Readers Responded to Last Week’s Cover Image. We Listened.

Soon after last week's issue hit the newsstands, we began hearing concerns about the image on its cover.

That image is an illustration of Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw, the first black woman to run the bureau. It accompanied an examination of Outlaw's first year on the job, as well as her bid to restrict the gathering of violent protesters.

Over our 40-plus-year history, we've frequently put illustrations of powerful people on the cover: Mayors Charlie Hales and Vera Katz, for example.

We intended last week's illustration to reflect the chief described in the story: tough, distinguished and a little brassy. But that's not how it struck some of our readers.

We heard from several of you who wrote and called to say the illustration was disrespectful, demeaning and, in some people's minds, racist. Some felt it recalled toxic caricatures from the country's Jim Crow past. Others said it made Outlaw look menacing or ugly.

"The year is 2018," wrote Teela Foxworth, chair of humanities at Portland Community College and daughter of former Portland Police Chief Derrick Foxworth. "But if you caught the most recent cover of Willamette Week, you may have thought it was 1918. The depiction of Chief of Police Danielle Outlaw was abhorrent, disgusting and overtly racist."

The day after the image was published, we learned from one of our readers that the artist, who lives in Baltimore, drew an illustration for a Chicago newspaper earlier this year that became a focus of racial controversy. We don't believe these two unrelated covers reflect his body of work, but it's certainly something we would have taken into consideration had we known about it.

In fact, the feedback we've received has caused us to think hard about our blind spots.

We didn't intend to offend people with this illustration. But good intentions aren't enough. This is a fraught moment in the politics of both our city and nation—people of color are gaining historic victories, but bigots are also feeling emboldened.

And the fact is that the three people who made this decision—our editor, news editor and art director—are white. We didn't see the potential for hurt in this cover. That tells us we need to bring more perspectives than our own to evaluate our work.

We pledge to do that. And we're sorry.

"We want to challenge our readers—and sometimes that means being a bit brash and directly confronting people in power," says WW Editor Mark Zusman. "But that's exactly the reason we don't want to offend people by accident—especially a police chief who's making history, regardless of our differences on policy. We're going to bring more perspectives into making these decisions in the future, so we hit the notes we're trying for."

This amazing city is struggling. I recognize Willamette Week prides itself on pushing the limits. I recognize that political caricatures have long been present. I recognize that Willamette Week has broken significant stories of corruption and mismanagement within the city and state. I would hope that your past successes would be an impetus for moving forward, not for reverting to nasty, racial caricatures.

Be better!

Anne Colletta

It is caricatures like these and tone-deaf comments from white talk-show hosts or #45 [President Donald Trump] that make it incredibly clear that our American K-12 education system needs a makeover on the history section of their curriculum. If we continue to ignore and glance over these distasteful yet vital parts of history because they are shameful and embarrassing, we can never do better. If we don't teach kids at a young age about the deeply uncomfortable racist past of those that came before, then we can expect this type of behavior and gross oversight of a room full of grown adults at a so-called local liberal newspaper, to approve such volatile rhetoric, to continue.

This is a dangerous precedent to set about what happens to women of color when they're in positions of power. And after Tuesday's historic victories across the country for women and women of color specifically, we are not going anywhere. Consider this a learning opportunity and start to critically analyze policies rather than make buffooneries of us based on our gender and race and in doing so, denigrating our intelligence and capabilities.

Shame on you.

Teela Foxworth
Humanities Department Chair
Portland Community College

It's a bad cover. It's a caricature of someone that's not immediately clear that it's Chief Outlaw, when you look at it. I had someone say, "I thought it was a Nazi depiction." It wasn't appropriate for the story they were trying to tell. I think it is in keeping with, frankly, local news outlets—Willamette Week and others—[using] really ugly depictions of black leaders in our community. Time and time again, outlets will use really unflattering pictures of me, although there are plenty of other ones available, and it's not necessarily appropriate for the story. So to see Chief Outlaw portrayed in that way, not only was it unnecessary, but I think it continues to convey this sort of image and this stereotype that for some reason the media locally is in love with, of showing black folks in a negative light.

Nkenge Harmon Johnson
President and CEO
Urban League of Portland
Interviewed on Oregon Public Broadcasting Nov. 9.

I just viewed the Willamette Week cover for this week, and I believe that your paper should apologize for the art that you ran. It's highly offensive and disrespectful to the African-American community. You're making the chief look like a black caricature circa the civil rights era. I would also recommend that you hire a diversity/equity editor to approve of cover choices moving forward. This one seems to be in quite poor taste.

Zakir Khan, JD
Board Chair
Council on American-Islamic Relations Oregon

I went to the library and saw the cover of Willamette Week, and I was very concerned about the characterization. I found it very offensive, toward not only an African-American, but also toward a woman.

Rep. Margaret Doherty
D-Tigard