This is Margaret and Lindsay, your new Editors-in-Chief of The Mac Weekly. We’re reaching out to our readership to formally apologize for publishing the Biology Department’s letter with the racist word “Blacks” in reference to Black people. That was an extreme oversight on our part, and on behalf of our editorial staff, we sincerely apologize. It was an indefensible mistake. We recognize our complicity in allowing that word to perpetuate racism and otherize Black students, staff, faculty, alumni and other members of the broader Macalester community. 

We also recognize that the gravity of this failure is compounded by the fact that The Mac Weekly is a predominantly white institution, with an overwhelmingly white staff and newsroom. Given our racial demographics, we know that in order to achieve our goal of serving the whole campus community, we have to do a better job at meeting the goals set in our, examining ourselves and checking and re-checking our work and determining the ways it upholds whiteness and could better uplift Black and Brown voices. 

We appreciate when readers hold us accountable and push us to be a better publication, but also recognize that this is an undue burden for students of color when we make these mistakes. 

We are students; we are always learning, and need to be held accountable in order to improve as journalists. Nonetheless, The Mac Weekly has the responsibility of informing the entire campus community. We must be more thoughtful and sensitive to the language we are using to be an effective and just publication. We as an editorial staff are coming together to write a plan with more specific action items to use our publication to better serve the campus community with full, fair news coverage and make our newsroom more accessible to students of all backgrounds.

TL/DR: We’re sorry for our racist oversight with the Biology Dept. letter, and we’re going to take specific steps to improve our work. Our inbox is open – [email protected].