Melanin Levels

What’s interesting about your article “Fiery Protest” (EW online, 5/30) is the fact that you seem to concentrate more on skin tone and how illegitimate the protest was rather than why anyone was protesting. I’m not going to read it again, but I think I counted four different references to melanin levels in protesters. Why is that important to you, Eugene Weekly? For a national response to police brutality, why is melanin level important?

The other great part is that you make sure to get an interview with Chief Chris Skinner to get his views on the anti-police-brutality protests. Good job. Then you have a quote from a random person saying that there are no police shootings in Eugene, but you fail to mention that EPD killed Eliborio Rodrigues barely six month ago. Police stopped him for walking down the street. Ten minutes later he was dead. Of course you didn’t run a story about it because he was just a homeless man who won’t help you get more art galleries downtown and probably never played pickleball.

Thanks for letting us know where you stand on the issue of police brutality.

Alex Gilliam

Eugene

Editor’s note: We mention skin color when it is relevant. In this case the looters were mainly white and those trying to stop them were people of color. You are correct, we should have clarified there has not been a recent police shooting of a black person, but there have been others, including Eliborio Rodrigues and Brian Babb.