Thursday, May 4, 2000,
'White girl?': 'Nightline' joins our conversation
by Janet Burkitt
Seattle Times staff reporter
Launched by a provocative story from The Washington Post, we started a conversation with you last fall - an in-your face, sometimes painful dialogue about race. What you said sparked letters and stories that have continued for more than half a year. A crew from ABC's "Nightline" traveled here to talk to Seattle Times readers, and Tuesday at 11:35 p.m. on KOMO-TV, barring a postponement for breaking news, you'll see the next step in our dialogue.
In the business, they're called "talkers": the stories journalists write that strike an especially powerful chord with readers - that people reread, cut out, and talk about with their family and friends.
"White Girl?" was a talker and then some.
In it, Washington Post reporter Lonnae O'Neal Parker, who is black, wrote about the shock of discovering that her cousin Kim McClaren, the daughter of a black father and a white mother, thought of herself as white.
It was the story of two cousins on the opposite sides of a racial divide, but in a larger sense, a story about anyone who has ever grappled with race - and most of us have, O'Neal Parker wrote. "The story is scary in places. Because to tell it, both Kim and I have to go there. Race Place USA," O'Neal Parker said in her story. "It is a primal stretch of land ... You've gotta pass through Race Place in order to make it to Can We All Get Along, but most everybody is looking for a shortcut."
The story prompted a deluge of letters from Seattle Times readers when we ran it last fall, letters that ran the gamut from disgust to delight.
It got under everyone's skin and much of the reaction split down color lines: Readers either upbraided O'Neal Parker for wanting her cousin to call herself black or chastised McClaren for her reluctance to do so. Some white readers thought O'Neal Parker was angry, too angry; some black readers thought McClaren was in denial.
"You know, I get tired of all this mess because I have lived it every day of my life," one reader wrote. "This letter might sound angry to you, and it is because it's true."
We kept the conversation going for months, published excerpts from readers' letters, and then asked O'Neal Parker and her cousin to talk back. They did, each writing a story about what they'd heard from people in Seattle and elsewhere.
That got John Donvan talking to his producer. The "Nightline" correspondent was intrigued by the intense response the story elicited in Seattle, a city far removed from O'Neal Parker's Washington, D.C., home, and one with a relatively low black population. His segment on "White Girl?" and the stir it caused in Seattle will air Tuesday on ABC (11:35 p.m., KOMO-TV), barring breaking news.
"Lonnae takes the discussion into a not particularly easy place," Donvan said in a recent telephone interview. "It seemed a lot of caring, well-meaning white people were either seriously troubled or seriously confused by the story."
Donvan interviewed readers, both black and white, about their strong reactions to the piece.
"I pretty much told them I thought it was right on," said Seattleite Sandra Hilton, who is black. "I told them I think modern-day black people are still kind of obsessing about shade, (and that) it was kind of instilled in us by white people during slavery."
Though Hilton didn't find it difficult to voice her opinions about race on television, some readers did, declining to be interviewed or canceling with "Nightline" at the last minute. Others felt that a candid dialogue on race was too important to avoid.
"I felt like I had to do it for my daughter," said Peggy Sakagawa of Kirkland. Sakagawa's young daughter is half-white and half-Asian; the Kirkland woman says she hopes her daughter will be accepted for what she is, and not feel compelled to "choose" one race or the other.
Sakagawa took issue with O'Neal Parker's original story because she felt the author expected McClaren to choose black over white. After her "Nightline" interview, she decided to e-mail O'Neal Parker. The two now have a warm correspondence, interspersed with the occasional heated exchange.
"There's been a lot of crying back and forth," Sakagawa says. But "I'd like to meet her in person; I think we'll be friends."
They still disagree on many matters of race, but her conversations with O'Neal Parker have made Sakagawa think that racism might be more prevalent than she once believed.
"I'm glad I wrote the letter to the paper," she says. "For once in my life, I opened my mouth and something good came out of it."
Janet Burkitt's phone message number is 206-515-5689. Her e-mail address is jburkitt@seattletimes.com.
| 
