THE MEDIA AFFECT
"Murder Porn"
"I'm tired of seeing black men die. He casually put his knee on a human being's neck for nine minutes as he died like a zebra in the clutch of a lion's jaw, and we watch it like murder porn, over and over again." Killer Mike. May 29, 2020
News reporting by color, but only when the victim is black.
Each day, the national media searches for reports of white police killing blacks to feature prominenly in their news stories. They mostly ignore police killing of whites. The impression is that police are only killing blacks. This national, selective, discriminatory news reporting is the central cause of the fear, mistrust, and unrest now gripping our nation.
"Lynching"
“I didn’t sleep Friday night,” wrote Lee Pelton, a nationally known speaker on liberal arts education and diversity. “Instead, I spent the night, like a moth drawn to a flame, looking again and again at the video of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a Minneapolis white police officer. It was a legalized lynching.” Lee Pelton. June 2020
In 2020, police have killed * 9 unarmed blacks and 11 unarmed whites.
Blacks "account for less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, but are killed by police at more than twice the rate of White Americans." [Washington Post shooting database]. To understand this disparity see STUDY and STATISTICS above.
Where are the videos of unarmed whites being killed by police?
Have you heard or read these press reports?
“A five year old white boy was deliberately shot and killed by a black man.
“Cathy Meadows, who is white, was raped by Owens, a black man.”
“The black police officer shot Mr. Morris, who is white, four times in the back.”
Of course not.
These would be clear examples of racially biased reporting. We would immediately understand that it is meant to arouse prejudice, to inflame passions.
So what is the reason for emphasizing race in the following media reports?
CNN:Family of black man, who died in police custody.
New York Times: Minneapolis police officers arrested George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man. Mr. Chauvin, who is white, kept his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck.
Washington Post: A white police officer pulled his gun..., prompting the 46-year-old black man to cry... a white officer’s knee at his throat for more than eight minutes.
Or this?
New York Times: Mr. Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was chased by armed white residents.
The Guardian: Black man who was accosted and shot dead. Three white men...
Wall Street Journal: 25-year-old black man who was fatally shot. charged each of the three white suspects.
Washington Post: A judge in Glynn County, Ga., ruled Thursday that three white men accused of killing a black jogger in Georgia in February will stand trial for murder
Or this?
New York Times: Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed on Aug. 9, 2014, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in Ferguson, Mo.
Washington Post: The decision not to charge Darren Wilson, the White former officer...who shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager...
CNN: Brown was African-American. the officer who opened fire is a Caucasian male.
BLACK means BLACK, BLANK means NOT BLACK.
Like the doublespeak in George Orwell's 1984, if there is no description of race about the victim in a story about violent crime, the reader has come to understand that the victim is NOT black. Doublespeak facilitates Doublethink where you hold two contradictory ideas as truth at the same time. In this instance, that race description is improper, so it is not mentioned - unless in the cause of a higher purpose - where it is mentioned.
Cannon Hinnant
In a tragic and horrible incident, a five year old boy, Cannon Hinnant, was deliberately shot and killed by a neighbor. The boy is white.
The neighbor who shot the boy is black. Race is NOT important to the story, but why does the media repeat racial descriptions when reporting black victims (above) but leave them out of Hinnant story below?
It's because the victim is white, and the perpertrator is black.
Compare the media descriptions below (no race descriptions - the right way to report a story) with the descriptions above where the race of the victim and the perpertrator are emphasized.
New York Times: A neighbor, 25-year-old Darius Nathaniel Sessoms, is charged with first-degree murder in Cannon’s death.
CNN: Cannon Hinnant was riding his bike outside his father's home in Wilson on Sunday when a man walked up to him and shot him in the head, witnesses told police.
Washington Post *: Authorities in North Carolina have charged a man with first-degree murder in the Sunday shooting of Cannon Hinnant, a 5-year-old boy who was days shy of starting kindergarten.
* The Washington Post story on this incident is especially troubling. It inserts a video story on George Floyd in the middle of its Cannon Hinnant story . It pushes the race narrative even within this tragic story.
In the tragic shooting death of this white person by a black person, the Post is careful to point out, "Police have given no indication that race was a factor"
Significantly and importantly, the Post did NOT point this out when reporting on Eric Garner, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor or Michael Brown. They never asked the question.
When the victim is black and the perpetrator is white, the press leads the reader to believe that race IS a factor, and because they emphasize the racial makeup of the parties, the reader/viewer is led to believe that race is the reason for the shooting.
Washington Post. September 8, 2020. Boy shot is WHITE. No description of race.
"When Golda Barton dialed 911 on Friday, she hoped emergency responders could help hospitalize her 13-year-old son, who has Asperger syndrome and was having a mental crisis.
Instead, a Salt Lake City police officer repeatedly shot Linden Cameron after he ran away..."
IMAGINE the MEDIA coverage had the boy been BLACK. CNN, MSNBC, NY TIMES, WAPO. "13 YEAR OLD BLACK BOY SHOT BY POLICE" Protests and riots and endless news coverage.
Race has no place! Leave skin color out of news reporting.