Jack Dunphy Has A Good Question
"In the time Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and all the lesser voices in the Choir of the Perpetually Outraged have spent bellowing about the rantings of an aging radio gasbag, how many young black men have been busying themselves killing each other?" In National Review, Dunphy writes of a terribly brutal double rape and double murder that nobody's heard of -- while a rape that never happened at Duke made national and international news over and over and over again:
Chances are, unless you live in Tennessee, you will not recognize the names Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Christian, 21, and Newsome, 23, both of Knoxville, were driving through that city together on the night of January 6 when they were kidnapped and murdered. Newsome’s burned body was found along some railroad tracks on January 7. Christian remained missing for two more days until her body, stuffed in a trash can, was found in a home not far from where Newsome’s was found. Police and prosecutors allege both victims were raped before being killed. Yes, both. Three men and a woman have been charged with the crimes in a 46-count grand jury indictment handed down in Knoxville on January 31.The story was given a few brief mentions on the AP wire, which were in turn carried on the Fox News and ABC News websites, but you’ll find no mention of the crime in the online archives of CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, the New York Times, or the Washington Post. Run a similar search for stories on the Duke case and you’ll be sifting through the results for hours. It’s not as though these news providers have shied away from crime since being embarrassed in the Duke case. For example, when Tara Grant went missing from her suburban Detroit home in February, the investigation grew and grew in media attention until it became a national story.
...Yet the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsome are known to almost no one outside Tennessee. Why?
It’s simple: the four suspects accused of killing Christian and Newsome are blacks from the inner city of Knoxville.
Uh oh, we’re not supposed to talk about such things, are we. We’re careful to step ever so gingerly around issues of race and crime, except of course when there is an opportunity, as in the Duke case, to point to a group of privileged whites and say, “See? Look at how badly they’ve behaved! Look at how they treated that poor black single mother!” And in the Michigan case we can look down our noses at a prosperous suburban white family and say, “Look how screwed up they are!” A visitor from a foreign land might read the news and suspect America was plagued by rampaging hordes of collegiate lacrosse players and middle-aged suburbanites. And all the while the far more serious problem of violent crime among minorities in our inner cities is almost completely ignored.
...To its credit, the Los Angeles Times has begun bringing some small measure of attention to these disturbing numbers in the form of its new online feature, the Homicide Report, which tracks every murder occurring in Los Angeles County and includes information on each victim’s race. The inclusion of this information has been criticized in some quarters, and the Times’s response to this criticism deserves quoting at length:
. . . The Homicide Report departs from this rule [against mentioning a victim’s race] in the interest of presenting the most complete and accurate demographic picture of who is at risk of dying from homicide in Los Angeles County. Race and ethnicity, like age and gender, are stark predictors of homicide risk. Blacks are vastly more likely to die from homicide than whites, and Latinos somewhat more likely. Black men, in particular, are extraordinarily vulnerable: They are 4% of this country's population, but, according to the Centers for Disease Control, they represented 35% of homicide victims nationally in 2004. Local numbers mirror these national disparities. According to an analysis for The Times by county health officials of homicide data between 1991 and 2002, Latino men ages 20 to 24 were five times more likely than white men the same age to die, and black men were 16 times more likely.The Homicide Report recognizes the peril of dehumanizing victims by reducing their lives and deaths to a few scant facts — particularly racial designations which provide only the roughest markers of ancestry and history. But given the magnitude of difference in homicide risk along racial and ethnic lines — and the extremity of suffering which homicide inflicts on subsets of the population — we opt here to present information which lays bare racial and ethnic contours of the problem so conspicuous in the coroner's data. The goal is to promote understanding, and honor a basic journalistic principle: Tell the truth about who suffers . .
...Only when the true magnitude of this problem is acknowledged can its solutions be identified and implemented. It will come too late for Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, of course, but in at last daring to report the grim but persistent truth in these statistics, perhaps the Los Angeles Times has opened a door through which the remedy to inner-city crime is found.
