As a post-Watergate journalist, I clung to Woodward and Bernstein dreams of righting a world obviously veering in a very sad and dangerous direction. I saw myself wearing a white hat and had not yet developed a healthy skepticism, much less contempt, for corporate-controlled media. Oblivious to racial issues, I held that shallow, arrogant white viewpoint that the country’s racial climate had obviously improved since the demise of legal segregation. Perhaps the time had come for blacks to stop “complaining,” overcome the past and catch up with the Jews, Asians and other groups that had risen above racism and achieved prominence in American society.

I was shocked out of my thoughtless complacency when editors assigned me to cover the “annual riot,” as predictable as the schedule of New Year’s Bowl games in their eyes, that broke every July 3rd in the African American neighborhood of Como. Residents of Como held an annual street party. At some point in the 1980s, Fort Worth PD got uncomfortable at the sight of large congregations of African Americans gathering in the streets, listening to music and enjoying a beer or two on the eve of July 4. While Police Chief Thomas Windham enjoyed the esteem of much of black Fort Worth, the same could not be said of his officers, who frequently battled the African American community. In Como one year, a brief, small-scale uprising broke out when police made some questionable arrests, resulting in police cars being rocked back and forth and an official crackdown on the annual celebration.

When I got the crime beat in 1988, Como leaders tried to organize a neighborhood carnival as a quieter alternative to the troublesome spontaneous street party. Dispatched to one of the organizational meetings, I was thrown out by a woman leading the drive for the carnival. “You [the Star-Telegram] only come here when there’s trouble,” she said, or words to that effect. The woman implied that the newspaper and reporters like me were racist and condescending and had covered the anticipated annual Como riot in greedy hope of mayhem. I took immediate, self-righteous offense. If I had a transcript of my thoughts at that point, it would probably run something like this: “Racist? Me? But I give money to civil rights groups and love Sam Cooke and Jimi Hendrix. You must have me confused for some other cracker.” I quickly dismissed the woman’s reaction as the mentality of victimhood and later filed a story on the riot, which in spite of the community’s best efforts, indeed broke out again.

My moral self-assurance ebbed slowly over that year. I became uncomfortably aware of how the Star-Telegram played its crime coverage, and the cold calculus that determined which violent deaths became major news and which were assigned to obscure corners of the newspaper like sports agate. At one point, police charged an African American elementary school student with the murder of a white teacher. The Star-Telegram held a long-time policy of not revealing the names of juvenile crime suspects, holding out to the hope that young people can be rescued from a life of crime and believing their chances are enhanced by not publicly labeling them as violent thugs. Not in this case, though. The newspaper named the suspect, pinning the tag of accused murderer on him. No matter that the grand jury later no-billed him.

The newspaper also gave extensive coverage, complete with banner, across the fold headlines and large photographs of a black suspect charged with raping and murdering a juvenile white girl who had been strangled with a shoelace. Not all murders, however received such attention. I began to wonder why most of the stories I wrote about black-on-black or white-on-black crime received such obscure placement. As a rule, white victims received prominent coverage while black men lived and died in obscurity on the pages of Fort Worth’s only newspaper.

My “Road to Damascus” moment regarding American racism came at a time the Star-Telegram sought to save its evening edition newspaper, which had suffered a hit in circulation with the advent of around-the-clock cable news. The evening Star-Telegram was reactionary and lurid, with headlines written in brash New York Post style. Editors used words like “Commie” for headlines emanating from Moscow, and the more bizarre the crime story, the more space it earned. One day a white man in suburban Arlington became enraged at a neighbor’s poodle and dispatched the poor beast with a bow and arrow set. “Poodle Slain by Archer” proclaimed that largest front-page headline that afternoon, as the story got the kind of space that would be devoted to the discovery of a still-living Elvis Presley on Mars or the Second Coming of Jesus.

The same day, I wrote of yet another African American man dying a bloody, anonymous death. Memory fades, but I recall the story being buried somewhere like page 4 of the metro section. I searched for my story, then saw the lavish attention paid the martyred suburban poodle and considered what this said about my values, that of my newspaper and that of the larger, Anglo, English-speaking community. I would not be arrogant enough to believe that the family of the murder victim in my story cared a whit about the Star-Telegram’s editorial decisions. I am certain that they were overwhelmed with grief, and faced too many pressing issues to engage in deconstruction of Fort Worth journalism. If they did note the relative worth assigned poodles and black men, I’m sure if would confirm the worst suspicions they already held about white racism, and the relative story placements would represent just one more exhibit in the museum of white supremacist thought. I mourned that day, nevertheless, for my forgotten black crime victim, for my lost blithe illusions about American racial harmony, and for the journalism career I knew had just died.

I was never a great reporter. I found daily deadlines created pressures that led to mistakes. After more than ten years in the field as a college and professional reporter, I found my imagination completely depleted. I hated the lack-of-context that marked my work and that of my newspaper peers. I believed that journalism had become the acquisition of trivia rather than the gathering of wisdom. I was tired of working nights and weekends. I wanted to do something with my new wife other than literally sleep together.

More importantly to me, however, I realized that I could not shed my racism until I divorced myself from intrinsically racist institutions. I don’t blame any of my peers, almost all of whom were sterling people with big hearts and keen minds. It’s just that any large institution assumes a personality, with a defined system of values, above and separate from the more compassionate, more thoughtful, constituent human parts. Tired of gathering the random set of questionable little truths that define mainstream journalism, I wanted to grapple with at least a small set of big truths. I am a long way from complete understanding, but I believe that my 10-year path as an historian has at least started the journey.

-- Michael Phillips