Saturday, April 2, 2011

"This Made Me Smile..."




While this "is" funny... It made me think about some biases in the media. Its not at all unusual to hear minority perpetrators described as "men" even when they are as young as 13 years old. But conversely, when the accused are white, they are almost never referred to as "men" even when they are as old at 19 and 20. I've heard news reporters call these "alleged perpetrators" "teens."


Here in my home state of Michigan, we have the dubious distinction of having actually tried and convicted as an adult one of the youngest murderer in modern times. At the time, young Nathaniel Abraham was an eleven year old boy. But Nathaniel was also black. The fact that he was just eleven and not even 5 feet tall at the time didn't stop the news media and prosecutors from referring to him as a "young black man."


Are things better in the world than they were...? Yes, definitely, but there's still a long way to go and this satirical send up from The Onion proves it.



"Fear Eats the Soul"

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