Facebook/news media buzz vs. Facebook/news media yawn

[Jeff Fairchild]

Denise  --  I understand your point, but I don't believe removal of the Stand Your Ground law would "remedy" anything except perhaps the public outcry for a more rapid path to justice in the Florida story and the need for the media and others to have a favorite meme validated.    I don't think it would remedy any of the underlying causes for the story, anymore than it would remedy anything in Illinois if its very similar "stand your ground" jurisprudence were altered. 

Even if the solution to the Florida could be something quick and easy, that still wouldn't justify the disparity in treatment between the Florida story and the Chicago story.  In fact, isn't the more difficult problem the one that should require more attention, not less?

Frankly, I think the way the Florida story is now being played may do more harm than good to the underlying issues both in Florida and Chicago.    Certainly it is doing harm by distracting from the Chicago story.

[YahooBill]

I had heard of the Florida story, but not the Chicago story. But, I'm not sure what your point is, Jeff. I'm sure that there many other important stories that I have also not heard about. The news media pick and choose what stories are reported - it has been this way forever. Add in facebook, and you tend to get a feedback loop going - stories that were reported earlier are reported over and over, with no added information or analysis. I think the media (including the internet) is make slow (that is, not as fast as I would like) but steady progress on reporting the Florida story. Again, I think it has been this way for a very long time. Since before the internet.

[Jeff Fairchild]

I had heard of the Florida story, but not the Chicago story. But, I'm not sure what your point is, Jeff. I'm sure that there many other important stories that I have also not heard about.

Bill, Im' sure there are other stories too.

The news media pick and choose what stories are reported - it has been this way forever.

Agree again.

Add in facebook, and you tend to get a feedback loop going - stories that were reported earlier are reported over and over, with no added information or analysis.

Agree again.

I think the media (including the internet) is make slow (that is, not as fast as I would like) but steady progress on reporting the Florida story. Again, I think it has been this way for a very long time. Since before the internet.

Agree again.

Does any of the above explain the disparity in the treatment of the two stories? Part of my point is that there is a disparity.  Another part of my point is that we should examine why there is a disparity.
Does any of the above excuse the disparity?  Part of my point is that there shouldn't be a disparity, or if there is one, it ought to be in favor of greater attention to the Chicago story than the Florida story.  Another part of my point is that the disparity that I see does harm to our nation, rather than helps our nation. 

[Denise Goodman]

I understand your point, but I don't believe removal of the Stand Your Ground law would "remedy" anything except perhaps the public outcry for a more rapid path to justice in the Florida story and the need for the media and others to have a favorite meme validated.    I don't think it would remedy any of the underlying causes for the story, anymore than it would remedy anything in Illinois if its very similar "stand your ground" jurisprudence were altered.

So, Jeff, what do you see as underlying causes of these tragedies?

[YahooBill]

Does any of the above explain the disparity in the treatment of the two stories? Part of my point is that there is a disparity.  Another part of my point is that we should examine why there is a disparity. Does any of the above excuse the disparity?  Part of my point is that there shouldn't be a disparity, or if there is one, it ought to be in favor of greater attention to the Chicago story than the Florida story.  Another part of my point is that the disparity that I see does harm to our nation, rather than helps our nation.

Thanks, Jeff.

Why is there a disparity? Others have offered suggestions. My suggestions are race/class (white shooter, young black victim, upper/middle class location) and comprehensibility (shooter is known, most of the facts surrounding the incident are known).

Should there be a disparity? No. Everyone should always act completely rationally so as to maximize the good to society. I'm not trying to be flip, but I just don't think it's gonna happen soon or easily. But we should keep trying.

BTW, while researching your original links, I found this: http://www.trentonian.com/article/20120323/OPINION03/120329862/what-about-murders-closer-to-home-

[Jeff Fairchild]

Why is there a disparity? Others have offered suggestions. My suggestions are race/class (white shooter, young black victim, upper/middle class location) and comprehensibility (shooter is known, most of the facts surrounding the incident are known).

