Rationale: This written assignment aims to examine
the conservative media bias of Fox News in its coverage of Ferguson’s Michael
Brown Shooting. News reporters supported the grand jury’s decision in declaring
the police officer who killed the unarmed black youth Michael Brown, Darren
Wilson, innocent and free of all responsibility and charges. Clearly the
underlying ideology of the Fox news article took an overwhelming bias sympathetic
of the white population, and almost a dehumanization of black people. I have
rewritten this article from the standpoint of Michael Brown champions.
The grand jury failed to indict the white police officer Darren
Wilson for killing the unarmed black youth Michael Brown; two realities were
illuminated: Black and white people rarely view race in the same way or agree
about how to resolve racial conflicts, and this results in explosive events
such as this shooting.
The grand jury failed to indict the white police officer Darren
Wilson for killing the unarmed black youth Michael Brown; two realities were
illuminated: Black and white people rarely view race in the same way or agree
about how to resolve racial conflicts, and this results in explosive events
such as this shooting.
From the start, most African-Americans were convinced that
Michael Brown’s death wouldn’t be fairly considered by Ferguson’s criminal
justice system. They feared that the prosecutor’s main goal was to coach Darren
Wilson to say all the right things in order to avoid incarceration. But this
begs the question of what the underlying implications behind his white race
are?
Despite the fact that he used the impersonal pronoun “it” when
he said that Michael Brown looked like a “demon” rushing him, greatly dehumanizing
Brown on the basis of color, he was still deemed innocent. To the police
officer and to many whites, Michael Brown was the black terrorizing object that
belittled him and made him feel threatened. Although this claim seems to be
factually-based it fails to consider the centuries of oppression and lack of
prerogative the black population is endowed with and the inherent disadvantage that
comes with being a person of color.
These clashing perceptions underscore the perceptions of race,
in which an observer effect operates: the instrument through which one
perceives race — one’s culture, one’s experiences, one’s fears and fantasies —
alters in crucial ways the manner with which we perceive such racially and
emotionally charged cases as these.
On
Tuesday, the president declared, “I do not have any sympathy” for those who
destroy “your own communities.” While he avoided saying so, it was clear that
his remarks were directed at the black people who looted and rioted in
Ferguson. But their criminal activity is the effect of going unrecognized by
the state for decades, a crime in itself. Cleary, such cases highlighting police brutality which pits the white police officer against the innocent black civilian should not come as a surprise to the president. What surprised the president as well as the majority of US citizens is the mass garnering of support to the plight of one seemingly insignificant black man and the strong emotionally heightened response it has elicited from minority groups who can easily relate to injustices wrought by the more powerful white race. They decided to take a stand and break this repetitive and sickening cycle of submission.
Mr. Obama’s treacherous balancing act between white and black,
left and right, obscures who has held the power for the longest amount of time
to make things the way they are. This is something he can never
admit, but which serves as an underlying tone and depressing reminder made in all of his political decisions. He is the ultimate paradox:
the product of white assault with a realm of power.
Ultimately, we
still lived in two societies, one white, one black, separate and still unequal.
If our president and our nation now don’t show the will and courage to display the truth and illustrate minority groups's struggles in issues of race, shootings and explosive events of this caliber involving police brutality will continue as it has in centuries past. The only difference is that the media is becoming increasingly immune to such cases, and eventually they will cease to be of importance in news event as it will gain such a normal status that the unfair killing of a black man can be equated to petty crimes unworthy of being given a second look. Let us take advantage of mass media coverage and universal recognition of racial profiling to shift the power dynamic between races and gain level ground through public support.
