Now remember Michael Brown is the VICTIM of a shooting while Tsarnaev was the perpetrator of a terrorist attack.
But wait there's more.
Here's NYT description of #MichaelBrown compared with Timothy McVeigh. #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/kpO0Lkexil
— Sean McElwee (@SeanMcElwee) August 25, 2014
Here's the NYT description of #Michael Brown compared with John Wayne Gacy. John. Wayne. Gacy. #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/6g45PraGW1
— Sean McElwee (@SeanMcElwee) August 25, 2014
How the New York Times described #MichaelBrown compared to Ted Bundy. #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/VH0Q9euWew
— Sean McElwee (@SeanMcElwee) August 25, 2014
Here's the NYT description of Jeffry Dahmer compared with #MichaelBrown. #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/096hD6qSDU
— Sean McElwee (@SeanMcElwee) August 25, 2014
Yeah good for us that racism is finally dead in America, right?(H/T to The Obama Diary.)
Holy eyeballs, Batman! Can anyone read that?
ReplyDeleteIf you click them they become readable.
DeleteOf course on cellphones that may not be an option.
The Boston Marathon bombings may well have been a government sting gone bad. Of course, no one would admit that, and witnesses had to be killed. Since 9-11 all of the so-called terrorists the US has caught were bumbling characters that the government set up with fake bombs and explosives. The Tsaernovs managed to build a real working bomb ahead of the government's schedule, before they could be stopped arrested to make the FBI look good. There is more to the story than we will ever learn.
ReplyDeleteThat tin hat you're wearing is getting so tight it's cutting off the circulation to your intelligence. Seriously. You may want to go have a drink with Alex Jones, since he's clearly your mentor.
DeleteThanks, 7:46. We don’t need IM to be hijacked by conspiracy nuts.There is nothing more boring than poor cognitive skills in full display.
DeleteThank you, Gryphen. Another important post.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize Tsarnaev had been convicted of anything. All we have are government goons saying he did this, while gunning down witnesses. Is Gryph just swallowing the government line again and repeating their propaganda?
ReplyDeleteTin hats seem to be on parade today. What a paranoid idiot you are revealed to be.
DeleteI'd rather be a paranoid idiot than a brain dead sheep.
DeleteI agree with you Prut, good little government drones, believing everything that Uncle Sam tells them, just as he wants it. Questioning EVERYTHING shouldn't lead to accusations of tinfoil hattery.
DeleteWhile the Boston bombing has absolutely nothing to do with the shooting in Ferguson, we should also remember that the Tsarnaev apartment was chuck full of evidence. And the police and feds actually handled that day long chase brilliantly. Keep in mind that, although wounded, the young man survived. No tin foil hats needed.
DeleteBeaglemom
Our society places too much emphasis on looks. Media is the worst offender. If the criminal is a blond girl, or a nice looking girl/guy, they'll saturate us with the story and stay on it, knowing they'll get ratings. If a girl or guy is not "hot", they'll either ignore the story or give it a back page spot.
ReplyDeleteThey are fascinated with beauty. Of course 'they' are the white media. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and media seem to still be caught up in 'white beauty', unless a colored woman or man has that exotic look; then and only then will they pick up the story.
Michael Brown was a handsome boy. He may have run into trouble, hung around the wrong crowd, or whatever. So many kids, all colours, at that age, are trying to find their identification. They want to look sexy, or tough or aim for the 'gang rapper' look, which will get them maximum popularity in their circles...........
People like Tsarnaov and Palin and beautiful criminals can seduce the gullible. They prey on looking sweet, charming, and then WHAM, they catch the unsuspecting in webs of deceit. One would think that we've learned our lessons but we don't. LOOKS and appeal are skin deep, but media plays on it and right now, media plays on using our facial features and largeness or demure petiteness as 'guilty' or 'innocent'. And then there's the racism. But before media gets one to go full racism, they play the individual up as either "appearing like a devil or an angel".
And pushing sexy images, by the way, is angelic to them.
8:39 "They are fascinated with beauty."
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I'm not sure if it's fascination or just a prejudice toward beauty. Beautiful people look like they are "smart, rich and/or cool" in some people's eyes. Also what people wear can send those subliminal messages. I'm not even sure they are totally aware of it.
It's all media driven, of course. And they've done their jobs well. To the detriment of our society.
Yes, we do, as William Rivers Pitt pointed out regarding the fury over Tsarnaev's Rolling Stone appearance
Delete"The outrage over Tsarnaev's face on the cover has everything to do with the fact that there is a puppy-dog cuteness about him which is jarring in the context of his alleged crimes. If Tsarnaev's face looked like the back of an old man's balls, no one would give much of a damn about this."
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/17641-on-the-cover-of-the-rolling-stone
The audio recording is interesting - the "you're so pretty," part makes me wonder whether the guy was making a movie like filming a woman or sex act, and the audio was copied and released. Not saying there weren't all those shots fired, but only that a audio only ecording is pretty unusual these days.
