been published.

Raul Fernandez

COM ’00

Assistant Director of the Boston University Howard Thurman Center for Race, Culture and Ethnicity