Mainstream Media Racism

Our liberal Mainstream Media (MSM) has few qualms about stoking racial resentment. For example, we all know who the late Rodney King was. Why? Because we were bombarded with reports of his beating by members of the Los Angeles Police Department. Having seen the video countless times as every other American over forty has, I'm persuaded the police were much more violent than the situation seems to have called for - beating King with a nightstick after he was prone and kicking him as well. That's very difficult to justify. Their acquittal led to the worst black riots in LA history, killing 53 people, injuring 2383, starting 7000 fires, damaging 3100 businesses, and numerous black racist assaults against whites and Koreans.

We all know who Trayvon Martin was too. Why? Because we've been bombarded with coverage of his death. We've seen countless images of him as a sweet, 12-year-old boy with soft eyes who died after buying some iced tea and Skittles. We've been told that his killer, George Zimmerman, is a "white Hispanic" racist who killed the sweet little kid because of he was black and he was wearing a "hoodie." Later, it emerged that Trayvon was six foot three, was on suspension from school for drug offenses when he was killed, and had earlier been in possession of burglary tools and a bag of women's jewelry. He also had a Twitter account on which he called himself "NO_LIMIT_N***A" (without the asterisks). He'd evidently claimed to have assaulted a bus driver on this account and chose a more recent picture of himself looking anything but the sweet little boy with skittles. You won't see it in the Mainstream Media though. Are any pictures available showing George Zimmerman as a nice young man? Probably, but you won't see those either.

The facts of the King case have been thoroughly aired, but not so the Martin case. That the MSM chooses to magnify some information about that unfortunate killing that serves their agenda and ignore other information that contradicts it is the problem. News anchors like Brian Williams, Diane Sawyer, Scott Pelley, and their ilk on CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, etc. would be indignant with the opening statement of this column and deny it vehemently, but it's nonetheless true. They so over-report or sensationalize white-on-black crimes and so under-report or ignore black-on-white crimes, that Americans of all races get distorted views of what's really happening out there.

More than 90% of blacks are killed by other blacks, but the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson don't show up to protest those killings. Why not? Because they make their livings propagating the notion that young black men are under siege by a white power structure and not their own malignant subculture. In this, they're assisted by the MSM who smugly think they know best what Americans should hear about and not hear about. Sharpton has his own show.

Black-on-white crimes outnumber white-on-black crimes by a wide margin. According to Heather MacDonald writing in National Review Online:

There were two and a half times as many white and Hispanic victims of black killers in 2009 as there were black victims of white and Hispanic killers, even though the black population is one-sixth that of whites and Hispanics combined.

If you relied only on the MSM for your understanding of the problem, however, you'd likely conclude that it's white racists who kill the most blacks.

 Young black men are far more dangerous to other young black men than white racists, but that's not what the MSM depicts. And why is that? Because it doesn't fit the collective world-view of the coastal, urban, elite, liberal, cocktail-party set that comprises the MSM. When Senator Barack Obama described red-state America as comprised of people who "get bitter and they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy towards people who aren't like them as a way to explain their frustrations," he mirrored MSM condescension toward the broad middle of America. He was speaking to elite liberals in Marin County. To them, we're ignorant rubes. We're not as sophisticated as they are, so we can't possibly understand that we are the problem. Young black male killers? They're our victims. If MSM reporters really want to look for racists, they'll find more looking in the mirror.

Making things worse, young black men see the same skewed MSM reports and believe them. As a result, many feel justified when they target whites, Jews, or Asians. Some sing about it and the Hollywood elite glorifies their (c)rap "music" with televised award ceremonies. They even get invited to the White House.

The Mainstream Media are steadily losing audience share because they're not the only show in town anymore. Americans are getting more balanced reports from alternative sources which reflect more accurately what they see around them, and that's going to continue. Meanwhile, we'll just have to deal with the widely-held misperceptions resulting from decades of skewed MSM reporting.

 

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Tom McLaughlin is a (now retired) history teacher and a regular weekly columnist for newspapers in Maine and New Hampshire. He writes about political and social issues, history, family, education and Radical Islam.  Email him at tommclaughlin@fairpoint.net.