As I read William Faulkner's great masterpiece Light in August, I reach the dramatic moment where Joe Brown is looking to get a 1,000 dollar check for "turning in" Joe Christmas. It looks as if Brown is losing his persuasion, until he brings up the fact that Christmas is part negro, to which the officers respond by completely agreeing with Brown that he is guilty. Now I'm sure plenty of people responded by saying "THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!! HOW CAN THEY DO THIS!!" and act like this stuff never happens around them, which is correct. But because people are vehemently against any sense of racism, issues that could possibly relate to conflict take precedence over other crimes.
For example, the Michael Brown case in Ferguson Missouri shows how people can get caught up in these ideals. People see that a black teenager is shot by a white cop, and people immediately riot against "the man" and attack the police force without actually seeing any evidence. It has been shown that a police report called for a armed robber in a white shirt in the area when Brown was found by the officer. It is suggested that there was a struggle between the two, and that the gunshot was done in self defense. Yet reporters don't feed this information to the viewers, it gets pushed aside for activists and news of rioting to capture the eyes and wallets of companies and people.
But lets go back to good old Chicago, where a similarly aged African American male is killed with 16 bullets as he drives with three friends down the street. Where is Jesse Jackson? Where are the news trucks? The massive riots? Nowhere. The news just reports it as a gang related incident and no killer is suspect for the crime. These murders happen every single day in the US or even out big city, but nobody knows or cares about them as much as a government vs. citizen conflict.
So the real question is why. Why do these stories capture our attention while others go by in the wind? The answer can be found in Faulkner's tale and how easy it would be for the officers to accuse Christmas of the crime. If a local white man is convict of such a horrible atrocity, then the news reporters will come and bring infamy to the area. But if a part negro male is brought to "justice," then people in the story are comfortable with this and it will just be another murder.
So what can people do to avoid this bias? Nothing. It is going to happen whether or not you want it to. If someone with money and power reacts, then others will follow suit. When a radio station plays new music, the band with blow up, while other artists will go along. Tales are stones by a sea, where one is hand picked to skip while thousands wait for recognition that will never come.
These tales of "racist attacks" will always happen. Whatever gathers the advertisement money.
I agree that there are many murders of young black men and women that do not get as much media attention as they should. However, I completely disagree that there is nothing people can do to change the racist police brutality that happens daily, and the racist bias in american courts. Just this year, a black man got 35 years in prison for killing a police dog, and yet its been months since Michael Brown was shot and there has been no decision for Darren Wilson. Yes, people are making money off of the events in Ferguson. A T-shirt company made a t-shirt design about it and gave 0% of the profits in support of Brown's family. There are reasons that may not be completely moral why some stories get more attention than others, but thats not a reason to ignore the people police murder, unjustifiably, and get away with it. These attacks being racist is not a spin that's put on to get people to watch the news, it's real.
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