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In a study of the Chicago broadcast media, a research team found that black defendants were more likely than defendants of other races to be shown through a mugshot rather than a personal picture or none at all. Another study of television coverage found black suspects are twice as likely as white suspects to be shown on camera under police restraint. While it’s difficult to pinpoint whether a particular suspect is being covered more harshly because of their race, taken in tandem this data points to a dangerous precedent: Black men are easily perceived as criminals, disproportionately to the rate they may be committing crimes.
It’s a similar framing to “Missing White Girl Syndrome,” a name coined to reflect the deluge of coverage when a young, affluent, white female goes missing—and the dearth of coverage when children of color disappear. Entities like the “Black and Missing Foundation” and shows like TVOne’s Find Our Missing are attempts to fill in the gap publicizing missing children who are not white. Scanning the faces of the missing children on these sites comes closer to the reality of the racial breakdown of missing persons: About 34 percent of missing persons overall, and 37 percent of missing minors, are black, according to FBI statistics from 2013. Who media coverage chooses to cast as victims, and what victims—like Brown—don’t fit neatly into the role, has a powerful effect on the mindset of the public who watch these reports and take with them a subliminal idea of what someone who might be victimized looks like.
A man was sitting in a public place waiting to pick his kids up from school. He wasn’t breaking any laws. A shop owner asked him to move—which the shop owner had no right to do—and the man got up and moved. He was then stopped by a cop who asked him his name. He refused to give his name. “I know my rights,” the man said to the cop. And he did know his rights: he was under no obligation to identify himself to her. “Minnesota does not currently have a ‘stop and identify’ statute in place” that would give police the right to arrest someone for [not] identifying himself,” RawStory points out. The cop, unfortunately, didn’t know his rights.
Assistant District Attorney Russell Wilson, who heads the Conviction Integrity Unit, had the task of driving out of state to tell the victim Phillips was the not the man who raped her.
Good grief. Is there anything this guy can't do?!?!!
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