1.5% versus 1% - Hype by the numbers.

To further make my case about "perception is reality," the Salt Lake Tribune and KSL News ran stories today about the sexual misconduct of Utah school teachers.

Both stories cited figures provided by the Utah Professional Practices Advisory Commission and the Utah Board of Education and are not too different from the numbers about Pacific Island gangs mentioned in my previous note.

In Utah, there are nearly 20,000 licensed educators, and between the years of 1992-2009, 313 licenses were revoked, and 208 out of that number, or 66.7% were fired for sexual misconduct.

In other words, 1% of teachers were fired for viewing pornography at work or getting into your children's pants.

I'm not surprised. I've been waiting for this data to come out, considering we see this in the news every week. According the SL Tribune article, two incidences have occurred this month, three happened in September and two in August - and that's just a span of three months. From what I see in the news, the perpetrators of these sex crimes are mostly white. I would wager around a 98-99 percentile.

What I find interesting is this...if you were to read the comments forum of both news outlets, you will see that the same people who call for Pacific Islanders to be shipped back to the islands based on the actions of 1.5% members of our community are the same ones who are downplaying these figures, going as far as accusing the media of over sensationalizing the story.

This is the hypocrisy that permeates Utah and demonstrates the massive power of the majority and how it is used to shape and own public dialogue.

I'm well aware that in terms of crime, I'm comparing apples and oranges. But in terms of numbers, 1% and 1.5% are not that far apart. Yet, the hype surrounding the 1.5% of Polynesians in gangs is significantly disproportional to the public hysteria it has generated - and most of that hype has to do with racism, xenophobia and the fear of the other. Should the 98.5% of us who are law abiding citizens be enslaved to the 1.5% of our population who are not?

Hell no.

Why don't we see white folks running around planning summits and having conferences about the 1% of school teachers who have sex with our kids? They should - our children will meet more teachers in their lifetime than they will gangsters. But this is the power the majority wields - the power to dilute instead of being equally outraged about the sexual abuse of our school children, not to mention the power to make some of our own people internalize the manufactured hype surrounding this 1.5% and use it against us.

--Richard