It’s fine with me!
1 Like
2/5) The white guys were essentially a case of frat boys getting drunk and going out and doing a bunch of really stupid stuff (in this case burglary). The black guys not only made a sober decision to steal for profit but were also seeking guns.
-
Youthful mistakes are a thing, I would say that 19 year olds should be given a bit of slack.
-
The photos are informative, the story of the white guys is that they’re buddy jocks who got drunk and went on a crime spree, we don’t actually know the story of the blacks guys though the implication is that they were at least semi-career criminals.
I don’t deny that the underlying problem exists. And it’s a legitimate question whether they would have used the year book photos if it were 3 black wrestlers or if the tendency to use year book photos leads to a racial bias. But I think it’s false to claim that these specific cases are really comparable.
No.
That’s an interesting setup you’ve got there. White boys: frat boys doing stupid stuff while drunk (oh what will those white boys get up to tonight?); black guys: soberly seeking guns to steal for profit.
I was arrested and suffered the consequences for a youthful endeavor that ran afoul of the law. If you’re drunk and stealing from multiple homes, then maybe that doesn’t necessarily qualify as hijinks, huh?
We don’t know the story of any of these people except through what the newspaper told us–and your reading of these two stories only serves to underline the problem mentioned by the OP.
15 Likes
[quote=“Fang, post:3, topic:54628”]
The Mar 23 case involved two cases of assault, while the 24 did not.[/quote]
Alleged crimes. None of these people have been proved to have committed any of the supposed crimes.
[quote=“Fang, post:3, topic:54628”]
The Mar 23 case was first degree burglary (up to 25 years), the 24 case was second degree burglary (up to 10 years), with the main charge underage possession of alcohol.[/quote]
Yet below you admit there was theft in both cases. I wonder why the white guys were charged with a lesser crime, hmmm?
[quote=“Fang, post:3, topic:54628”]
The Mar 23 case involved defendants aged from 24 to 50 years old, while the Mar 24 defendants are all 19 year old college freshmen.[/quote]
So, all adults then. No family court issues.
[quote=“Fang, post:3, topic:54628”]
The Mar 24 defendants were on the college wrestling team and thus relatively well known. We don’t know anything about the occupations of the Mar 23 people.[/quote]
College wrestlers are “student athletes” playing their sport as amateurs while full-time students. That’s not their occupation for any definition of the word. Probably wouldn’t look as good to mention they’re unemployed or only have part-time work in the service industry, though.
And just because “we” don’t know the occupations of the black men in question doesn’t mean the local police and/or journalists don’t know.
It almost seems like you’re ASSUMING the black men have less prestigious educational and work histories.
A briefcase, in which were electronic devices, guns, and cash? And again, just because they weren’t charged for certain criminal activities doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t do them. Or that all of the crimes allegedly committed by the black men really happened.
8 Likes
Can’t tell if hamfisted point or bitter conservative :I
So is all the private data collected by the IRS, but I don’t want those leaked to the public either.
Because they’re public records? Paid for by the public?
I know, right?!! Nobody else would do that.
1 Like
How about they don’t take them?
Saving your tax dollars!
[quote=“wrecksdart, post:23, topic:54628”]
That’s an interesting setup you’ve got there. White boys: frat boys doing stupid stuff while drunk (oh what will those white boys get up to tonight?); black guys: soberly seeking guns to steal for profit.[/quote]
I never actually used the phrase “white boys” the only time I used boys was “frat boys” in order to describe the profile and potential motive. Either way they were 19 while the youngest of the other group was 24, I don’t think people’s brains magically mature at 18.
Not saying they didn’t commit a crime, but it wasn’t as serious and probably merits a different response.
So I actually did mean to imply that the newspaper could be misrepresenting they black guys motives, and I also think I should have used the adjective habitual instead of career. But either way if the implication that the newspaper gave, that these four particular black guys were habitually committing burglaries or similar crimes, then the choice of photos is informative.
That’s not even remotely similar, and I’m not sure why you would compare a measured and institutional approach to combating established institutional racism to individual behaviors. The status quo is demonstratively discriminatory, so there is a counterbalance as an attempt to equalize the scales. There’s nothing fair about it, but that’s missing the point entirely.
Saying the a minority group can be ‘bigoted’ but not ‘racist’ is fundamentally saying that minority group is incapable of the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the majority. By saying “black people are incapable of X” good or bad is the same as saying “black people are all like X” stereotyping that is fundamental to the issues to begin with. Black people can be incredibly racist; you may argue that they are justified or that it is a symptom of the discrimination encountered during a lifetime, but there is no way you should be willing to accept that they are somehow different than the majority.
2 Likes
Well, from the newspaper articles we explicitly know that one group of suspects “were habitually committing burglaries or similar crimes,” but it isn’t the black suspects:
Elam said the wrestlers had in their possession items, including clothing and a briefcase, that are believed to have been taken during several burglaries. He said the police department took seven burglary reports.
His point was that black communities lack the institutional power required to make their black bigotry as powerful as the bigotry/racism exercised by majority communities. Black stereotypes and attitudes against other races are much less corrosive and much less efficacious than majority-held stereotypes against blacks.
You may disagree with the terminology he used, but that’s the gist of his message, and drawing simple formal equivalences between black racism and white racism fails to embrace the reality that power differences make black racism and white racism different in their effects.
5 Likes
I know, right? Nobody else would post revenge porn, racist commentary, homophobic content, climate-change denials, etc… so I guess anything goes.
hassgocubs has a really good point. I was a newspaper journalist and worked with newspaper journalists for a couple of decades, and my reaction is that convenience is likely a much bigger factor here than racism, conscious or unconscious.
I can easily see a reporter learning that the suspects in the March 24 case were wrestlers, and that led to the focus of the story, to the headline and to how photos were found and selected.
Not that unconscious racism is absent as a factor, but it’s more general than this specific case. It’s a matter of inattention.
If anyone in the newsroom pays attention to how people of different races are portrayed over time, and they should, than editors should put policies in place that produce news reports that are fairer and more reflective of reality. In this case, for example, maybe a policy would assert that the paper goes out of its way to find non-mugshot photos if available for anyone arrested or always uses mugshot photos for everyone.
News organizations are subject to many constraints in finding information and images for stories, and some of those constraints, if not addressed, lead to a skewed view of the world.
2 Likes
You don’t really want to start calling the adult black men boys, do you?
1 Like
Given that all parties involved are not minors, in the eyes of the law they are all men.
4 Likes
FWIW, you’ll note that I was quoting from a post by @aluchko.
1 Like
Yeah, that is an environment that encourages lazy journalism.
That’s kind of the point, here - it’s not the “factual narrative” that we’re concerned with, it’s the story’s implied narrative. Which is remarkably different for the two stories that are superficially quite similar.
2 Likes
At least they don’t do what my local rag does: Publish the addresses of the accused.
3 Likes
Well, first, and this is just an assumption, but the newspaper probably copyrights their stories and prefers that others don’t go rerunning them. So yeah, even ignoring law, it’s a little hypocritical to run a photograph without permission but expect others to honor your copyrighted material.
That said, copyright laws do exist for a reason, even if they are a little overreaching at times. It’s a way for someone to protect their work; it’s a way to keep others from making a profit from your work which in turn prevents you from earning anything from it. The system may have been hijacked by big corporations, but it is originally intended to protect the little guy, the freelance photographers, writers, graphic designers and artists who depend on that revenue to feed their families. Believe me (and this is from personal experience), it’s pretty heartbreaking to see your work being sold by someone else without your permission and you don’t see a dime.
