Crime reporting got Politically Correct decades ago. Why is this? Is it healthy?
Decades ago, when the local news would report a crime, they would report a description of the robbers - if the Police were "on the lookout" for them. So the local newscaster or the local paper would say, "Police describe the robber as a caucasian male, approximately 5'6" with blond hair and blue eyes." The idea being that maybe someone would recognize the person and call the police to report them. Maybe. I'm guessing it didn't solve a lot of crimes.
Unfortunately, more often than not, the description would read, "Black male, early 20's, 6'2", black hair, brown eyes" and this was the case because historically blacks have been over-represented in poverty statistics, and under-represented in education and employment statistics. This is not to say that all criminals in the ghetto are robbing people to buy a loaf of bread for their kids (indeed, few criminals are, anywhere, of any race) but that raised in a economic and cultural situation like that, it is easier to gravitate toward crime.
And socioeconomically speaking, the same is true for the rural meth-head trailer park. The news is replete with "Florida Man" crime reports, usually detailing the hilarious or horrendous antics of white trash in Florida, as they commit crimes and sometimes kill people. Of course our revulsion and amusement at "Florida Man" isn't racist, is it? Classist perhaps, but not racist. So it's OK to stereotype rural rednecks.
But some folks thought it wasn't OK to mention the race and description of criminals, particularly if they were black. They argued (successfully) that when the evening news or the morning paper routinely described wanted suspects as "black" it would present a negative image of blacks in America, and thus reinforce stereotypes that blacks were more likely to be criminals or were dangerous or violent. So many newspapers and television stations went along with this, and the race of the people sought was not mentioned, or their mug shots, if captured, was not shown. And that was like in the 1970's that this happened - PC has a long history!
(One end-run on this PC reporting was to report that the robber had a "dark complexion" which was sort of a racial coding).
(One end-run on this PC reporting was to report that the robber had a "dark complexion" which was sort of a racial coding).
Of course, white folks have a secret decoder ring they use to parse these things out - and black folks gave them the secret code. When driving in a strange city, white people know not to get off at Martin Luther King Boulevard to get gas (although I have, several times, in Jacksonville - guess what? You're perfectly safe). As Chris Rock put it, "We honored the King by naming the worst street in each city after him" - which may be why white city council members went along with it. Red-lining is out, but naming a street "Malcolm X Boulevard" gets the message across.
In crime reporting, they no longer report race or even show photos of the suspects. But white folks can figure it out pretty much by the names. The popularity of "African-sounding" names in recent years is another secret decoder ring given to white folks by blacks. So when you see a crime report than says that Frank Smith was mugged by Jonthany Anderson and Ta'nisha Jones, you can sort of put together the narrative.
What got me started on this was a recent crime in New York City, where Kelsey Grammer's daughter Spencer, was among those stabbed by a man in a restaurant when he was refused a drink because the restaurant was about to close and the man was already drunk. What was odd about the story was that most media outlets did not include a description of the man, or show the surveillance photo of the man (shown above), who the police are "on the lookout" for and no doubt, someone would recognize if they saw the photo. One outlet admonished people not to approach the man, as he may be dangerous! But they failed to include the photo or the description of the attacker.
Some media outlets published the photo of the attacker - such as the Daily News, which of course, is a tabloid. Other news sites published pictures of Ms. Grammer's Father instead, and had teasers on whether a "Frasier" reboot was in the works. Meanwhile, a dangerous criminal is walking the streets, and we have no idea what he looks like. If his photo was widely published, someone would recognize him and he would be arrested quickly - a valuable use of media airtime and bandwidth.
But we can't have that. Not today, with all that is going on. Some white kid from the suburbs would throw a rock through your window, shouting "Black Lives Matter!" when in fact, he doesn't know any black people and lives in a cushy white suburb.
And black people are noticing this. The head of a local chapter of the NAACP (among others) is concerned that the entire BLM movement, being leaderless, has been hijacked by white people - these "Antifarts" who want to destroy things and do street battle with "Aryan Brotherhood" or whatever.
I guess this is not unexpected. After all, white people have expropriated everything else from blacks - their labor, their very lives, their culture, their music, their cuisine, their style - whatever can be harvested for a profit. So of course, "Black Lives Matter" would be taken over by whites. We've taken everything else, why not this?
Antifarts are the worst sort of racists - because they pretend they care when in fact, they are just taking, while claiming others are racist. Fighting racism begins with acknowledging that everyone is a little bit racist (yes, even black folks!) and that pretending you are above the fray is just posturing of the worst sort. Antifarts need to go back to their comfortable white suburbs and go back to playing video games in their Mother's basement and whining about their student loans on Reddit. They have no business leading or "organizing" a BLM protest, and very little business even attending one.
The stabbing of Ms. Grammer and others was a bit unusual in that most of the victims of crime by blacks are black themselves. Although there is much ink spilled about "white fear" of black crime, the reality is, most white people live in comfortable, crime-free neighborhoods (other than the aforementioned meth-head trailer park). The idea that criminality is some sort of black cultural value exists mostly in the minds of suburban whites, who revel in the whiff of danger involved - and whose children mimick the antics of rap stars, who posit themselves as "playas" and gang-bangers.
Again, cultural appropriation - caricaturing blacks as criminals for the amusement of whites. It is the new minstrel show. Who is the largest audience for rap music? Yeah, white folks. (And thanks to Marshall Mathers, you no longer have to be black to be a rapper). The image of blacks as criminals is promoted for profit.