Thanks Bill.  I agree that race/class is one of the main reasons for the disparity.  I wonder how much more of the facts would be know about the Chicago shootings if even half as much attention had been paid to them as is currently been paid to the Flordia shooting.

Should there be a disparity? No. Everyone should always act completely rationally so as to maximize the good to society. I'm not trying to be flip, but I just don't think it's gonna happen soon or easily. But we should keep trying.

I agee we should keep trying.  As is often said, the first step is admitting there is a problem. 

BTW, while researching your original links, I found this: http://www.trentonian.com/article/20120323/OPINION03/120329862/what-about-murders-closer-to-home-

Thanks for this Bill.  Its really worth reading.  One of the frustrations I have is that I think a lot of politicians, activists, celebrities, news makers, and news reporters are all aware of what is pointed out in the article, yet we still have the disparity in treatment that we have seen in these two stories.

So, Jeff, what do you see as underlying causes of these tragedies?

Denise, as you have pointed out, it is complicated.  Here are a few from the article column that Bill linked (emphasis mine):

While civil rights activists scream for a satisfying resolution, I have to offer this assessment about Sanford, social activists and others jettisoned into this Florida fray: Will blacks in America ever show anger and disgust for our murders, the black-on-black killings that permeate most urban cities, our disdain for life, our acceptance for thugs, gang members, etc.?

Philadelphia has chalked up 80 murders in 2012, just about one a day, almost like downing a multivitamin tablet.
. . .

Media masterminds have determined that African Americans killing each other, and Latino Americans killing each other, is not major news.

But when a white man is suspected of killing a black teen? Baby, that’s a highlight. Race matters breed anger, hate and an outcry of social injustice.

Those pushing this Sanford affair have called for people to hop a flight to Miami Beach and participate in a news media gang bang.

A suggestion here is to stay at home and express outrage over murders in our own backyard or front porch.

Ooops. There goes another dead African American kid shot by somebody who looks like him. Another dead Latino girl. Another Philly working mom gunned down in gang crossfire. And another......

For another underlying cause, see the war on drugs, which has spent billions of dollars in a failed attempt to control the flow of drugs to our citizens, while putting a huge number of young men into jail, provided many others with criminal records that will further impede their chances in life, and helped to build the inner city gang culture that creates so much of the extreme violence in our urban areas.  For another underlying cause see, the steady decline in family structures and respect for life that has occured in the last 40 years or so.   Too many men and too many women see parenthood as something that is optional for one or both parties to a conception, and too many people see the termination of a life as just another form of birth control that is needed to avoid the inconvenience that they believe will occur if the life is not terminated. 

[Denise Goodman]

I fully agree with the downside of the war on drugs. Too often it has resulted in imprisoning young men for minor drug infractions who emerge with criminal records, a prison-inculcated negative view of life that promotes violence and overall lack of respect for the system that led them there.  I, too, am concerned about the decline of families and that's why, in the debate about contraceptives, I continued to raise the issue of male responsibility.  I'm also concerned about legislation -- state and federal -- that would cut spending on the very programs that provide crucial support to families of all flavors -- both single and dual parent families as well as grandparents raising grandkids, etc.

[Jeff Fairchild]

I, too, am concerned about the decline of families and that's why, in the debate about contraceptives, I continued to raise the issue of male responsibility.

I think male responsibility is very important.  I think some males feel empowered to walk away after a woman fails to have an abortion because those males have been taught that abortion is a perfectly acceptable and reasonable means of birth control.  Thus, if a woman refuses to have one, the responsibility for the non-terminated life is now solely on her because of her choice.   

I'm also concerned about legislation -- state and federal -- that would cut spending on the very programs that provide crucial support to families of all flavors -- both single and dual parent families as well as grandparents raising grandkids, etc.

Just like the war on drugs, each of those programs should be reviewed to see if they are helping or hurting the situation over the long term.

