Our Own Imus: City Pages Scrubs Editor’s Stereotypes from Story

City Pages’ new editor Kevin Hoffman ventured into Don “Nappy-Headed Hos” Imus/George “Macaca” Allen territory this week in a news item that squeezed three questionable ethnic stereotypes into a wee 291-word piece entitled, “New Delhi Star Tribune: Local businesses, meet your new advertising partner: Habib.”

Reporting on Star Tribune plans to outsource some 25 jobs to New Delhi, Hoffman’s April 18 piece referenced a week at the Star Tribune “that saw new publisher Par Ridder smacked around like a two-bit ho in a lawsuit filed by his former employer.” Hoffman also called the Strib’s outsourcing plan “Operation: Sanjaya,” after the wouldabeen American Idol Sanjaya Malakar, who is an American citizen born to an Italian-American mother and Bengali Indian father in Seattle. Both references have been scrubbed from the paper’s online story.

One curious stereotype remains: Hoffman predicts that within six to nine months, the paper’s ad designer “will be taking a rickshaw to work.” Rickshaws, while used in India, got their name from their country of origin, Japan — not the home country of “Habib,” whose name appears in the CP subhead.

Hoffman did not respond to an email request for comment.