Tag: racism

Fact-Checker Poynter Demands Local News Reduce Coverage Crime Stories Because it Fuels “Systemic Racism”

Fact-checking institute Poynter is demanding that local news stations reduce coverage of stories that connect “Black and brown communities” to violent crime because it is fueling “systemic racism.”

Yes, really.

The institute, which oversees the International Fact-Checking Network which operates Politifact, put out a statement urging journalists to “break the cycle of crime reporting.”

Arrests for misdemeanors disproportionately affect people of color. Systemic racism compounds the injustice as reviews have shown that prosecutors are more likely to exclude Black jurors from trials.

The crime and courts beat exists because it’s constantly churning out stories. Much of that content is directly related to public safety. Journalists can be smarter about who we cover and the follow-up stories we provide. Kelly McBride, who chairs the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at Poynter, said, “Local news reporters have amplified narratives that connect Black and brown communities to crime. As a result, we have fostered systemic racism through our crime coverage.”

It’s within our power as journalists to break that cycle. We don’t need to publicize the crime blotter simply because it fills airtime or generates clicks.

The announcement was made at the same time that Politifact asserted that a claim the Austin-American Statesman deliberately omitted a mass shooting suspect’s description because he was black is “false.”

However, the original report stated the reason for not including a description of the suspect was because it “could be harmful in perpetuating stereotypes,” meaning that Politifact is outright lying.

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NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus Silent About Democrat Senator’s Membership at All-White Club

Both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Congressional Black Caucus were radio silent on Monday after news broke that Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) defended his membership to an elite, all-white beach club.

Breitbart News reached out to both the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus for comment regarding Whitehouse’s extra-curricular activities. Neither organization responded.

Whitehouse, who decried systemic racism following the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, has frequented Bailey Beach Club for decades, GoLocal Providence first reported. While the 124-year-old club can’t legally mandate that its members be “all white,” its lack of diversity was first documented back in 2003 in the New York Times:

Diversity, of course, has made scant inroads on the Newport of Bailey’s Beach, whose membership profile might be defined less by who people are than what they are not. “Jewish, yes,” Audrey Oswald, a lifelong member replied, when asked about the club’s demographic composition. “Blacks, not really,” Ms. Oswald added[.]

Whitehouse defended his Bailey Beach Club membership, officially known as the Spouting Rock Beach Association, to a reporter on the eve of Juneteenth National Independence Day.

“It’s a long tradition in Rhode Island and there are many of them and I think we just need to work our way through the issues, thank you,” Whitehouse said when the reporter asked him if a wealthy, all-white club like Bailey’s should still exist in 2021.

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Dem Sen. Whitehouse Defends Family’s Membership in All-White Club: ‘It’s a Long Tradition in RI’

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who portrays himself as a progressive social justice warrior, is facing new scrutiny over his family’s decades-long membership at an all-white country club.

Local media approached Whitehouse on Friday in Pawtucket to ask why the Bailey’s Beach Club in Newport hasn’t admitted any minorities yet.

“I think the people who are running the place are still working on that and I’m sorry it hasn’t happened yet,” Whitehouse said. 

“It’s a long tradition in Rhode Island and there are many of them and I think we just need to work our way through the issues, thank you,” he added as he was ushered away by a staffer.

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Black Crowd Cheers as White Woman is Savagely Beaten at New Jersey Juneteenth Riot

A predominantly black crowd of Juneteenth revelers cheered as a white woman was savagely beaten in the streets of a Long Branch, New Jersey commercial district while the city marked the nation’s first Juneteenth federal holiday. Police from several jurisdictions later responded to the scene while retail employees remained trapped in their shops as the celebration commemorating the end of slavery devolved into a riot.

According to local media reports, the Juneteenth celebration, held in Long Branch’s Pier Village, devolved into a full-scale riot with hundreds of celebration attendees turning on their host city and smashing up businesses and property throughout the Pier Village area.

Local police advised residents to avoid the area, dispatching officers in riot gear to quell the unrest as retail employees, many of whom are under the age of 18, remained trapped in their places of employment as the crowd targeted storefronts for destruction. Additionally, police advised that “numerous fights” involving attacks on officers had broken out in the streets.

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Racist Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Declares Racism a “Public Health Emergency” – Diverts $10 Million in Covid Funds to Address Problem

Racist Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday declared racism a public health emergency and diverted $10 million in Covid funds to address the problem.

Recall, Lightfoot recently was sued last month by Judicial Watch on behalf of The Daily Caller after she denied reporter Thomas Catenacci an interview because he was white.

Lightfoot announced her racist policy last month. She proudly declared she will openly discriminate against white reporters to only allow “black and brown” reporters interviews.

She later defended her policy.

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NBC News Fails Miserably in Getting ‘It’s the Whites Beating Asians’ Narrative Going Again

‘Stop Asian hate’ tried to get resurrected by NBC News. After weeks of dying due to not fitting the narrative, there’s some brand-new study saying that most perpetrators of anti-Asian violence are white. The headline itself is a doozy and the data is even shoddier (via NBC News):

Janelle Wong, a professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, released analysis last week that drew on previously published studies on anti-Asian bias. She found official crime statistics and other studies revealed more than three-quarters of offenders of anti-Asian hate crimes and incidents, from both before and during the pandemic, have been white, contrary to many of the images circulating online.

Wong told NBC Asian America that such dangerous misconceptions about who perpetrates anti-Asian hate incidents can have “long-term consequences for racial solidarity.”

“The way that the media is covering and the way that people are understanding anti-Asian hate at this moment, in some ways, draws attention to these long-standing anti-Asian biases in U.S. society,” Wong said. “But the racist kind of tropes that come along with it — especially that it’s predominantly Black people attacking Asian Americans who are elderly — there’s not really an empirical basis in that.”

[…]

Other studies confirm the findings, Wong wrote. She pointed to separate research from the University of Michigan Virulent Hate Project, which examined media reports about anti-Asian incidents last year and found that upward of 75 percent of news stories identified perpetrators as male and white in instances of physical or verbal assault and harassment when the race of the perpetrator was confirmed. Wong said the numbers could even be an underestimate.

Wait, what?! First, this joke of a story says that we’re not really seeing black people physically assault Asians. There’s no “empirical basis,” and now the reason for this shoddy narrative revival exercise is because…the media says the perpetrators are white. The same media that’s been wrong about everything for years? Also, did you catch the real meaning behind this article? If we don’t do anything, racial solidarity could be at risk. So, lie your ass off about who’s committing Asian hate crimes so we can manufacture a false reality to make us feel better about race in America. That’s not healthy. 

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