[Denise Goodman]

Here's the best thing I've read yet on this issue -- from a black prosecutor who addresses both the issues Jeff has raised as well as the immediate Florida one.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/26/paul-butler-on-trayvon-martin-and-racial-profiling.html

[Bobbi Cote-Whitacre]

I don't have enough information about both sides in the Trayvon Martin case to have an informed opinion on the shooting itself, but it does seem to me that "Stand Your Ground" laws smack of encouraging vigilantism.

As to why the Martin case has gotten so much coverage and the ones in Jeff's original post haven't, it's probably because: 1) Florida is a southern state so it automatically gets more scrutiny when race is perceived to be involved (stereotyping); 2) people believe the victim/perpetrator was profiled; 3) there aren't that many shootings in Sanford; and 4) Martin's family had better connections than the families of the other shooting victims.

[Jeff Fairchild]

I don't have enough information about both sides in the Trayvon Martin case to have an informed opinion on the shooting itself

Some words of wisdom.

Here is a report on another person who is unwilling to ignore the extreme violence that occurs every single day in our major urban areas and who will not put cheap politics ahead of all the victims lives.  Former NAACP leader C.L. Bryant is accusing Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton of “exploiting” the Trayvon Martin tragedy to “racially divide this country.”  From the article:

“Why not be angry about the wholesale murder that goes on in the streets of Newark and Chicago?” he asked. “Why isn’t somebody angry about that six-year-old girl who was killed on her steps last weekend in a cross fire when two gang members in Chicago start shooting at each other? Why is there no outrage about that?”

[Steven]

35 years ago, I worked with 4th graders in Cleveland Schools.  We saw about 125 kids a day.  What they carried singed my soul & still brings me to tears & anger.  Knives were a daily observation. Every week or so, we'd see a pistol or two. There were never any fights, rarely any discipline problems. The parents gave them the weapons to protect themselves from older gang members going home from their normal school. 

The myopia of the media is only exceeded by the hypocrisy of our elected politicians watching our cities and families decay,  destroying thousands of lives yearly.  Jesse's & Al's grandstanding is just that & nothing more.  Could we discuss solutions with the same energy we put into these outrageous stories? I'm going to stifle myself before I drift out of "family-friendly" .   

Blessings!

[Jeff Fairchild]

Could we discuss solutions with the same energy we put into these outrageous stories?

Steven, I think it is hard to talk solutions when so few are willing to acknowledge, let alone discuss, the real problems

Another column attempting to explain the disparity in treatment and address some of the real problems:  The Media and Black Homicide Victims  From the column:

Why don’t you protest more black crime victims? The answer would be the same in all cases: Because the only black victims who interest the race industry and its mainstream media handmaidens are blacks who have been killed by “white” civilians, including honorary whites like Martin’s killer George Zimmerman, or blacks who have been killed or offended by the police (black officers will do here in a pinch).

Unfortunately, there are very few such victims. Ninety-three percent of all black homicide casualties from 1980 to 2008 were killed by other blacks, and are thus of no interest whatsoever to today’s race advocates, because they fail to support the crucial story line that blacks remain under siege by a racist white power structure.

Some interesting stats from the column (I wonder how accurate they are):

Here’s another difference between police killings of blacks, white-on-black killings, and black-on-black killings: Sheer numbers. There were nine civilian victims of police gunfire last year in New York City; there were several hundred black homicide victims in the city, almost all shot by other blacks or Hispanics, none of them given substantial press coverage. Nationwide, in 2005, there were 2,646 black victims of other blacks, compared to 349 black victims of whites or Hispanics. The relative rates of interracial killings are wildly skewed towards black on white killings: There were two and a half times as many white and Hispanic victims of civilian black killers in 2009 as there were black victims of civilian white and Hispanic killers, even though the black population is one-sixth that of whites and Hispanics combined. Yet to read columnists such as the Times’s Charles Blow or to listen to the professional racial extortionists, it is the police and whites who are the biggest threat to blacks, not other blacks.

