ADDICTING INFO
It’s not a terribly difficult concept to grasp: White crime is treated verrrrrry differently than black crime by the “liberal” media. But, for some strange reason, (white) people seem shocked and dismayed when activists mention this glaring discrepancy. It’s almost like they don’t want to know about it.
Well, tough noogies because it’s not going away. #BlackLivesMatter has a very long set of legs and shows no signs of slowing down. More importantly, a large part of that movement is changing how the media presents white and black crime. This particular instance of challenging the “liberal” media’s narrative came during an interview with Brian Stelter on CNN as activist Deray McKesson (no stranger to kicking ass on CNN) dissected the news network for the unbalanced depiction of black protests being mostly about violence:
“I wonder, are you saying the press should automatically assume the worst about the officers, about the authorities?, Stelter asked, to which McKesson responded, “I’m saying there should be balance in the way that the critique is spread, and there isn’t.”
McKibbon goes on:
“So when I see broadcasts, news articles that present the police narrative as true,”McKesson added before being interrupted.
“But it is oftentimes true,” Stelter insisted.
“Is it true?” McKesson asked. “I don’t know if it was true with Mike Brown. Maybe we differ on what true means.”
“You’re talking about anecdotes as opposed to statistics,” Stelter replied. “Are you saying the majority of statement by police officers in the U.S. are not true, public statements, press releases.”
If you look carefully, you’ll notice a rather ugly strawman inserted into that exchange. At no point does McKesson say the police are lying all or even most of the time. He simply says that they should be treated with the same critical eye that minorities get. In other words, the media’s narrative is that minorities are always guilty and cops are always right. Or did you think it was a coincidence that the “liberal” media puts so much effort into finding pictures of the dead black person drinking a beer or flashing a “gang sign” to prove that he “had it coming”? It’s pretty obvious what McKesson was saying but Stelter dutifully tried to stick to his narrative anyway.
Aside from that, it’s pretty funny that Stelter has the nerve to talk about statistics. If we’re talking about statistics, we could take a look at all of the cases in which the police kill someone and see how many of those were ruled as “justified”. Oh wait, we can’t because the police deliberately do not keep comprehensive records of that. Imagine that for a second. The police, who happily keep your criminal record on file for decades in case they need to send you to jail again, don’t seem to be able to keep track of how many people they shoot every year. A cynical person would suggest that maybe the police don’t want to leave a record of the trail of dead bodies they’ve left behind. An even more cynical person would suggest that they don’t want to have a record of how many cops were subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. Considering how few cops ever wind up in court, much less convicted, I feel pretty confidant in stating that the percentage of cops whose shootings are labeled justified (or only worthy of administrative punishment instead of jail time) approaches 99%.
I don’t know about you, but I find that to be about as likely the KKK allowing the entire lineup of the New York Knicks to become members. Still, Mr. Stetler seems amazed at the idea of suggesting that cops might lie.
Another fun bit of statistics is the fact that the “liberal” media in markets like New York somehow still manage to over-report black crime. And this is precisely the kind of media narrative that McKesson is pushing back against. A perfect example of this double-standard is how both the police and the “liberal” media reacted to the biker shoot-out in Texas:
“What we didn’t see [in Waco, Texas] were any dead bodies,” McKesson said. “Nine people were dead, there were 18 people injured and the media didn’t show any of that spectacle of blood. Right? And not that I want to see bloody bodies, but there was a stark difference.”
“And you also saw the bikers chilling [after the shootout],” he remarked. “They are in gangs. This is organized crime. And they are just like hanging out at the police line after nine people are killed, and they’re now saying they might have recovered 1,000 weapons. That context would not happen if those bodies were dark skinned.”
“What’s interesting about Waco is that there was also this nuance suddenly. Because whiteness gets nuance and blackness doesn’t. So you saw with Waco, ‘These are bikers, this is just like a biker group. It’s a biker shootout.’”
I’ve said this many times before: When a white man commits a crime, he’s an individual. When a black man commits a crime, he magically represents ALL black people, everywhere. That’s why the not-at-all-racist talking heads on Fox demand to know where the leaders of the black community are when blacks riot over police brutality, but don’t say a goddamn thing when white kids riot at a freaking pumpkin festival.
‘Murika.
Here’s the video from CNN:
