When The Media Treats White Suspects and Killers Better Than Black Victims

[gollygee]

Click on the link and read the article. It shows lots of examples.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/14/media-black-victims_n_5673291.html

After news of Brown's death broke, media-watchers carefully followed the narratives that news outlets began crafting about the teenager and the incident that claimed his life. Wary of the controversy surrounding the media's depiction of Trayvon Martin -- the Florida teen killed in a high-profile case that led to the acquittal of neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman -- people on Twitter wondered, "If they gunned me down, which picture would they use?" Using the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, users posted side-by-side photos, demonstrating the power that news outlets wield in portraying victims based on images they select.

On Monday, Twitter user LordSWVP tweeted out a photo driving home another point: Media treatment of black victims is often harsher than it is of whites suspected of crimes, including murder.

(snip)

This is by no means standard media protocol, but it happens frequently, deliberately or not. News reports often headline claims from police or other officials that appear unsympathetic or dismissive of black victims. Other times, the headlines seem to suggest that black victims are to blame for their own deaths, engaging in what critics sometimes allege is a form of character assassination. When contrasted with media portrayal of white suspects and accused murderers, the differences are more striking. News outlets often choose to run headlines that exhibit an air of disbelief at an alleged white killer's supposed actions. Sometimes, they appear to go out of their way to boost the suspect's character, carrying quotes from relatives or acquaintances that often paint even alleged murderers in a positive light.

[bluestateguy]

1. Fortunately, the media did not handle Elliot Rodger with kid gloves

But the point of the article is sound and makes sense.

[gollygee]

2. .

[gollygee]

3. Kicking this again

since it's happening again.

[freshwest]

4. KIcking because this has been on so long, it makes me wanna hurl.

[NOLALady]

5. kick

[Rex]

6. Yes and millions of people notice this.

The white murder suspect, because he is a cop, is allowed to flee the crime scene by his own PD. Of course all the gross violations of SOPs just gets ignored.

So...who needs a lesson in white privilege again? I doubt many do now.

[TheKentuckian]

7. Privilege? Institutional preference for whites and animosity for blacks goes beyond that to me.

Equality under the law is a privilege?

Not being made into an animal to be slaughtered by any possible excuse isn't a privilege.

This actually makes the frame even more goofy to me, it is now making essential rights and our very lives the rhetorical equal to being able to use mom's car for dates and close to seeming to be just as happy if whites got the same treatment as blacks being treated as a white person might be in the same situation because that stuff is just something extra nice some master does for the chosen or something.

Not being murdered in the street is not like having a TV in a kid's room, the term needs recalibration it is either an automatic defense mechanism activating statement for those that most need to grasp it or trivializes life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of those screwed in the deal.

I know well that some are deeply invested in the terminology but it is both weak as a description of a dangerously real phenomenon and ineffective messaging. I'm sorry some spent decades cooking it up but it is weak, ineffectual, self defeating language.

[gollygee]

8. The privilege here

is having the media give you the benefit of the doubt and speak positively about you if you're white, even if you are proven to have killed, but to seek reasons to show you as a "thug" if you're black, even if you have been killed. Equality under the law is huge and also isn't there, but there are tons of smaller privileges white people have that people of color don't.

[TheKentuckian]

11. Even that isn't having a sleepover this weekend or early check in, it is deeper than a

privilege. It doesn't become okay if white folks are looked at the same way, it just makes more people dehumanized.

The term is weak and inaccurate, at worst and fails to be explanatory at best.

Being seen as human owed due process and reasonable doubt rather than some thuggish, animal brutes that it is acceptable to slaughter in the fucking street isn't a fucking privilege and when it is portrayed as such it implies that such treatment is acceptable just not properly or fairly applied.

[gollygee]

12. Privilege is the term used by the African American community

and that's where I learned it. I think it would be presumptuous of me to feel like I should overrule them about the language used to discuss their own oppression.

[TheKentuckian]

13. It is a term used and promoted by some black academics not necessarily the back community

I don't promote it, never heard a relative use it, never comes up in conversations.

We didn't have some black national vote on this language that I'm aware of but rather a crusade of a few upper class upwardly mobile" (aka "we built that" blacks that don't want anything to interfere with their time at bat) elites and whites that want to be supportive that have decided that they are the voice of black America.

[gollygee]

14. OK well that is where I got the term

From African Americans I personally know. If better language starts being used, I'll switch the language I use.

[heaven05]

16. you've seemingly twisted this

Last edited Tue Sep 2, 2014, 10:15 AM - Edit history (1)

'white privilege' is that no white person, usually, is going to be shot down like an animal without due process whereas a black person is usually presumed guilty until proven innocent and if he/she lives long enough to make to to the judicial stage of incident which frequently is NOT reached because of some concocted 'threat' by the black perp "causing" their death. White privilege is being afforded innocent until proven guilty, some kind of obfuscation you created here.....very transparent.

[TheKentuckian]

19. I suggest reading for greater comprehension. I refuse to equate being shot down in the street with

a key to the executive washroom or a kid being able to have a sleepover or even a driver's license.

I say the phrasing is way, way, way too weak and is poor communication.

What is transparent is wanting to water the most essentially rights as bonuses provided by the powers that be.

[Rex]

9. I have to admit, my eyes were competely opened after seeing how people talked about

Obama when he was elected in his first term. This country is so fucking racist, I wonder if we've made any true progress toward equality.

I feel like was live more in a caste system today, than a capitalist democracy. Fairness by the law is a pipe dream for some.

[heaven05]

17. white privilege is fact,

Last edited Tue Sep 2, 2014, 10:19 AM - Edit history (1)

PERIOD. No equivocation, obfuscation. White privilege is white privilege enjoyed by every white if they choose to access it. The murderer of Michael Brown, wilson, accessed it. He is free, presumed innocent until proven guilty by some on this board. He's allowed to hide and Michael Brown was allowed to die. Period.

[TheKentuckian]

18. Apparently you did not read my post, I said this goes beyond the weak phrasing of privilege

You think not being gunned down in the street on a fucking whim is a privilege? No, it is an essential right well beyond being able to use mom and dad's car if you keep your grades up.

What you describe is way past real, the terminology is lackluster and weak ass communication.

[heaven05]

20. says you

I don't get what you mean. I guess. Getting gunned down on the street resembles no privilege that I know of except the white privilege present in being able to gun down unarmed black males, as in zimpig/trayvon--wilson/brown to name two standouts among many enjoyed by the privileged class/race in this country. One got off scott free and the other is protected and not in jail for murder. Yes it was murder. But he get's the white privilege, in this case, again, of due process. I guess I can't understand the point you are making. Have a good one.

[Louisiana1976]

10. Excellent post. K&R

[NOLALady]

15. Kick