The cruel reality is that crime in the ghetto affects the residents the most, and they are often the first to want a crackdown on crime.
But like clockwork, the media blandly reports yet another drive-by shooting in Chicago, and if you live there, you know from the neighborhood mentioned what the races are of the shooters and victims, even as they don't show the mugshots of the perpetrators, or a video of the crying mother of the victims. That would be politically incorrect! And I think, as a result, it is easier to sweep these crimes under the rug, as viewers can dismiss these crimes as something happening to "other people" and not them, in their safe and comfortable suburbs. That's the real racism - not cracking down on crime.
Yes, it is awful when a black man is killed by a Police Officer. But for every black man or woman who dies in custody, ten or more are gunned down by other black people. Where is the outrage over that? And why isn't there outrage? It is a good question. We want to crack down on the Police, but not on criminal gangs who make lives miserable for folks in the ghetto? (Which is why I say, moving from bad neighborhoods is always a good idea - even if it means struggle).
Nothing every good came of Political Correctness. If we are to treat skin color as something as innocuous as eye color and live in a truly race-blind society, we need to do just that - and stop walking around as if on eggs, whenever something comes up involving black people or people of any minority or "identity" group. We can't become race-neutral if we establish new rules based on race.
What got me started on this was a recent crime in New York City, where Kelsey Grammer's daughter Spencer, was among those stabbed by a man in a restaurant when he was refused a drink because the restaurant was about to close and the man was already drunk. What was odd about the story was that most media outlets did not include a description of the man, or show the surveillance photo of the man (shown above), who the police are "on the lookout" for and no doubt, someone would recognize if they saw the photo. One outlet admonished people not to approach the man, as he may be dangerous! But they failed to include the photo or the description of the attacker.
Some media outlets published the photo of the attacker - such as the Daily News, which of course, is a tabloid. Other news sites published pictures of Ms. Grammer's Father instead, and had teasers on whether a "Frasier" reboot was in the works. Meanwhile, a dangerous criminal is walking the streets, and we have no idea what he looks like. If his photo was widely published, someone would recognize him and he would be arrested quickly - a valuable use of media airtime and bandwidth.
But we can't have that. Not today, with all that is going on. Some white kid from the suburbs would throw a rock through your window, shouting "Black Lives Matter!" when in fact, he doesn't know any black people and lives in a cushy white suburb.
And black people are noticing this. The head of a local chapter of the NAACP (among others) is concerned that the entire BLM movement, being leaderless, has been hijacked by white people - these "Antifarts" who want to destroy things and do street battle with "Aryan Brotherhood" or whatever.
I guess this is not unexpected. After all, white people have expropriated everything else from blacks - their labor, their very lives, their culture, their music, their cuisine, their style - whatever can be harvested for a profit. So of course, "Black Lives Matter" would be taken over by whites. We've taken everything else, why not this?
Antifarts are the worst sort of racists - because they pretend they care when in fact, they are just taking, while claiming others are racist. Fighting racism begins with acknowledging that everyone is a little bit racist (yes, even black folks!) and that pretending you are above the fray is just posturing of the worst sort. Antifarts need to go back to their comfortable white suburbs and go back to playing video games in their Mother's basement and whining about their student loans on Reddit. They have no business leading or "organizing" a BLM protest, and very little business even attending one.
The stabbing of Ms. Grammer and others was a bit unusual in that most of the victims of crime by blacks are black themselves. Although there is much ink spilled about "white fear" of black crime, the reality is, most white people live in comfortable, crime-free neighborhoods (other than the aforementioned meth-head trailer park). The idea that criminality is some sort of black cultural value exists mostly in the minds of suburban whites, who revel in the whiff of danger involved - and whose children mimick the antics of rap stars, who posit themselves as "playas" and gang-bangers.
Again, cultural appropriation - caricaturing blacks as criminals for the amusement of whites. It is the new minstrel show. Who is the largest audience for rap music? Yeah, white folks. (And thanks to Marshall Mathers, you no longer have to be black to be a rapper). The image of blacks as criminals is promoted for profit.
The cruel reality is that crime in the ghetto affects the residents the most, and they are often the first to want a crackdown on crime.
But like clockwork, the media blandly reports yet another drive-by shooting in Chicago, and if you live there, you know from the neighborhood mentioned what the races are of the shooters and victims, even as they don't show the mugshots of the perpetrators, or a video of the crying mother of the victims. That would be politically incorrect! And I think, as a result, it is easier to sweep these crimes under the rug, as viewers can dismiss these crimes as something happening to "other people" and not them, in their safe and comfortable suburbs. That's the real racism - not cracking down on crime.
Yes, it is awful when a black man is killed by a Police Officer. But for every black man or woman who dies in custody, ten or more are gunned down by other black people. Where is the outrage over that? And why isn't there outrage? It is a good question. We want to crack down on the Police, but not on criminal gangs who make lives miserable for folks in the ghetto? (Which is why I say, moving from bad neighborhoods is always a good idea - even if it means struggle).
Nothing every good came of Political Correctness. If we are to treat skin color as something as innocuous as eye color and live in a truly race-blind society, we need to do just that - and stop walking around as if on eggs, whenever something comes up involving black people or people of any minority or "identity" group. We can't become race-neutral if we establish new rules based on race.
