13 Shot in Mass Shooting in Chicago

Via @benk84's news dump: 18 shot in Chicago in a 4 hour period. This number includes a mass shooting in which 13 were shot, including a 3 year old baby.

It's very strange that the media just completely ignores a mass shooting event. (Caveat/Correction: gp says I'm just wrong about this-- that the media didn't "completely ignore" it, and didn't even mostly ignore it. I will provisionally take his word for that (while still doubting that the media give it Newton-style play or Navy Yard style play). But even if I'm wrong in the premise -- this would merely be the latest of a hundred deadly days in Chicago. If this one got coverage -- okay. But there were 99 before this one.)

I can only assume the perpetrator and the victims were both black. Because the media simply will not report on crime committed by blacks, or even committed against blacks (unless the perpetrator is white or at least a "White Hispanic").

This is a very weird effect of PC -- for years they embargoed stories about blacks committing crimes, ostensibly because Media You Guys helped perpetrate negative attitudes about blacks.

But it also has this bizarre side-effect: You have a bunch of victims here, who, were they white (or of differing races) would be America's Top Story. But because they're black, the media just shrugs and says "Meh."

So a rule imposed ostensibly to "help" blacks winds up also imposing a code of silence about blacks being victimized by crime and tragedy.

This is really the only thing I've learned in closing in on ten years of public writing: You can't outfox the truth.

By which I mean, the Truth is always the best policy. Always. When you get cute and decide some Truths shouldn't be reported, ostensibly for the Greater Good, you will soon find that you're actually advancing the Greater Evil.

I have to think right now that blacks might well be wondering why a mass-shooting in which most victims are black fails to generate the slightest blip on the national media radar.

Doesn't the media even care? I have to think some blacks are wondering.

And the actual answer, I think, is this: Yes, they do care. In fact so much they're willing to suppress the news of all tragedies that befall you. Because they think that is what is best for you.

So complete media silence on a tragedy due to a policy designed, condescendingly, to "help" blacks.

Has it helped them? Who knows. I don't. Perhaps it has. But it does result in a complete embargo of most crime occurring in inner-city mostly-black communities.

Perhaps the media is upset because people outside inner-city mostly-black communities don't seem to care. How could they care? The media has redacted all of this from the public record. How do they even know about it? The media's own policy is designed to ensure they don't know about it in the first place.

But when you deviate from the path of the truth, you travel with lies. And lies will lead to all sorts of bizarre outcomes, like a media which is suffused with White Liberal Guilt deciding that a bunch of black people shot in a mass shooting in Chicago is No Big Whoop.

I'm always amused by liberal critics who make fun of the media for only reporting crime involving or affecting whites. White blonde girl is kidnapped?, they giggle. Wow! That sounds like 24/7 coverage to me!

Well, first of all, let's point out that the kidnapping of a child is a major crime which naturally interests (outrages) people. It's a bit bizarre to suggest that such a thing is unworthy of coverage at all.

But second of all, let's do note that the reason for this strange outcome is that the media is dutifully obeying the rules laid down by the liberal critics themselves: Crime does not exist except if it involves white people, preferably on the "perpetrator" side of the ledger. And a kidnapping of a white girl will usually involve a white perp, so it's likely to turn out to be a "safe" story.

Hell, Michael Moore's big thesis in Bowling for Columbine was that America (high rate of gun ownership, high rate of crime) differed from Canada (high rate of gun ownership, low rate of crime) only because of the "fear" created by media reporting on crime.

It's a silly supposition, but the left is smitten with silliness. The sillier the notion, the more the left will be smitten with it. The left demonstrates its enlightenment by claiming to believe things that only a fool could believe.

And so here then is the result of trying to be cute with the truth, of trying to outfox the truth: 13 people, largely (or entirely) black, were shot in Chicago, and the media which loves stories about mass shootings has absolutely nothing to say on behalf of the victims.

My prescription for the media is the same I'd give to the government: Why don't you start treating people like adults deserving of respect and deserving of the truth, rather than misguided children who have to be forever insulated from it?

The Missing:

For years, I've followed missing persons cases on websites devoted to them and in government and other databases. There, you'll encounter an appalling paucity of information about missing/unidentified 'persons of color,' especially when the information is from older police reports and coroners reports. The disparity was so egregious, some people decided to put together the Black and Missing website. Good for them.

From Dan Collins.

posted by Ace at 12:52 PM

| Access Comments