| Vol. 3 No. 20 October 2, 2008 |
| Health Matters African American Health Network gears up to fight disparities |
| One of the many hats that I wear at The Capital City Hues is paper distribution person. Along with Ty Glenn and Heidi Pascual, I distribute the paper to over 200 stops in the greater Madison area once the paper is printed. I jokingly refer to it as our ‘employee assistance program’ because it is one sure way that I get a lot of exercise every two weeks. It is also a good opportunity to see what is going on in the field. Inevitably, I will stop and talk to people along the way. The most rewarding thing is when a complete stranger stops me and tells me how much they enjoy the paper. One of the most depressing moments are those Rodney Dangerfield “I don’t get respect” moments. The free newspaper business can be pretty competitive. It seems as if there are a million of us out there trying to put our publications of all shapes and sizes out there in the best possible spot in a limited space to attract attention so that readers will pick us up. Almost all of us depend upon paid advertising to make our papers go and our rates are determined by how many people pick up our publications as well as by who picks up our publications. In as many spots as possible, I have placed yellow HUES racks to place our publication. Most of the time, Asian Wisconzine occupies the lower half of the rack. However, even though it is our rack, it seems that there are some publications out there who don’t maintain their own racks who feel it is their privilege to place their papers on top of our papers in our racks. I usually recycle theirs when I come across this. They probably think their circulation has picked up in the area. And then there was the case of a local, formerly daily newspaper that began publishing twice a week and went from a paid paper to a free paper. While they used to have their own coin boxes separate from the newspapers, when they went free, they joined the crowd. And I guess they felt they were entitled to all of the best spaces in the areas allotted to the free newspapers because all of a sudden I found my racks moved to an obscure area while this newly free newspaper took the place of our rack. Since they were once a large daily newspaper, I guess they felt entitled to have their racks next to Isthmus and The Onion and the rest of us were insignificant and of no consequence. Well, I kept placing our racks back in our old spots until this newspaper got the hint and began to wait its turn like everyone else. I can deal with these headaches in the newspaper distribution business. But I have a hard time dealing with what I have come to believe are the institutional racism barriers to small publications of color like The Capital City Hues that seem to keep us in our place as “second class citizens” in the publishing world. There are four instances that come readily to mind. The first is when a coffee shop off the square opened its doors and we were one of the first newspapers to place our racks there. I received permission and all of that to place it there. We were moving about 10 papers there each issue. Well about a year ago, the manager called me up and asked me to remove my rack because they were rearranging things. I dutifully moved my rack. But as time went on, I noticed that we were the only ones who were asked to move. Everyone else is still there. Now maybe they didn’t like our content. At the VA Hospital, we have had somewhat of a difficult time getting equal treatment with Isthmus and other publications. When one of our representatives was passing out papers there and wanted to place a rack there, the person in charge asked if our paper was controversial. Now why would he ask that? I would say that Isthmus and The Onion take more controversial stands than we do. It’s not like we ever get personal with anyone. But I can’t help but feel that this man asked that question because we are a publication of color that features people of color on our cover. In the eyes of some Euro-Americans — and they are usually in places of authority — publications of color will always be controversial. “Hey Joe, what you have THAT publication in here for?” I’m still waiting on this manager to return my e-mail messages. And then there is the case of a national chain bookstore. I went out and got permission from a manager to place our rack next to Isthmus and The Onion near the main entrance. Well, a day later, I got a call from another manager who told me that our rack was being moved to the rear of the store near the bathrooms. It seems that only the highest circulated newspapers were placed out front and we would have to “go to the back.” They didn’t say “highest circulated White newspapers,” but they could have because that was the impact of that decision. They didn’t say “highest circulated publication of color” could go there. If this judgment is consistently used — and it is used in other places — then it will always relegate publications of color to second-class status. And finally, there is the case of a bookstore near campus where free publications would place their publications on top of the book lockers near the entrance to the store. I would place about 50 copies of the paper and they always seemed to disappear by the time the next issue came out. Well the last time I went, there were signs on the wall in the back of the free newspaper allotting space to Isthmus, The Onion, the campus newspapers and maybe one or two others. There wasn’t any space allotted for The Capital City Hues or any other publication of color. No one told me of any process to go through. I don’t know if these spots are paid or if the management just decided that these were the publications that were important for UW-Madison students. Maybe they had just been throwing my papers out for the past three years. I found out that an assistant manager was in charge of the decision. I am still waiting for him to return my phone call. It seems counterproductive that the major bookstore on campus would devise a policy that would keep people of color invisible on this campus. Institutional racism can happen anywhere. The UW administration is trying to create a more conducive environment for students of color on campus and to stop them from being treated as if they are invisible. This decision makes it clear to me just how much students of color can be treated as if they weren’t there. The UW-Madison and its surrounding environment have a long ways to go. |
| Reflections/Jonathan Gramling DIS(tribution) Blues |
