The Portland tram and "blipsters" in the New York Times

The New York Times has a decent story today about the new Portland tram and its opening weekend, complete with a rundown of all the various controversies (the cost overruns, the $4 ticket price). The piece also speculates as to whether the tram will become a local icon:

Some say it will give eminently livable Portland an aesthetic exclamation point it lacks, something like the Golden Gate Bridge or the Space Needle in Seattle.

What, Mt. Hood's not a good enough "aesthetic exclamation point"? I think the city's skyline against the West Hills is a much more enduring image than a couple of spindly lozenges in the air. The view from the tram is probably the real aesthetic exclamation point.

Also in the Times today...an embarrassing trend piece that purports to discover a new trend: some black people enjoy rock music:

There is even a new word for black fans of indie rock: “blipster,” which was added to UrbanDictionary.com last summer, defined as “a person who is black and also can be stereotyped by appearance, musical taste, and/or social scene as a hipster.”

"Blipster." "Blipster." Now there's a word that needed codifyin' by the Gray Lady.

Sometimes I wonder just how out of touch major newspapers can be with their black readers--and writers. Years ago, at the old L.A. Herald Examiner, I worked with Elvis Mitchell before he went on to NPR and the Times. He stormed into the newsroom one day, furious, because a copy editor had changed his reference to the '80s funk group Jesse Johnson's Revue. The editor, a white woman, assumed that it was a typo (and didn't bother to check!), so Elvis' byline graced a story about "Jesse Jackson's Revue."

I wonder if either of the Jesses is a blipster.

Comments

[Rabbit]

Some ten years ago, one of the homemaker magazines -- Woman's Day or one of those, I forget which -- had an article on four black men and women who spoke about how they felt they were perceived by society. The article followed up with a question to readers about it.

I wrote in, noting that except for the article in question, no generic photos (such as Mother making dinner, Father mowing the lawn) showed anyone who wasn't white. In all of the advertisements, there was only one black man, and he was in the back of Richard Simmon's exercise group. Even the article, I argued, spoke volumes about racial relations: it was on how "they" felt about "us".

I was very surprised when I received a personal letter from the editor, admitting the bias and a promise to do something about it. I don't know if I was directly responsible for it, but when I picked up an issue some six months later -- allowing for the lead-in time -- I did notice more of a mixture in the magazine's photographs.

But I didn't see Jesse Jackson's Revue...

R