Ranting....

[2labslib]

I came across this image on Facebook ( http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/wheres-the-media-outrage/question-2557233/ ) and followed the link to try and figure out the point... Turns out it's someone whining because two white people murdered by African Americans were not given the media coverage that Trayvon Martin got. They claim it isn't "politically correct" to report crimes where Black people are the criminals.

Um... What the hell? Turn on the evening news sometime, Moron. I sometimes feel like that is all I see. These two crimes are not even comparable. The murderers here were arrested and tried for their crimes, not given two months to wander and come up with a story. Not given two months for the jury pool to become polluted with too much information. Tell me about a time that a white boy was gunned down and the police patted the killer's hand and said, "You go on home now. We'll take care of this." I guarantee that would make national news.

The fact that you feel you can compare the two shows more about your own racism than the media's.

[gateley]

1. You called it -- racism. Period. nt

[RZM]

2. Four of the five perpetrators in that case are actually getting new trials

The presiding judge was exposed as a craven pill-popper last year. He apparently has a pretty bad addiction and had actually purchased pills from cons he had sentenced, including from one woman he was banging on the side, sometimes in his chambers during breaks. He has since been disbarred and the convicted granted retrials.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/apr/04/investigators-tenn-judge-high-on-pills-in-court/

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. The horrific Christian/Newsome murders have long been a rally cry

from the neo-nazi set. I recall hearing about rallys in Knoxville when the trials were going on, and yes, the brutal details of this crime are as clear in my mind as when this happened. My mind aches for those kids and their families that survived them.

[Herlong]

4. I believe the Martins were only advocating justice.

Last edited Fri Apr 20, 2012, 02:16 AM - Edit history (1)

"Turns out it's someone whining because two white people murdered by African Americans were not given the media coverage that Trayvon Martin got."

Justice is not a black or white issue, and we can't move forward as a nation if we continue to in this effort to divide one another.

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. The issue with Christian/Newsome per the White Pride set

is that this never got the national coverage of a black on white crime.

This was not a 'black on white' crime, this was a crew hopped up, who hijacked a car, took these kids as hostages and then tortured and mutilated them while they were still alive. These kids could have been purple with green stripes and it wouldn't have changed a thing.

[FarLeftFist]

5. Because unlike the Martin case, the police were ACTUALLY trying to bring justice.

They didn't let the killers just walk right out of the precinct.

[RZM]

7. In both cases both the media and the police behaved differently

So we're really talking about two different sets of issues here. You're right that the police behaved differently in both cases (of course, they cases themselves are very different as well).

But the media coverage has also been very different. Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman are household names and the story is all over the national media. Even the president has been asked about it. Nobody involved in the Knoxville case is a household name, though it has apparently gotten a lot of coverage in the local Knoxville media. But it's never quite broken out into the national MSM.

Trayvon's death is very sad and I agree that it deserved a lot of media attention. But I would argue the Knoxville case is a whole lot worse. It really was a truly heinous crime. For one thing, there were two victims, but they were also tortured and sexually assaulted before they died. Newsom was apparently forcibly sodomized with a blunt object before being shot execution style. Christian was beaten and violently raped to the point where she had severe injuries to all of her orifices. She also had some sort of chemical agent poured down her throat and on her mangled genitals, and finally died of suffocation after a plastic bag was placed on her head. It was some truly sick shit.

What's really sad, as I pointed out upthread, is that the presiding judge in the Knoxville case is a sleazeball who was whacked out of his mind on pills during the trial and has since been disbarred. The perps have been granted retrials. So now the victims' families have to relive this thing in court all over again.

You could outline a lot of reasons that the media coverage has been different. I do think that race probably is one of them, but it certainly isn't the only one.

[Iris]

8. They do love their false equivalencies