Came across this article. The title is, “Early skirmishes in race war”, by Thomas Sowell:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/362030/early-skirmishes-race-war-thomas-sowell#!
For American society, a dangerous polarization has set in. Signs of this polarization over the years include opposite reactions between blacks and whites to the verdict in the O. J. Simpson murder case, the “rape” charges against Duke University students, and the trials resulting from the beating of Rodney King and the death of Trayvon Martin.
Thomas Sowell, listed four famous incidents that were covered intensely over a long period of time over the last couple of decades. For what It’s worth, Mr. Sowell is a respected economist, and dark-skinned (aka “black”, “African American”, etc).
Maybe that makes me neither black nor white in those terms.
#1. I thought people should leave well enough alone with the O. J. Simpson trial after he was declared “Not Guilty” by the jury. (A mostly white jury, by the way).
#2. I was very skeptical of the charges against the Duke University students, but mostly thought the media, and the university, treated them with their own prejudice.
#3. I thought the police that beat on Rodney King should have been put in prison. They claimed that the drugs that he admittedly had in his system had made him oblivious to pain, so that they had to keep going in order to subject him. I always thought the video showed there were enough officers there to physically subjugate him and then hog-tie him, bind his legs and arms together and haul him back to the station.
But on all these things, it is hard to see how any of the millions of people not directly associated with the events or even indirectly could be so very certain of themselves, just based on media reporting.
In other recent examples, mostly outside the race issue, in my opinion you can see some telling signs of media attitudes about race and class. Casey Anthony was tried, convicted, hung, tarred and feathered on national news networks long before the trial ever began. My own background is from a poor single-mother family, and lived on literally the “wrong side of the tracks”. It became visible to me that the media reporting mostly manifested the elite upper-class snotty-nosed attitude toward “white trash” (or alternately “trailer trash”).
Even now, you get conflicting media flashbacks to the Anthony trial on both sides of the jury decision. A pox on both sides. Not even the jury knows what really happened, it seems, and that would make a “Not Guilty” decision the right one.
#4. That brings me to the Trayvon Martin case. That one is another example where it pays to pay attention, but it pays a thousand times better if you pay heed to the first whispers of reporting, or search back to them, AND waiting to see the details (finally) come to surface.
World Turns Away as Rebel Massacres of Syrian Christians Intensify
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/17229-world-turns-away-as-rebel-massacres-of-syrian-christians-intensify
Al Gore Forecasted “Ice-Free” Arctic by 2013; Ice Cover Expands 50%
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/17207-al-gore-forecasted-ice-free-arctic-by-2013-ice-cover-expands-50
(Tags: race, trials, jury, Christians, persecution, global warming, global cooling, climate change, environment, propaganda
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