The most poisonous right-wing myth to come out of the violence that marred Fat Tuesday is the notion that the Seattle media did not do enough to point the blame at feral gangs of black youth preying on individual white victims.

This flies in the face of the emphasis photos of groups of black people engaged in fights with individual white people got on the pages of the P-I and Times. The reporters did not describe a race riot and are therefore an example of black people not be held accountable for their violent actions against white people, so goes the right-wing argument.

The outraged right ought to be pleased with Ian Ith's piece of racist garbage published in the Times on March 22 titled "Downtown Loiterers Vanish After Mardi Gras." Not only would the KVI crowd who call into John Carlson's talk show love the racist terminology used to describe black youth in Ith's article. Ith's piece is the kind of garbage you might find in a pamphlet published by the Klan.

Ith's piece is a tired rerun of the old black youth as "super predators" preying on upstanding white folks on the street myth the mass media loves to recycle every now and then.

Ith opens his article with an offensive cheap shot describing the corner of the Third and Pine as "a hive, a headquarters for dozens of young black men and women," who the article suggests are most likely drug dealers, of course. After comparing black youth hang outs in downtown to a shelter for an insect that might sting you, Ith goes on to report his impeccable research into the subject of black youth who hang out in downtown. Only unnamed sources described as "police and business owners - black and white" are published in the story.

The reason given for sources not agreeing to having their names published is fear of retribution by the downtown black youth gangs. A salon owner is quoted mulling over the possibility of obtaining a concealed weapon permit because he is afraid of bumping into "the wrong guy on the street."

The article also fans the flames of generational resentment in one quote by yet another unnamed police officer. "I guess it's a generational thing," one policeman said. "Old, black guys -- addicts -- come to me and say they're appalled by the behavior of these kids -- no respect. But what do you do, arrest them all?" Yeah, that's basically what our society does to black youth, arrest as many of them as possible and place the rest under constant police surveillance. Just look take a look at the rise in the incarceration rate for African-Americans during Clinton time (Justice Policy Institute, www.cjcj.org/clinton/). In 1992, the African-American incarceration rate was just under 3,000 per 100,000. By 1999 it had topped 3,500 per 100,000.

An unnamed police officer is quoted near the end of the article pondering what a tough job dealing with the downtown black youth menace is. "It's like chasing cockroaches in your kitchen," said the anonymous officer. "You shine a light there, and they scatter. When you turn the light off, they come right back."

I don't really think fear of retribution or blowing police cover in downtown is why no sources are willing to come forward in this article. The only retribution anybody would get for making the incendiary comments in the article would be the well merited rhetorical thrashing anybody would rightfully deserve for spewing such blatantly racist garbage. And the only cover blown would be for the racism in Seattle expressed in the article.

While black youth are portrayed as criminal suspects, who hang out in hives and scatter like cockroaches in a kitchen when a light is shined on them, whites are their potential victims and victims. The article wastes no time in connecting the black youth who hang out at the corner of Third and Pine and the beating death of Kristopher Kime in Pioneer Square on Fat Tuesday. The 17-year-old suspect recently charged in the beating death is black, transient and, therefore, he must be a "regular" at Third and Pine.

Again, no evidence beyond the same unnamed sources is given for making this assumption.

The article does mention the obvious fact that many of Seattle's black youth might not have anything better to do than hang around street corners and deal drugs. It's not hard to get a picture of just how bleak the economic prospects of black youth in this society are when one takes a look at the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics' unemployment figures for February of this year (But a reporter like Ith has to make the effort). The unemployment rate for black teenager's aged 16-19 during Black History Month was 28.8 percent, compared to a rate of only 10.9 percent for white teenagers in the same age group. That's an amazing statistic when one considers that the BLS unemployment figures always understates what a more realistic estimate of unemployment might be, as the BLS does not count those who have given up searching for work, for example.

Just what is to be done about the youth of a community living in a permanent economic depression is not brought up in the article. Given the choice the between selling drugs and flipping burgers for $7/hour at the McDonald's at Third and Pine, it's not hard to image why many black youth, or youth of any ethnic background, might opt for the more lucrative field of the drug trade. The economic plight of black youth is lamented in the article but it's not enough to mitigate the downright offensive and incendiary terminology used in the article. The Times owes Seattle's black community an apology for publishing such a piece of racist rubbish.