On another blog I read that half of all murders by gun occur in the ghettoes of large cities (over 100,000 people) by youths between the ages of 16 and 35.
doombuggy at May 4, 2007 4:52 AM
The accused must have missed Gangsta school. Ludacris set a fine example in "Crash" as an armed professional carjacker who at worst frightened, but did not harm, the affluent (white) people whose Lincoln Navigators he stole. Why murder your supply chain?
This is urban culture, and either those in the culture must fix the culture, or the culture must be managed or dismantled from the outside. I think the murdering is a form of selection pressure gone awry. A comprehensive deployment of eugenics and cultural therapy might suffice, but the public would probably find this too totalitarian for its taste, although most of the complainers will be those for whom the issue is purely academic, and community leaders probably lack the balls to impose it.
Dave at May 4, 2007 6:58 AM
A blogger a few years ago did a study of how the Media manipulates criminal statistics through the entertainment medium. He documented the popular and long running TV show Law and Order. Over a 10 year period of the original franchise of Law and Order, 90% of the criminals prosecuted on the show were Caucasian and how it differed from the actual criminal statistics within New York City.
Now what does this say of the view of the writers of the show? That Caucasian criminals are more interesting than the minority counterparts?
Which version of NYC does the show's producers and writers live in?
Joe at May 4, 2007 7:17 AM
They tend to do crimes of conspiracy rather than what I think are more typical inner-city crimes -- thug violence. I'm not saying they're accurate in terms of reality/breakdown of who commits crimes, but I understand why, in terms of making the show interesting, that they show what they show.
Amy Alkon at May 4, 2007 8:32 AM
I agree Amy.
My problem is when the pop cultural references will seep into the national discourse on various issues. How many people base their views on history and politics through Oliver Stone movies? Or Michael Moore's documentaries?
Joe at May 4, 2007 9:27 AM
"A visitor from a foreign land might read the news and suspect America was plagued by rampaging hordes of collegiate lacrosse players and middle-aged suburbanites."
I'm fucking sick of sentences like that, they are a total joke.
I dont think the media mainly ignores these stats because it is race sensitive. The media is simply just lazy, not biased. Just plain lazy, with lack of journalists who have any talent. The media ignores these stats because the public doesnt wanna hear them. They'd rather hear about people they can relate to or shit they already know isnt occuring everyday. We all know the stark realities of the inner city. Most things in society pander to the middle-class anyways so why not the news?
PurplePen at May 4, 2007 9:59 AM
Brilliant, PurplePen.
Jody Tresidder at May 4, 2007 10:51 AM
Black on black crime is not profitable for race/hate mongerers like Sharpton and Jackson. They rush to defend a cum burping gutter slut from a few priveledged white lacross players but say nothing when something like the Tennessee murders barely make the bold print.
I don't know if there is a parallel, besides Jackson and Sharpton ignoring it, but the ridiculous comments made by Cameron, an asshat rapper, on a 60 Minutes interview are disturbing- but in a hip, abnormal psychology kind of way.
GILES: If I knew the serial killer was living next door to me?
COOPER: Yes.
GILES: No, I wouldn`t -- I wouldn`t call and tell anybody on him, but I`d probably move. But I`m not going to call and be like, you know, "The serial killer is in 4E"
What an upstanding citizen. But, this guy has an effical (sic) code that is followed not only by civic minded rappers, but also by other blacks. I asked the 3 black guys in my office if this was just an exaggerated code for the benefit of the interview and they all had that smile, as if to say, "Aww, you poor little cracker. You just. dont. know."
PurplePen, that is a great point, probably not far from the truth. But I don't think they are lazy in reporting inner city bullshit insomuch as they are afraid of catching the wrath from people like Sharpton who will make some kind of declaration that the repporting was biased and racist.
Trickish Knave at May 4, 2007 11:52 AM
I dont think they are afraid of Sharpton. I think they are afraid of being impolite to the middle class and they lack the talent and credibility to present these facts in a palpable way. The majority of these people just got the jobs because they went to college. Because they went to college. Do you see the fault in this? They are too lazy to do the research, and just repeat what the next guy says. Anyone who does state facts, such as black males being 16 times more likely than whites to die does it like this:
“BLACK MALES ARE 16 TIMES MORE LIKELY THAN WHITES TO DIE AND NOBODY IS REPORTING IT BECAUSE WE ARE AFRAID OF BEING RACIST. THAT’S THE PROBLEM, EVERYONE IS AFRAID OF BEING A RACIST----BUT NOT ME!!!!!”
