Cindy Crawford looks nothing like me. But when I was 6, that didn’t stop me from gallivanting around the house with a sheet draped around me, a mop head firmly planted over my hair and a giant pen mark on my upper lip.
It was the ’80s, and when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said “beautiful.” Cindy personified everything beauty meant. People loved her and she had all the money she could want. It was too early for Naomi Campbell, and Iman was still seen as a novelty (gasp, a black supermodel!). So I played Cindy with all the determination I had.
It took me a while to realize that my dream of becoming Cindy Crawford would never quite pan out.
Aside from embarrassing fake-mole smudges across the face, there was another pretty obvious reason I could never be mistaken for her. I didn’t want to be Cindy because she was white — I hadn’t yet developed the uniquelly American racial hyper-awareness. I wanted to be Cindy because she was the paradigm of beauty. People like me were simply not represented. Yes, fine, we had the Cosbys, but the idea of a beauty icon like Beyonce was still only a dream.
In the April 27 Daily, Public Editor Troy Appel asked with mock curiosity: “Are people impacted by seeing someone who looks like them on the front page?”
They absolutely are. In the ’70s researchers examined the use of the gender-biased rhetoric (always using “he” when speaking of a singular person) and found that people saw the world with a masculine slant. Everything that surrounds us affects us.
Robert Samuels, the current editor in chief, instituted a comprehensive review into Daily procedure. He did so to maintain a publication that mirrors the community it covers — a move I wholly appreciate.
Nothing irks me more than when February is the sole time of year black faces grace the front page. Or when Islamic students get their moment in the sun only during Ramadan. Growing up in a society that for a long time equated “the norm” with thin, white women, I can easily say that any move to make our publications more inclusive is welcome.
Appel states that “the role of a newspaper is that of a camera — to capture events as they happen.”
Anyone who takes a picture of the community in and around Northwestern will see its rich diversity of color, background and creed. If The Daily is not reflecting that, if it does not report complex issues and conflicting ideas; if The Daily does not show us new worlds, teach us, anger us, excite us and make us uncomfortable; if The Daily does not reflect as a true mirror the ugliness and the beauty of NU, The Daily has not done its job.
This paper holds a difficult and important power. But to suggest that a reinforced sampling of the community shapes the news in a superficial manner disregards the needs of NU’s varied students.
Rina Martin is a Communication sophomore. She can be reached at
