During the LePage era it seemed that every mugshot in the paper pertaining to a drug bust was of an African American, leading me to wonder if no white people dealt drugs in Maine, which hardly seemed likely. I began to wonder if systemic racism was behind the paper’s choice of mugshots.
Things seemed to improve somewhat after the flak LePage appropriately received for his wildly racist statements about black men coming to Maine and impregnating white women. I started to see white folk drug arrest mugshots along with black folk mugshots. I found myself wondering about implicit bias again when Saturday’s paper included no mugshots with its front-page story naming the four individuals arrested with over $120,000 worth of fentanyl when the day before a photo ran of Zachary Davis, who was charged with possessing sexually explicit material of young girls.
While I don’t know the racial makeup of the fentanyl dealers and can’t be sure of Davis’ race, Davis looks brown skinned in the paper’s photo, and based on their names, I’m guessing at least some, if not all of the alleged fentanyl dealers — Matthew Giguere, Jonathan Charron, Courtney Brown, and Steven Recore — are white. Perhaps some editorial self-reflection is in order.
Alice Knapp
Richmond
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.