"SUPERHUMAN" Blacks - - Oh, our wonderful, unbiased media...

[Yollam]

http://www.wftv.com/news/9256517/detail.html


Looking at this TV station's news web page, I couldn't help but be struck by the headlines.

"Teacher With 'Superhuman Strength' Arrested By Cops"

You guessed it - black. Why is it that black suspects always seem to have "superhuman" strength, or something of the like? Can't they just be "strong"? Or could it be that the cops were wusses?


Then this: VIDEO: "Dixie Chicks Strike Again"

What did they strike? Last I heard, BUSH struck, leaving a pile of 30,000 Iraqi civilian corpses and 2400 US corpses in his wake. All the Chicks did was say they were ashamed of him. At this point, what American in their right mind isn't?




Oh, then I LOVED this one:

"Convicted Sniper: D.C. Attacks Smaller Than Planned"

This black man didn't have "superhuman strength", but his attacks were convenient fodder for the media to hype up at the time so that they wouldn't have to cover all the CIA analysts who were coming forward to say that all intel showed that the likelihood of any WMD stockpiles being in Iraq was slim to none. What a blast from the past! It's so seldom that the media revisits one of their hype distraction stories. Who knows, we may here from Gary Condit and the runaway bride again soon!

Speaking of distractions, "Arrival Of Pitt-Jolie Baby 'Imminent,' Actor Says" is listed under "National and World News".!

Remember when there were separate gossip/showbiz sections? I guess they've pretty much abandoned all pretense of being journalists at this point...

[Yollam]

1. kick...

Maybe this headline is a bit less generic...

[Tiggeroshii]

2. lol!

Yeah, I opened it this time. Very interesting!

[Ksec]

3. They have special powers you can only dream about

I saw Will Smith kill a giant bug in Men in Black. Its all true.

[itzamirakul]

4. By emphasizing "superhuman" strength, they have justification for

roughly handling the arrested black men (and women). Ever watch "Cops?" Now that is one program that shows just how deeply ingrained prejudice really is!

[Yollam]

7. Maybe...

...but I have yet to read of a white suspect displaying this "superhuman" strength.

Superhuman = greater than that of a human, IE the implication is : NOT human...

[itzamirakul]

9. Perhaps my post did not reflect it, but I understand exactly what you

mean.

Another term that angers me is "humble." Especially in sports, you will hear or read white sportscasters speak of "good" blacks (i.e. blacks that they like) as being "humble." I just read this in the NY Daily News a few days ago about Floyd Patterson being "humble" in his victories. That is one thing you never read about white sports figures: I have never heard one sports reporter suggest that a white player in any sport should show "Humility."

[Yollam]

12. Or "articulate".

Like it's not normal for blacks to be able to speak in an intelligible way. I remember in the 1988 campaign, Jackson was often described thus, and it struck me as odd, because I have never found him to be especially articulate, but actually he has a very affected manner of speaking. He may be eloquent at times, but not all that articulate. I always find that patronizing...

[Nickster]

5. I think you're going a little bit overboard about the superhuman strength

thing. The cop described the guy as having "superhuman" strength, which is a common description when encountering someone who is under the influence of PCP. Along with him claiming to be Luke Skywalker, another symptom of PCP, grandiosity. I don't think there was anything inherently racist in what was reported.

As for your broader comments about the media, I agree completely.

[bbinacan]

8. Thank you for

demonstrating some reason here. Race had ZERO to do with it.

[Yollam]

10. It may or may not have...

The point was just that there were so many instances of the unprofessional work of today's "journalists" all on one page, that I thought it deserved mention.



And if you see an article in ANY media outlet anywhere describing a WHITE suspect with "superhuman" strength, please let me know, because it will be a first for me.

[itzamirakul]

11. The above posts show you why we will never get rid of racism because

there are so many people who refuse to see it, while they themselves are perhaps guilty of it also.

[Asgaya Dihi]

17. A different take on it

I've got a different take on why racism, among other things, is so hard to deal with. We spend too much time dealing with petty and arguable things and not enough on the bigger ones that are easier to prove. It used to drive me crazy when that hyphenated African-American bit was popular. One guy wanted to be called African-American, the next got pissed at you and wondered what Africa had to do with it. How do you win with that? If we look for offense we'll find it, even among friends.

We fight too many little battles like that, then when I ran across the stats on the following page I couldn't figure out why the hell black and other progressive leaders weren't shouting it from the rooftops. You want to see real racism? What's this? www.prisonsucks.com

People don't believe it's there because we aren't telling them, we're fighting over the petty crap instead. If we'd learn to not get offended at every little distraction and deal with the bigger issues then we might get somewhere. For what it's worth I'm not black, but I do know the difference between right and wrong and I do care. I just can't see why we're wasting time on the little stuff when most people aren't even aware the bigger ones are there.

[itzamirakul]

19. Your comments are well taken and appreciated...

The problem is, when a person is African American and lives with racism on a daily basis, there is no big and small to the disrespect that is shown so blatantly and ignored so readily

[Asgaya Dihi]

20. I know

I grew up in the DC suburbs and spent four and a half years locked up before I'd turned 15. I'm fairly aware of it, I lived it with them.