So instead of telling me why black males have this problem......they are telling me that nobody is reporting it because of reverse racism.
BTW thanks Jody.
PurplePen at May 4, 2007 1:00 PM
I dont think they are afraid of Sharpton. I think they are afraid of being impolite to the middle class and they lack the talent and credibility to present these facts in a palpable way.
Don't forget good old-fashioned sensationalism. Some rapes and murders simply sell more papers and attract more viewership than others.
Gary S. at May 4, 2007 1:39 PM
> The media is simply just
> lazy, not biased. Just
> plain lazy, with lack of
> journalists who have any
> talent.
This is one of those times where I want to disagree without saying that you're wrong, because you're not wrong. Journalists are incredibly lazy. And they're intellectually lazy.
(No matter what I said last week about "intellectual dishonesty" and "critical thinking," there really is something called intellectual laziness... It's what happens when you go with a cliche or a simple, worthless explanation because investigating or finding better words for things is no fun.)
But consider what these journalists are up against. If all these young black men in urban America were dying for some great cause, there'd be a lot of good stories to write. But the pathetic, unforgivable truth is that these deaths are mundane. How could their stories be fleshed out into readable, enriching stories? They're almost always about simple minds raised in torturous circumstances, without boundaries in their own lives or those of the people they fight against.
Of course if such a death happened in my family, I wouldn't feel that way. But my family has some of those resources that are absent in the ghettos, so there'd be a narrative for the middle class to care about. The latest LA Weekly has a piece about the Spector trial which notes that interest fell off sharply as things got underway. They compared it to other big LA murder trials: Popular interest in these stories is never noble. I lived in Brentwood through the 90's, and will never forget the OJ tourists, and the clothes they wore as they stalked Bundy Drive for insights ("Brentwood... Where life is cheap... And love? It's a dish best served cold.")
Newspapers are cheap and untalented, but all the talent and resources in the world wouldn't necessarily make this better. We should welcome these stats, which are plenty brutal even when naked. This is an improvement.
Crid at May 5, 2007 12:11 AM
Exactly, Crid.
I can understand Purple's anger, but what are the solutions to the problem?
By the way, speaking of Sharpton. He will be debating the newly minted Yankee, Christopher Hitchens on the existence of god at the New York Public Library on May 7, 2007. In a day or so after the event the NYPL will place the audio file of the debate on their website.
Joe at May 5, 2007 6:46 AM
Sharpton... Ptoooie. Blech.
Hey Amy! Remember how I used to make fun of your homey Lou Dobbs? Well I reserve the right to do so again, but for today, any friend of Hitch's...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ_l3Utr670
(And he keeps up with him, too! CH never gets into second gear, but still)
Crid at May 5, 2007 8:01 AM
But if you had to choose between Hitch and Camille...?!
Amy Alkon at May 5, 2007 9:17 AM
Fucking Sophie's Choice, that.
Anyway, they're both attending the Dinner Party of my Dreams. Zappa's reanimated for the evening as well. Maybe Gould. Maybe Garry Trudeau, if we could get his soul from the years before he married Jane Pauley.
OK, this list needs polishing.
Crid at May 5, 2007 9:33 AM
Definitely a Sophie's Choice. Work on that list. I'm very interested!
Amy Alkon at May 5, 2007 9:41 AM
Reynolds says Dobbs might be running for President!
http://instapundit.com/archives2/004870.php
The Hitchens interview was really good, but it wasn't that good... We don't really want this guy to be President.
[Keep reading/spam filter avoidance]
Crid at May 5, 2007 7:00 PM
See this:
http://tinyurl.com/zxfn2
I'll email you the whole article if you want.
Crid at May 5, 2007 7:00 PM
Here's the whole thing:
http://tinyurl.com/22s45j
A good weekend read then, a good weekend read now!
Crid at May 5, 2007 7:04 PM
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