Let me ask you this. If George Zimmerman was named Jorge Gonzalez, would that incident have been a national story?
I highly doubt it. It made news because social Media INITIALLY took the stance that a white man gunned down a black kid.
That's also why later descriptions of Zimmerman called him a White Hispanic, not because it was some little-use Census categorization, but because they needed to keep the white on black angle going.
The basic facts were reported correctly in Ferguson and those are what lead to the rush in judgement and the (still) perceived injustice.
In the Zimmerman case, the basic facts were not initially correct- specifically the race of curious George. And the "rush to judgement" didn't really occur until after the 911 tapes were released.
There is a huge difference between the reaction of both the media and twitter users in these two cases (IMO because one involves a white Police Officer):
The two are about two different, although somewhat related things: White citizens mistrusting and mistreating innocent black kids (Martin) and Law Enforcement mistrusting and mistreating innocent black kids (Brown). There's a big distinction there. One speaks to institutional racism in a way, while the other doesn't.
And to answer your question, of course not. For whatever reasons that we probably shouldn't get into here, brown on brown crime doesn't make the headlines for the most part.
The basic facts were reported correctly in Ferguson and those are what lead to the rush in judgement and the (still) perceived injustice.
Like a black kid died at the hands of a white officer. Because many other details were wrong. The "Hands Up" mantra. That he was a gentle giant who never had any problems. That there was a peaceful surrender.
Frankly, it seems like a lot was misreported.
No. That an unarmed black kid was killed by a white cop.
The rest I agree added a bunch of fuel to the fire.
I think we mostly agree- I just think the media didn't create this issue. They helped to build it to where it got after 'regular people' had already started the outrage.
on misrepresentations of his race. I can think of cases in which black people were shot by white males that weren't remotely as well publicized. I bet most of BBI wouldn't recognize the names of Michael Dunn or Theodore Wafer. Their cases didn't get the same coverage because arrests were made relatively quickly and the families felt like justice was served. Both men were eventually convicted.
On the other side is the Sean Bell case. I don't think anger lessened over his death and the subsequent non-charges because 3 of the 4 officers involved were black or hispanic. Bell's fiancee didn't choose not to sue the city because of the race of the officers.
So if GZ's name was Jorge Gonzalez and everything else in the case was the same, I think it still would've been a major story.
Let me ask you this. If George Zimmerman was named Jorge Gonzalez, would that incident have been a national story?
I highly doubt it. It made news because social Media INITIALLY took the stance that a white man gunned down a black kid.
That's also why later descriptions of Zimmerman called him a White Hispanic, not because it was some little-use Census categorization, but because they needed to keep the white on black angle going.
The basic facts were reported correctly in Ferguson and those are what lead to the rush in judgement and the (still) perceived injustice.
In the Zimmerman case, the basic facts were not initially correct- specifically the race of curious George. And the "rush to judgement" didn't really occur until after the 911 tapes were released.
There is a huge difference between the reaction of both the media and twitter users in these two cases (IMO because one involves a white Police Officer):
The two are about two different, although somewhat related things: White citizens mistrusting and mistreating innocent black kids (Martin) and Law Enforcement mistrusting and mistreating innocent black kids (Brown). There's a big distinction there. One speaks to institutional racism in a way, while the other doesn't.
And to answer your question, of course not. For whatever reasons that we probably shouldn't get into here, brown on brown crime doesn't make the headlines for the most part.
Like a black kid died at the hands of a white officer. Because many other details were wrong. The "Hands Up" mantra. That he was a gentle giant who never had any problems. That there was a peaceful surrender.
Frankly, it seems like a lot was misreported.
The rest I agree added a bunch of fuel to the fire.
I think we mostly agree- I just think the media didn't create this issue. They helped to build it to where it got after 'regular people' had already started the outrage.
On the other side is the Sean Bell case. I don't think anger lessened over his death and the subsequent non-charges because 3 of the 4 officers involved were black or hispanic. Bell's fiancee didn't choose not to sue the city because of the race of the officers.
So if GZ's name was Jorge Gonzalez and everything else in the case was the same, I think it still would've been a major story.