I can understand the anger, it took me years to get over it. Not over it really I guess, but functional at least. Now it's time to pull together and change something, the system still grows. 724 inmates per 100k in 2004, 702 the year before, 686 the year before that. I bite my tongue here again and again to avoid any fights, not because I'm afraid of them, I'm fairly good at it, I've just never solved anything like that and we've got work to do.

I just want to see this ended. It's well past out of control, prison is a for profit enterprise and they are writing laws themselves. Literally. A council writes them, recommends them to law makers who then customize so it looks a little different State to State and pass them. There's an audio that describes that among other things if you're interested, link to full program on lower left of page.

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/corrections/index.html

[Yollam]

22. For the record, the point of the post is not about racism anyway.

It's just about the overall crappy state of news reporting in general.

Sensationalist, veiled racist reporting is just a small part of it.

[itzamirakul]

26. You are right, but "racism" is never a "small part" of anything if YOU are

the one on the receiving end.

But as I said, you are right about crappy reporting. The sad thing is that so many of these young reporters are still so gullible and tend to actually believe a lot of the lies that they hear.

Then on the other side, you have those reporters who KNOW they are lying to buttress the side of the rw, yet they are the ones who "have mortgages to pay and children in private school," so they are no better than the papparrazzi that chase celebs. Personal interests have replaced any desire to tell the truth.

Lastly, there are the owners of the various print and broadcast media and their biases. Some media are owned by corporations (bottom line - make money for investors) and some are headed by a single entity like Murdoch or Bloomberg (bottom line - make money for self).Other businesses will not take out ad space if the media tells the truth about them, so lies are told in many instances.

[mzteris]

24. on a related note:

hubby still doesn't get why some people are offended by the "Fairy commercial" (where the fairy changes the guy into a sweater wearing/little dog walking guy.....) and that MEAT commercial (the one where all the guys name some meat product and one guy says VEGGIE MEDLEY and they all look at him like he's nuts?)

I told him it's because he's not gay (the first commercial) and he's not a vegetarian (the 2nd commercial. ) He kept telling me I was "too sensitive" until during his travels - to more liberal markets - he saw that the commercials have been EDITED to take out the VEGGIE MEDLEY part and the comment by the dogguy at the end....

Now he's wondering what ELSE may be edited to show different things in different markets.

(He still doesn't "get" WHY they're offensive, though. :( )

[Nickster]

25. And there are so many that see racism in everything when there is none.

[Karenina]

28. Ah, the mantra of denial...

http://www.counterpunch.org/wise04242006.html

April 24, 2006
The Absurdity (and Consistency) of White Denial

What Kind of Card is Race?

By TIM WISE

Recently, I was asked by someone in the audience of one of my speeches, whether or not I believed that racism--though certainly a problem--might also be something conjured up by people of color in situations where the charge was inappropriate. In other words, did I believe that occasionally folks play the so-called race card, as a ploy to gain sympathy or detract from their own shortcomings? In the process of his query, the questioner made his own opinion all too clear (an unambiguous yes), and in that, he was not alone, as indicated by the reaction of others in the crowd, as well as survey data confirming that the belief in black malingering about racism is nothing if not ubiquitous.

<snip>

Although the matter is open to debate in any or all of these cases, white folks have been quick to accuse blacks who answer in the affirmative of playing the race card, as if their conclusions have been reached not because of careful consideration of the facts as they see them, but rather, because of some irrational (even borderline paranoid) tendency to see racism everywhere. So too, discussions over immigration, "terrorist" profiling, and Katrina and its aftermath often turn on issues of race, and so give rise to the charge that as regards these subjects, people of color are "overreacting" when they allege racism in one or another circumstance.

Asked about the tendency for people of color to play the "race card," I responded as I always do: First, by noting that the regularity with which whites respond to charges of racism by calling said charges a ploy, suggests that the race card is, at best, equivalent to the two of diamonds. In other words, it's not much of a card to play, calling into question why anyone would play it (as if it were really going to get them somewhere). Secondly, I pointed out that white reluctance to acknowledge racism isn't new, and it isn't something that manifests only in situations where the racial aspect of an incident is arguable. Fact is, whites have always doubted claims of racism at the time they were being made, no matter how strong the evidence, as will be seen below. Finally, I concluded by suggesting that whatever "card" claims of racism may prove to be for the black and brown, the denial card is far and away the trump, and whites play it regularly: a subject to which we will return...

[Nickster]

31. Interesting. So I'm blind to racism? Or do you assume that I'm

racist as well, so I don't see the racism because it is so commonplace to me?

Racism is not inherent in every little thing in life and in every person. My only claim is that there is nothing inherently racist in this news piece. The headline was a part of a quote from someone that was used in the article. From the descriptions of the events, assuming they are unbiased, is that the person was under the influence of drugs, by the symptoms described I would say PCP. A very common description of a person encountered using PCP is that they have superhuman strength. So tell me, how does that become a racist re-telling of events?


