Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Various types of ties aren't being represented fairly in society

hlprmnky · 10-22-2003, 02:34 PM

I see the statistic about more per-capita crimes committed by blacks trotted out a lot in discussions such as this. I wonder if anyone has bothered to look at violent crime statistics broken down by gender, income, education?

(annoying didactic mode - ON!)
I don't have any sources handy, but even so I feel pretty confident stating that the preponderance of violent crime in the USA is committed by men. However, if every time there was an armed robbery or a murder, the radio and TV reports just said 'Male suspect wanted in armed robbery case', if men were being pulled out of their cars and having I.D.s run because they matched the description of the suspect (male, average height, average weight), some of them might feel unduly put-upon. Yet, the statistics back it up - most violent crimes are perpetrated by men! Why, then, should men feel that they are being unfairly singled out? Obviously, there's a problem that needs to be solved, and hiding from it by saying 'person suspected' when we all know perfectly well how likely it is to be a man doesn't do any good at all...
(end annoying didactic mode)

I agree with you, Ustwo, that censorship is bad. But I hope that you would agree with me that it is possible to see putting a bunch of black faces on the front page of the newspaper under the headline 'murderers on the loose' might be seen as biased or at least inappropriate reporting. Unless, of course, the paper made a usual practice of printing a rogues' gallery on the front page every Wednesday, and this week all the wanted murderers happened to be black.

The point is that the media is not some perfect lens through which all things are viewed. Every media outlet presents a finite set of information about the world in which its consumers live. There does exist a responsibility to be aware of the political and social ramifications of those choices. This responsibility does go beyond simply ensuring that all the reporting in the paper has had fact-checking done and is free of direct editorial slant. It also means thinking about what is being said, and what is being shown, and what is being excluded, and being responsible to the community for those choices.

I bet that paper has never run a front-page article that stated "as fact" that the failure of rich suburban city councils to give money to help poor inner-city schools contributes to joblessness, lack of hope, and therefore to crime. Yet, I could easily imagine an article constructed out of nothing more than coldly-presented statistics and facts which seems to present this position as true, despite the fact that probably nobody reading this thread would agree that suburbanites are really directly to blame for urban poverty and crime.

10-22-2003, 02:34 PM	#13 (permalink)
hlprmnky Upright Location: MN, USA	I see the statistic about more per-capita crimes committed by blacks trotted out a lot in discussions such as this. I wonder if anyone has bothered to look at violent crime statistics broken down by gender, income, education? (annoying didactic mode - ON!) I don't have any sources handy, but even so I feel pretty confident stating that the preponderance of violent crime in the USA is committed by men. However, if every time there was an armed robbery or a murder, the radio and TV reports just said 'Male suspect wanted in armed robbery case', if men were being pulled out of their cars and having I.D.s run because they matched the description of the suspect (male, average height, average weight), some of them might feel unduly put-upon. Yet, the statistics back it up - most violent crimes are perpetrated by men! Why, then, should men feel that they are being unfairly singled out? Obviously, there's a problem that needs to be solved, and hiding from it by saying 'person suspected' when we all know perfectly well how likely it is to be a man doesn't do any good at all... (end annoying didactic mode) I agree with you, Ustwo, that censorship is bad. But I hope that you would agree with me that it is possible to see putting a bunch of black faces on the front page of the newspaper under the headline 'murderers on the loose' might be seen as biased or at least inappropriate reporting. Unless, of course, the paper made a usual practice of printing a rogues' gallery on the front page every Wednesday, and this week all the wanted murderers happened to be black. The point is that the media is not some perfect lens through which all things are viewed. Every media outlet presents a finite set of information about the world in which its consumers live. There does exist a responsibility to be aware of the political and social ramifications of those choices. This responsibility does go beyond simply ensuring that all the reporting in the paper has had fact-checking done and is free of direct editorial slant. It also means thinking about what is being said, and what is being shown, and what is being excluded, and being responsible to the community for those choices. I bet that paper has never run a front-page article that stated "as fact" that the failure of rich suburban city councils to give money to help poor inner-city schools contributes to joblessness, lack of hope, and therefore to crime. Yet, I could easily imagine an article constructed out of nothing more than coldly-presented statistics and facts which seems to present this position as true, despite the fact that probably nobody reading this thread would agree that suburbanites are really directly to blame for urban poverty and crime.