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Truth gets in way of Tribune story
By Phillip Hamilton
The Paris News
Published March 18, 2007
On July 6, 1920, Irving Arthur, 19, and Herman Arthur, 28, were taken to Lamar County Fairgrounds, lashed to the flagpole, doused with kerosene and burned alive.
Instead of receiving justice, the black men accused of murder were lynched — burned at the stake without a fair trial at which guilt or innocence could be established.
The ugly truth is that the lynching were among several that took place at the fairgrounds and on the plaza in Paris in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some are among the most notorious in the nation. They are ugly stains Paris can never wash away, and rightly so, lest this community forget the horrors to which racism leads.
With Lamar County Fairgrounds used as a backdrop, there was another lynching Monday — a journalistic lynching that started at the hands of Chicago Tribune senior correspondent Howard Witt.
Lashed with false statements, omitted facts and inaccurate information, this community is accused of outrageous racism in our courts and school system. Doused with racially charged words like "starkly segregated" and word pictures of blacks "scalded with hot irons and finally burned to death or hanged," Paris is being burned at the media stake by a journalist that didn't get the whole story poking the hot irons and igniting the fire.
Witt's fictional account of Lamar County justice has taken on a life of its own and is now hailed as truth on the Web and talk radio shows across the nation.
Consider this comment posted on a blog: "To the extent that you can spread the word about what has transpired — and reach out to those concerned about the future (and present) of Paris, Texas, please do so. It seems to me that a great place to begin might be the Board of Directors of the Kimberly-Clark Corp., the Campbell Soup Co. and the Sara Lee Bakery Group."
Some folks who read the story will make calls, and corporate officials will remember those calls the next time Paris is in contention for a plant expansion or when deciding whether to close a plant here or elsewhere. Witt's fiction could kill this community's economic future if allowed to stand as truth.
"I have passed this information on to others and we are preparing a media campaign to stimulate action and justice in this particular case," writes another blogger. "Racism is alive and well in Paris, Texas."
The problem is the perception of Paris as a white-hooded community becomes reality in this techno-driven information age in which we live even though the perception is unfounded.
"I feel like I just stepped into a history book," writes another blogger. "These people must feel pretty frickin' empowered and superior to think they can get away with this. A white boy kills two people and gets probation. A white girl burns down her parent's house and gets probation. A black girl pushes a hall monitor and gets seven years. Are they flippin' kidding?"
What is most troubling is that Witt's piece contributes to racial division.
Does racism exist in Paris? Yes, but not nearly to the extent the Tribune reporter would have readers believe. In fact, Shaquanda Cotton's case wasn't about race until her defense team played all they had — the race card. This case was about a student who assaulted a teacher's aide — a criminal offense warranting judicial punishment.
Was her sentence too harsh? Probably, but County Judge Chuck Superville saw the need to remove this student from her home, where such acts were not only tolerated but defended. School officials had exhausted their options, and the law didn't give the judge many choices.
But that doesn't give Witt and the Tribune license to paint Paris as a deeply divided city of racists by comparing her sentence to unrelated cases and omitting facts that reveal just the opposite.
Witt and the Tribune would have readers believe that if you are a white kid in Paris you can run over black people and get probation. The reporter fails to mention the grandmother and her grandchild died in an automobile accident on an icy highway.
In his effort to create the image of an white-hooded community, the Tribune's fiction writer fails to mention black teachers and administrators testified against Cotton at trial. Nor does he acknowledge the fact she received a stiff sentence because she was habitually in trouble at school.
It makes a better story to spin a tale of racist retaliation and suggest whites were sending "a signal to black folks." Here's the facts: there was no conspiracy to send this 14-year-old to "prison" because her mother had protested at school campuses and in most cases blacks and whites live in harmony in Paris.
Fortunately, at least one blogger is defending his or her community.
"I live in Paris, and the neighborhood that I live in is comprised of both white and black families right next to each other," the blogger writes. "To say that there is no racism in Paris would be just as inaccurate as to say that there is no racism in Detroit or Miami or New York, but it is dying. There are whites who are racist against blacks and blacks who are racist against whites in every single town in this nation. That's a (expletive deleted) shame, but the truth is it's dying. Trying to interject racism into a situation in which there is none only serves to perpetuate that which a community is unfairly being accused of."
But officials at Kimberly-Clark, Campbell Soup and Sara Lee are not likely to hear the bloggers comments because he's just one voice. No one will call corporate giants considering locations in this community and tell them Paris got lynched by the Tribune.
Witt spins a good tale, but let's call it what it is — fiction.
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