Not ascribing every action to racism doesn't mean that I am less sensitive to racism just as ascribing EVERYTHING to racism doesn't make me more keenly aware of racism. I would dare to push the idea that saying racism is everywhere and in everything is going to dull people to racism and charges of racism.

Now on the other hand, if you'd like to claim that only/mostly reporting on black people arrested under the influence of drugs is racist, you'd have something to discuss.

[Karenina]

33. Did you read the article?

?

[Nickster]

34. Yeah, thanks for asking. n/t

[bbinacan]

13. This is the first time

I've heard of anyone having super human strength.

[Yollam]

14. Oh, I've seen it many times...

...almost always in reference to a black suspect resisting arrest, usually described as being "on PCP or other drugs".

[mzteris]

21. What????

You mean you've never heard of SUPERMAN?

Where HAVE you been?

:rofl:



(Just thought I'd interject a bit of levity. No disrespect to anyone intended.)

[iconoclastic cat]

6. And yet, there are so few black superheroes...

MANTIS nonwithstanding.

[itzamirakul]

16. Black superheroes are dangerous to America...

They just might prove to be outstanding in more ways than one. They can NEVER be allowed to be a threat to the image that the white man carries about himself.

The reason that the NRA exists and men like Charlton Heston say:"From my cold, dead hands..." is based on controlling black men. An underlying fear that a long overdue rebellion might take place makes most gun owners
adamant in their gun ownership rights. There is no other ethnic group that is as feared as the African American male. So he must be made fun of...made to look ignorant or lazy or any of the other stereotypes that America has grown up with...

[mzteris]

23. **is based on controlling black men.

An underlying fear that a long overdue rebellion might take place makes most gun owners
adamant in their gun ownership rights. There is no other ethnic group that is as feared as the African American male. So he must be made fun of...made to look ignorant or lazy or any of the other stereotypes that America has grown up with...***

This started in the earliest days of (pre) "America" when the monied landowners began to be afraid of losing their indentured servants. They separated the white from the black, freed the whites and made slaves of the blacks. The inequity/dichotomy was deliberately created in order to "divide and conquer" the lower class.


A VERY brief notation from Wiki: "The first imported Africans were brought as indentured servants, not slaves. They were required, as white indentured servants were, to serve seven years. Many were brought to the British North American colonies, specifically Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. However, the slave trade did not immediately expand in North America. Mexico and Canada had completely abolished slavery by 1810 . . . The shift from indentured servants to African slaves was prompted by a growing lower class of former servants who had worked through the terms of their indentures and thus became competitors of their former masters. These newly freed servants were rarely able to support themselves comfortably, and the tobacco industry was increasingly dominated by large planters. This caused domestic unrest culminating in Bacon's Rebellion. Eventually, chattel slavery became the norm in regions dominated by plantations."

Jump to: Bacon's Rebellion: "Because it was the poor, white farmers, many of whom were formerly indentured servants, who attacked, a new social hierarchy with controlled persons devalued even more than the poor whites was needed. Thus, many easterners saw slavery as a viable option for minimizing the number of future rebels and satisfying these rebels by making them not the lowest people in society. Thus was born a racially defined, permanent form of slavery."

[ContraBass Black]

32. The newest Green Lantern is black.

His name is Stewart. He's a former marine.

[LostInAnomie]

15. I think you're stretching a bit with this.

So the cop said "superhuman strength", there's nothing inherently racist about saying someone is superhumanly strong. I think if it takes getting pepper sprayed, three taser hits, being hit with a baton, and a fight with three officers to subdue him superhuman qualifies.

As for the conspiracy of not covering the CIA leak and putting this stuff in instead I think your off the mark also. This is a local news channel. They are supposed to cover local news.

[Yollam]

18. I'm citing the page as an example of crappy news in general.

I'm not saying anything about the cop in this incident. It's just one more news story where the quotes taken from the cop are used to sensationalize the image of black man as monster. It's just one more headline where the person doing the attacking (Bush) is let off the hook, while some country singers who simply spoke their minds are portrayed as somehow being on the attack.

Then there is the sensationalistic crap that the media chose to cover INSTEAD of all the details of the case for war. This was not a "CIA Leak". There were numerous CIA agents and analysts who PUBLICLY went ON THE RECORD BEFORE THE WAR saying that they were pressured by Cheney & company to present the intel in such a way that it it would appear more likely that Saddam had WMD. When the CIA refused to do so, Cheney used the DIA to produce distorted intel that supported his case. This stuff was public, in the newspapers, but it was on page three due to the incessant coverage of snipers and shark attacks and whatever other nonsense the media seized upon to avoid covering the NEWS.

And the sniper case was a DC story, NOT a local Florida story, anyway.

[shadowknows69]

27. God Damn my white skin!!!!

I always wanted super strength!! Well second after xray vision of course. B-)

[Xenotime]

29. People just can't understand that some people

..are stronger than they are...and they fell threatend.

[slackmaster]

30. Interesting observations

Tagged for interest.