From time to time, we get calls — or comments on online stories — asking why we didn’t identify the race of a crime suspect, particularly when police are seeking someone.

Whenever readers ask this, I am reminded of a seminar that Keith Woods of the Poynter Institute — a center for training journalists — gave at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch years ago.  He argued against racial identifications in almost all such cases, and his view stirred considerable debate among the participants.

Before we get more into Woods’ stand, here’s the existing Post-Dispatch policy on identifying people by race in stories:

“We do not identify an individual by race unless the information is clearly relevant. In crime stories in which authorities seek a fugitive, a racial designation is included only as part of a very detailed description that provides enough information to aid in the capture of a suspect. We should take the position that designating a person as white or black, or some other racial classification, does not provide information, necessarily, on what the person looks like. A person’s complexion, facial features, distinguishing marks may all be part of a detailed description. The same theory holds for unidentified bodies in a police investigation. We do not identify them as black or white, or any other racial classification, unless it is part of a detailed description.”

Back to Woods. In an article written nearly a decade ago — “The Language of Race” — he argues for an even stronger policy against identifying suspects by race:

“….What, for example, does a Hispanic man look like? Is his skin dark brown? Reddish brown? Pale? Is his hair straight? Curly? Course? Fine? Does he have a flat, curved nose or is it narrow and straight? Telling the public that he’s 5-foot-8, 180 pounds, with a blue shirt and blue jeans says something about the person’s appearance. But what do you add to that picture when you say Latino?

“And what is black? It’s the color of pitch. Yet, the word is used to describe people whose skin tones can cover just about every racial and ethnic group in the world, including white people. What does the word “black” add to the mental picture the public draws? How do you draw the lips? The eyes? The nose? What sort of hair does a black person have? What color skin does a black person have? The combinations are infinite.

“All racial and ethnic groups do share some common physical characteristics. Still, we don’t see the phrase “Irish-looking man” in the newspaper, though red hair and pale skin are common Irish characteristics. Would a picture come to mind if a TV anchor said, “The suspect appeared to be Italian”? Couldn’t many of us conjure an image if the police said they were looking for a middle-aged man described as “Jewish-looking.”

“There are good reasons those descriptions never see the light of day. They generalize. They stereotype. And they require that everyone who hears the description has the same idea of what those folks look like. All Irish-Americans don’t look alike. Why, then, accept a description that says a suspect was African-American?”…..

And later in the article:

“Too many newsrooms brag that they’ve solved the problem of racial identification by requiring other “distinguishing marks” before they’ll allow race to be used as a descriptor. A scar on the cheek. A gold tooth. A tattoo. None of that addresses the myth that race describes how someone looks.

“Think about it this way: In order for everyone reading, watching, or listening to the story to conjure up the same image in their mind’s eye, they must all share a common understanding of what a Latino person looks like. In other words, people who are Latino would have to look alike. Except for the scars, gold teeth, and tattoos.

“Here is an alternative: If journalists told their audience that the suspect was about 5-foot-8, about 165 pounds, with caramel-brown skin, wavy, dark brown hair about an inch long, thick eyebrows, a narrow nose, thick lips, and a light mustache, people could pick me from a lineup of men whose skin and face were different from mine. Nobody would need to know my race. It wouldn’t matter if I was descended from Africans, spoke Spanish, worshipped Allah, lived on a reservation, or called a Hawaiian woman mother.

“And every Latino man in America would not be implicated in a crime because the newspaper printed a description such as this one:

“She said he was a white or Hispanic man wearing a red cap and shirt.” -June 1996

“Unless the story is specifically about race - the Jasper, Texas, case, for example - race has little descriptive value in a story. Colin Ferguson’s murderous subway ride was about race. Tiger Woods’ dispute with Fuzzy Zoeller was about race. The struggle of biracial people to be recognized on the Census is about race. A suspect description is about how a person looks.”

When it comes to identifying crime suspects by race, I favor:

• The Post-Dispatch’s policy.
• Keith Woods’ more restrictive stand.
• Loosening things up to allow more IDs by race.

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