If it sounds like racism and acts like racism, then its probably racism

You Got The Power, Inc.
Program Outline
11 Aug 2010

"If you do not understand racism, then anything else you think you understand will only serve to confuse you."  Nealy Fuller

Topic of discussion: If it sounds like racism and acts like racism, then its probably racism

• It seems that these days there are only three stories on the news:

• They revolve around the election, the economy and missing white women

• Missing white woman syndrome (MWWS) or

• Missing pretty girl syndrome is a vernacular term for the disproportionately greater degree of coverage in television, radio, newspaper and magazine reporting of a misfortune, most often a missing person case,

• Cases involving a young, attractive, white, middle-class (or above) woman,

• Compare the number of MWWS cases to what you hear concerning a missing male, or missing persons of other ethnicities or economic classes.

• When pretty, young women -- especially white ones -- are killed or disappear, media storms often follow

• There is no polite way to say it, and it is a fact of television news

• While the disappearance of Laci Peterson became a huge news story,

• a pregnant black woman named LaToyia Figueroa disappeared from Philadelphia at around the same time and attracted no national attention, despite efforts by her family to enlist the media to help find her. (Figueroa was later found murdered)

• In many, many cities going back 50, 75 years or more, journalists would refer to ‘good murders’ and 'bad murders'

• An example of a bad murder would be the murder of an African-American person from a poor neighborhood

• The definition of a good murder is a socialite killed by her jealous husband, the debutante murdered by her angry boyfriend

• This is the perverted, racist view of the world. White is good; black is bad

• Blonde is good; dark is bad

• Young is good; old is bad

• The disparity in coverage has very real human consequences

• Media coverage of the missing and the decision to cover a 'good' or 'bad' murder is very disproportionate racially

Do you remember these cases?

Remember the Lynch story from the Iraq War?

• Critics have also pointed to media bias in the coverage of soldier Jessica Lynch

• Versus that of her fellow soldiers, Shoshana Johnson and Lori Piestewa

• All three were ambushed in the same attack during the Iraq War on March 23, 2003

  • Piestewa being killed and

  • Lynch and Johnson being injured and taken prisoner

• Lynch, a young, blonde, white woman, received far more media coverage than

• Johnson (a black woman and a single mother) and Piestewa (a Hopi from an impoverished background, and also a single mother),

• Media critics suggest that the media gave more attention to the woman with whom audiences would more readily identify

Have You Ever Heard This Story?

Shelton Sanders

• Shelton Sanders, a magistrate’s son who worked at the University of South Carolina medical school, was on track for his degree when he disappeared in June 2001

• To date, no metropolitan newspaper outside his hometown has written an article about him

• In general we just really don’t hear about Latin or black or Asian people who are missing

• The victims that get the most coverage are female rather than male

• They are white, in general, rather than young people of color

• They are at least middle class, if not upper middle class

FBI Investigates Alleged Shooting Death, Dragging of Black Man by White Acquaintance

• The June South Carolina shooting death of an African American man whose body was then dragged behind a pickup truck for miles is being investigated as a possible hate crime, after a white man was arrested

• Newberry County deputies have arrested and charged 19-year-old Gregory Collins with the murder of Anthony Hill of Winnsboro, S.C.

• Police identified the victim as 30-year-old Hill and announced that they would be working in conjunction with the FBI who has jurisdiction over hates crime

• Although the coroner has concluded that Hill died from a gunshot wound to the head, deputies and the FBI are trying to determine why Collins dragged the victim's body nearly 10 miles.

Serial Killer

Multi-state White Serial Killer Killing Black Men

• In Flint, at least 13 men — all but one African-Americans — have been stabbed repeatedly by a young, muscular white man since mid-May

• Five of them have died from their wounds

• Ten of the attacks have occurred in Flint, with the other three taking place in nearby townships

• In addition to being black, most of the victims have been old, disabled, small of stature or otherwise vulnerable

• The city is predominantly black, and even though all but two of the Michigan victims were black men, detectives there have been hesitant to say the attacks were motivated by racial hatred

• The victims were all outside alone at night

• Survivors have said the attacker approached them under the pretense of needing directions or help with a broken-down vehicle

• "He then pulls a knife and attacks them without saying anything more," Flint police Lt. T.P Johnson told The Associated Press

• As of yesterday, the serial killer search now spans three states

• Authorities say they strongly suspect the assailant is a serial killer who has attacked 20 men in Michigan, Ohio and Virginia since May, killing five and wounding others

• Authorities in Leesburg, Va., a predominantly white city where three of the most recent attacks occurred, believe the three victims there were chosen because they are black

• The Leesburg victims were a 15-year-old boy, stabbed near a gas station, a 67-year-old man attacked with a knife while sitting on the steps of an apartment building, and a man hit in the head with a hammer. All survived

• "I believe his motivation is pure hatred," Leesburg Police Chief Joseph Price said at a Tuesday news conference in which he released a short video clip of the vehicle the suspect drove after attacking a 19-year-old man with a hammer

  • He said police also have footage of that attack but won't be releasing it

  • "I would consider this man to be very desperate and very dangerous," Price said.

• Police in Leesburg said they have reached out to the local NAACP

• Leesburg police have stepped up patrols, and the FBI is helping with the investigation