ReplyDeleteThe guy was doing a video chat with someone.
DeleteAt 35 ft or less, only 6 of 10/11/12 shots hit the target. It's fortunate a bystander didn't get hit.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the poster who is discussing the fascination with beauty and how it skews reality. We are a very sick society and nothing will change until we own up to our own prejudices. We are human animals organized as tribes with an instinct for preservation. We stick with our own and expect our backs to be covered against attack. It is time to own up to this and effect change so all of us are “covered” and protected. If life is so “sancrosant” let’s actually behave so.
ReplyDeleteA suggestion for Bristol's next book club: The Secret Garden. It is a classic children's book about a disabled young boy who can only watch life from his window.
ReplyDeleteKind of like Sarah did with Piper's ice bucket challenge.
No disrespect to the post's topic, but perhaps a better choice would be "Fifty Shades of Grey"
DeleteThe media is a partner in partisanship. Another reason moderation has disappeared in our national discussions.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be fairer to compare the articles onTreyvon Martin, Matthew Sheppard, Brandon McClelland, and other murder victims that caused rioting, rather than to murderers.
ReplyDeleteThis is literally comparing apples to oranges; victims to their attackers.
Kinda sad that we're comparing Mike Brown to the likes of Ted Bundy anyway. It says more about us than them. :-/
I agree except that articles about young, male, African American victims would always include implications about bad behavior.
DeleteBeaglemom
Amazing difference, isn't it? Yes, Racism is alive and well. I actually heard people in the booth next to ours at lunch saying "They (African Americans) are racist among themselves, they prefer lighter tones of brown, white features and long straight hair, I can't for the life of me understand why they're whining, all ethnicities have had to fight, and they're not complaining"
ReplyDeleteI felt like giving her a piece of my mind, but didn't want to cause a scene.
Thanks for including this post, Gryphen. I picked up parts of it on Joy Reid's program and some idiot yammering about POTUS leading from behind and taking too much time off.
When the apartments where Mike Brown was killed at were originally opened, it was a white Shangri-La. Ferguson was almost entirely white back then, and "The Village Apartments," now known as The Canfield Green Apartments, was a favorite among young, upscale whites. This was circa 1973.
ReplyDeleteLease an apartment in The Village back then and you were an automatic member of the 9 hole golf course next to the apartments (do a Google Map on it, it's still there). In addition to golf, there was a clubhouse that featured a discotheque with a full bar.
I know this because as a newly transplanted New Yorker, it was my first apartment in St. Louis.
I can assure you that the current residents of The Canfield Green Apartments no longer have access to that discotheque/bar, or the clubhouse it was located in, and needless to add, but there is no longer any automatic golf course membership afforded to its residents.
In the 40 or so years since then that I have lived here, I have found that the racism here is so deeply embedded that I don't think it will ever disappear. I hope to be proven wrong about that someday, but I doubt I'll live long enough to observe it, and that stinks.
The problem with social/cultural observations is that people cannot walk and chew gum...they can't hold two or more ideas in their head at once time. For this reason, I think your post is simplistic and "cheating" in a sense.
ReplyDeleteBrown was not a law-abiding citizen. The cop was not following the law, either. As far as the overwhelming police reaction, both sides were wrong. You don't "protest" in the middle of the night, that's a riot, not a protest. You also don't throw moltov cocktails. On the other hand, as police, you don't gas and pummel citizens with rubber bullets. This is America, not the middle east.
As far as the pics in your post,...a ,middle class white boy with no trouble with the law who gets sucked into a terrorist cell is a STORY to be told, because it tells us that this is dangerous and can happen again. It's something not before seen. And it's linked to international crime. A local black boy shaking down a store owner who has a history of trouble, is not a story, it's just part of Americana. It's part of us, it's the reality of living in a country with few good jobs, poor neighborhoods, no focus on education or social help for single moms, gangs, and no rehabilitative programs for jails. Racism is of course part of that story, there's no doubt. But no problem gets solved by throwing catchphrases or giving soundbites on tv.
The larger issues relating to this story is not racism, racism has been around a long time. The larger issue is the disappearance of the middle class, expensive education, overcrowding, lack of social programs, and wage suppression. The larger issue is an increased militarization of police, who seem to be waiting for some day in the future when we're all going to rise up and riot in every city. The larger issue is corporate buyout of government and media, so that we have no representation, or even an honest public discussion without being shut down. Racism, in the sense of white vs black on the streets of America is a small story and doesn't even begin to touch the problems facing all of us.
Anon 4:08 You make a lot of assumptions. All those innocent white boys, huh?
ReplyDeleteYour post disappoints on many levels, but it does clearly illustrate how racism can continue to prevail unabated in America.
Sorry to hear about your walking and chewing gum problem, but heck, even Sarah’s licked that one (pun intended).
I hear ya! Our local paper puts up picks of all minorities with dark skin criminals and never puts up the white skin criminals. Talk about racist or profiles.
ReplyDelete