Let’s talk about Harambe. It trips me out that there are people who would rather spare a gorilla (yes I know its an endangered species) than the life of a child. But you don’t get this worked up at the idea of a wild animal living in a controlled unnatural habitat. But I digress.
Tag: news
Emotional Roller Coaster
Is it just me or has this past month been full of ups and downs! My hormones weren’t ready and I feel like I should have been given some sort of notice.
They Don’t Care
I’m starting to think they don’t care! Minorities are feeling threatened across this country but people in positions of power are ignoring them. What must happen for others to see that our lives matter too? You may be tired of hearing it and trust me I’m just as tired of having to talk about it. That doesn’t give me the luxury to not talk about it!
Pray for the World
Apparently the world only prays for a certain group. Or maybe we only pray for certain groups because major news outlets only reports on certain groups. We shouldn’t get mad when one groups tragedy is highlighted but we should demand to know about whats going on in the world so we can pray for everyone when disaster strikes.
Media Lies
In the past few years, our country has been ravished by images of unarmed black men losing their lives at the hand of police officers. At first these high profile cases would simply garner the attention of the media, people would debate whether or not prejudice played a role, the officer involved would either not be charged or get a slap on the hand, people would be shocked and life would continue as normal. As these images became more and more frequent, people have taken notice and taken a stand against such brutality. As in tradition in the United States—from the Tea Party, the Revolutionary War, the Woman’s Suffrage Movement to Civil Rights—Americans of all races have united and marched against injustices. Thousands gathered together to peacefully protest.
But let the news tell it…
I don’t know if media is even trying to be accurate in reporting or if they are simply going for ratings. Everything seems to be over sensationalized. I can’t tell if I am watching a tele novella, TMZ or news.
There are so many issues with the way news outlets have chosen to cover the victims of police brutality and the subsequent protest. Let’s start with the first issue. Victim shaming—generally when a black person has been apprehended (and in this case killed) by police officers, media outlets begin to question the victim’s motives and history. Often times, these victims are labelled as thugs- which often translates to a bad person not worthy of living. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/14/media-black-victims_n_5673291.html
If this reporting was standard across the board, I could accept the language used. However, it has been proven that white serial killers are treated better in media then other people of color. There is usually no speculation as to whether they are given respect—a dead man can’t get the same love.
There is also an issue in how media treats the uprisings. Instead of covering the powerful peaceful images—news channels are quick to cover the small majority of individuals causing havoc. Again if the news treated all fire starting, car flipping, and couch burning incidents were covered the same way. But sadly, they aren’t. When these same exact events happen after sporting events it is just chalked up to being passionate about sports. Talk about double standards. 
So people can be passionate about their sports team winning or losing but you can’t be outraged about the increasing numbers of unarmed people being killed by policeman? Our priories are screwed!
twillaamin.com 