As a subscriber and a long-time reader, I find it disturbing to see writing sloppiness that can be construed as racism in two recent Gazette issues.
In the May 22 issue, a subhead on page A2 reads, “Lawsuit alleges intent against low-income and colored students.” I understand the space constraints of headline writing, but the use of the word “colored” hasn’t been acceptable since before the civil rights movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
And in Phyllis Lehrer’s May 9 weekly column, she writes, “FYI the Lord Jeff is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. I know the Lord Jeff has a new name but I have been here for decades so the name I am familiar with stays in my brain.”
It would’ve taken less than one minute for Lehrer to use a search engine to look up the newer name, Inn on Boltwood. Instead she chooses to resurrect the name of the British army officer in colonial America who promoted the use of smallpox-infested blankets to kill the Indigenous people in what is now the Northeastern United States. This is the man who in his letters referred to the Native people as “Vermine” and an “Execrable Race,” and wrote to one of his colonels that he wanted to “hunt down” Indigenous people with dogs as the Spanish conquistadores had.
This is precisely why 10 years ago, the Amherst College board of trustees voted to change the name of the historic hotel, and why the students of Amherst College changed their sports teams’ name to the Mammoths. It comes across as more than insensitive that Lehrer just can’t seem to remember the new name and can’t bother to look it up, in an era when nearly everyone has a portable computer in their pocket or bag.
Yes, it looks like blatant racism — even if it’s mere laziness.
Michele Spring-Moore
Northampton