Apr 4, 2016 3 min read

Being an American in Europe is not always easy. For example, I had to get used to near-daily questions about our lack of gun control or about Donald Trump’s troubling and apparently unrelenting success in the Republican primaries, despite his racist remarks. Usually though, I smile at these kinds of questions and explain that I am from Pittsburgh, a progressive, friendly, well-educated city. “It’s just different there,” I say.

This is just one of the many reasons I was so startled and saddened by the ambush-style shooting that left six dead in Wilkinsburg on March 9. When I thought the events in my home city could not get worse, I became even more disappointed upon reading blind assumptions of WTAE-TV news anchor Wendy Bell that the killers were obviously black youth, with siblings from “multiple fathers,” who are no strangers to the police and to the system.

Since her firing, some Pittsburghers have lauded WTAE for its strong stand against racism, while others have expressed outrage at the alleged infringement upon Bell’s freedom of speech and vowed to switch channels. During an interview with the Associated Press following her termination, Bell maintained that her posts were not racist, but rather about “African Americans being killed by other African Americans.” When she concluded her statements with “More needs to be done. The problem needs to be addressed,” she struck a nerve.

It is unconscionable that an award-winning, white news anchor, with the power to speak to many impressionable people would single out a racial group in this way – especially a racial group that has consistently been denied the same privileges to live in safe neighborhoods, attend high-quality schools, and experience unbiased employment practices – and then insist that they alone are somehow responsible for a disturbing, tragic massacre without any shred of evidence to indicate that this is the truth. Bell is effectively telling her young, black male audience that this is the norm for them; this is what they can expect to live up to when they are older.

What is she subconsciously telling white people with her message? Keep locking your car doors each time a black person walks by? You are justified in throwing applications from black job-seekers into the trash can?

Sharing stereotypes about communities does not build them up; it tears them and all of us down. If Bell and many of her supporters really want to address problems afflicting black communities, as they claim, they need to take a closer look at the structural causes of poverty and crime there. While this will not happen quickly or easily, and no one person can do it alone, there is also something else we can all do in the meantime – pay attention to the things we post online and speak out against statements that spread misinformation and hate.

Painter is a South Park native, attended Washington & Jefferson College and lives in Munich, Germany, as a recipient of a State Department fellowship.