Vision Circle

Let's talk about the murder of Kevin Shifflet.

Kevin Shifflet was a young boy, who was white, who was playing outside of his home. A Black man came up to Kevin, made a racial comment, and then stabbed the boy. The boy died.

The Washington Post and the Washington Times both covered the story. The Washington Times mentioned the racial comments and printed the composite drawing of the attacker. The Washington Post didn't mention the comments nor did it publish the drawing.

A conservative talk show host in Baltimore noted the different coverage and went on a rampage saying the "white on Black crimes" are always covered while "Black on white crimes" are rarely, if ever, covered. He used this case as a prime example and said it was because of "political correctness" that the Post didn't mention the details.

Unfortunately for the host, he didn't contact the Post about the coverage nor did he look at the Post online edition. If he did, he would have found out, as some of his callers did, that the Post did publish the composite picture there, as well as mention the comments. He also would have found out that the police released the information too late for the Post print edition, but not too late for the Times print edition. The next day, the Post printed the composite drawing as well as referencing the racial comments.

The FrontPageMagazine also covered the events. In fact, they took the same approach as did the talk show host. However, as a reader of FrontPageMagazine, I caugh the inaccuracies of the piece, and documented how the piece was wrong. At the time, FrontPageMagazine made corrections in the article, however they did not mention that the corrections were made. The changes in the article went from "they aren't mentioning the race of the attacker and the comments" to "if it were reversed it would be bigger news."

Well, that was the case until David Horowitz, loose with the facts as always, wrote this piece.

For four months following the atrocity, the local police in Alexandria Virginia, where the crime took place, actively suppressed the racial identities of Kevin and his attacker. Now that the racial identity of perpetrator and victim are known, and the racist motive of the attacker is clear (he previously tried to strangle a white person and left racist notes in his hotel room), the crime has still not been declared a “hate crime,” and the nation still could care less about Kevin Shiflett and his fate.

First, the race of the attacker was shown all over the local news after the police released it. The comments made were also mentioned. Next, the police never actively suppresed anything. They let the public know in a timely manner. Lastly, the attacker was found to be psychotic.

Horowitz race baited.

What wasn't mentioned was the NAACP putting up an award for tips leading to the arrest of the person who stabbed Kevin.

It didn't make the national press.

When a Black man in Pennsylvania went crazy and went to his job and killed only white people, that case made the national news. Still some white commentators said that "the Civil Rights leaders" were no where to be found. Too bad that the NAACP put out a press release denouncing the attack. But there was no national press concerning what the NAACP did.

Let's go back to the conservative talk show host that was mentioned earlier. He pulled the race card again when a white man was attacked by Black men. He said that the newspapers were not mentioning a probable racial motivein the case. The victim didn't mention any racial comments. The victim's wife didn't mention any racial comments. The attack was covered in the news in a factual manner but the conservative radio show host wasn't satisfied. A few days later, the truth came out: the man was attacked because a drug deal went bad. That last fact didn't make the press at all. A police media representative was contacted by the host to discuss the case and the media representative sprang that information on the host.

Now, let's mention a hate crime that recently occurred in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.

A Black man got into a fight with 6 white men. Eye witnesses stated that the white men were mad that the Black man was with a white woman. During the fight, racial comments were made towards the Black man. That should qualify as a hate crime, but it wasn't called a hate crime. Additionally, the local NAACP got involved because, at first, the county didn't want to charge the men with a crime.

Now, if you ask some people, that has all of the ear marking of a nationally reported case. But, was it? No.

Here are a few other cases that, if you listen to some about media reporting, should have made the national news:

Two white men, in a truck, targeted Blacks walking down the street. They would hit the people with baseball bats while hanging out of a window of the truck. They decided to take hitting mailboxes to another level. No national news coverage for this story. In fact, it was only reported in the regional journal newspaper.

In a rural part of Maryland, a historic Black church was burned by some white people. Again, no national news.

To go further, how many times recently have we seen the national news cover white women or white kids who have been declared missing? How often do you see the same treatement for Black women or Black kids?

I would think that if Blacks get better treatment in the press, then missing Black kids would be reported in the national news more than is now. Of course, it's easy to report more than none.

Just look at the damned coverage of the woman who got cold feet about her wedding! Why was that national news?!?!?!

The next time someone pulls the race card, think before chiming in that you agree.

Posted by at May 1, 2005 11:00 PM | TrackBack