Meanwhile, back here in Chicago land, just more of the same old, same old: 2 Indiana Girls Hurt in East Chicago Shooting   I wonder if those from the UCC national setting who pranced around in hoodies the day after these shootings while jumping on the Florida story bandwagon think they accomplished much of anything to help any one of the thousands of victims represented by these two girls from Indiana.

[Denise Goodman]

Jeff -- these are two different situations.  And you are assuming there is no attention being directed to the black-on-black inner city homicides.  I suspect a good deal of effort is being made to address that situation and probably quite a bit by Chicago's Trinity UCC.

I will admit I think we are now over-saturated with coverage of the Florida shooting.  But I think it points to a different situation -- the danger of being black in the wrong place.  Here's another perspective on that issue.  I have a bi-racial godson who has spent his entire 30-some years in Maine and Vermont, the two whitest states in the nation where, because there are so few people of color, they are not viewed by many if any as any kind of threat.  So they grow up feeling very safe -- as safe as the white kids with whom they engage.  But when they reach their teens and may travel to Boston or New York or any other major urban area, parents try to warn them that those venues may be very different when it comes to their safety.  For example, if they are driving and are stopped by police, they are warned not to make any quick moves or even to open a glove compartment without the cop's OK lest any quick move become an excuse for being shot.  They are warned about walking in predominantly white neighborhoods, etc., etc.  These are painful but necessary warnings.

The other thing that makes the Florida situation different is the number of questions about (a) the Hold Your Ground law and (b) about any police complicity with a possible crime.

Back to my original point -- I think there are a variety of attempts to address inner city crime that too often ends up in the deaths of people and kids who get caught in the cross-fire.  Perhaps one way to support them is to lobby for more funding for programs attempting to address the situation.

[Jeff Fairchild]

Jeff -- these are two different situations.  And you are assuming there is no attention being directed to the black-on-black inner city homicides.

Denise,  I think I have been pretty clear that I think there is a disparity of attention.  I have never asserted "no attention", nor indicated that I was making such an assumption.

I will admit I think we are now over-saturated with coverage of the Florida shooting.

Good.     Now how about considering how we might be undersaturated with coverage of the "black on black" crime as discussed in the column I linked.

But I think it points to a different situation -- the danger of being black in the wrong place.

Seems like a lot of shooting victims could claim that they were [fill in any racial term you like] in the wrong place, including many, or all, of the victims of "black on black" crime.

Here's another perspective on that issue.  I have a bi-racial godson who has spent his entire 30-some years in Maine and Vermont, the two whitest states in the nation where, because there are so few people of color, they are not viewed by many if any as any kind of threat.

Interesting assertion as to why "they are not viewed by many" as "any kind of threat".  Why would more "people of color" (to use your preferred racial term) make it more or less likely for them to be viewed as some "kind of threat"?

So they grow up feeling very safe -- as safe as the white kids with whom they engage.

That is how it should be.   

But when they reach their teens and may travel to Boston or New York or any other major urban area, parents try to warn them that those venues may be very different when it comes to their safety.  For example, if they are driving and are stopped by police, they are warned not to make any quick moves or even to open a glove compartment without the cop's OK lest any quick move become an excuse for being shot.

I give my kids (who I don't think you would label as "people of color") the same advise. 

They are warned about walking in predominantly white neighborhoods, etc., etc.  These are painful but necessary warnings.

If the stats mentioned in the column I linked are any where near to being accurate, perhaps they should consider expanding their warnings to include other neighborhoods as well.

The other thing that makes the Florida situation different is the number of questions about (a) the Hold Your Ground law and (b) about any police complicity with a possible crime.

I agree on (a), but not on (b). 

Back to my original point -- I think there are a variety of attempts to address inner city crime that too often ends up in the deaths of people and kids who get caught in the cross-fire.  Perhaps one way to support them is to lobby for more funding for programs attempting to address the situation.

Perhaps another way is to look at how failed some of those programs/attempts have been and not to keep repeating or funding the same failed programs/attempts.  Another way would be not to distract huge amounts of attention away from what is a huge problem in favor of something that is, in relative terms, a rarity.