Ethnicity & Reporting

Everyone knows he's asian by his name anyway. So who really cares?
The public clamors for details and the media should provide it, most of us want to know why he did it and that means knowing as much about him as possible.

Personally I think reporters should always say the basics about a criminal who did something, so gender, race, age at the minimum and show a picture, as communities are often split up by race and age, people (often in the same group) want to know who's doing what, so maybe they can see abnormalities in certain categories and focus more on that.
 
ProfDanoVonManough said:
Personally I think reporters should always say the basics about a criminal who did something, so gender, race, age at the minimum and show a picture, as communities are often split up by race and age, people (often in the same group) want to know who's doing what, so maybe they can see abnormalities in certain categories and focus more on that.
Click to expand...

You mean in order to reinforce and build stereotypes amongst the masses based on ethnicity and gender?

Yeah. That's brilliat.
 
LadyT said:
You mean in order to reinforce and build stereotypes amongst the masses based on ethnicity and gender?

Yeah. That's brilliat.
Click to expand...

No. What's brilliant is reducing actual knowledge in the world so politically incorrect realities can be swept under the rug. KUDOS on your proactive and voluntary ignorance.
 
LadyT said:
You mean in order to reinforce and build stereotypes amongst the masses based on ethnicity and gender?

Yeah. That's brilliat.
Click to expand...
I don't really care who is offended by simple facts, because your debate is over whether or not to withhold facts, there is no "opinion" transmitted out to the masses.
Different people will take care away different things. Sure some moron like skinhead will go "You see another rape it was a black" or someone else might say "Another child molestation, look at the scrawny white guy in the photo, that's who it always is".
But some people will know who to look out for if they ever get out of prison by some Liberal judge on early parole or some will profile and know the higher likelihood of facts about the perpetrator, nothing wrong with that, if different races commit different crimes in different proportions, you would want to know who more to look out for on hearing those certain crimes being committed.

This is certainly not PC, but it's not a better world to withhold facts - they are just facts. How people use them is where you can put your judgement but they at least have the right to know.
 
ProfDanoVonManough said:
I don't really care who is offended by simple facts, because your debate is over whether or not to withhold facts, there is no "opinion" transmitted out to the masses #1).
Different people will take care away different things. Sure some moron like skinhead will go "You see another rape it was a black" or someone else might say "Another child molestation, look at the scrawny white guy in the photo, that's who it always is".
But some people will know who to look out for if they ever get out of prison #2) by some Liberal judge on early parole or some will profile and know the higher likelihood of facts about the perpetrator, nothing wrong with that, if different races commit different crimes in different proportions, you would want to know who more to look out for on hearing those certain crimes being committed.

This is certainly not PC, but it's not a better world to withhold facts - they are just facts. How people use them is where you can put your judgement but they at least have the right to know.
Click to expand...


That post is full of absurdity & impracticality. I don't even know where to start. But I'll give it a go.

#1) Wrong. The issue is about witholding facts that are not pertinent to the story which in turn fuel stereotypes.

#2) I never said don't publish their photo. The discussion was on article. You know....with words. Would mentioning the person is Jewish/Christian or Muslim add any value to the reader if the alleged crime had nothing to do with religion? I don't think so. All it does is perpetuate stereotypes which apparently think is a good thing.

DANO said:
if different races commit different crimes in different proportions, you would want to know who more to look out for on hearing those certain crimes being committed.
Click to expand...
 
I fucking hate the Nazi comparison. You know who is like the Nazi's? Nobody. Even if Lady T supported suppressing information it doesn't make someone a Nazi.

Theres a rule on the internets. As soon as you call someone a Nazi you lose.
 
Darla said:
Well, in my opinion, a white guy driving around in a pick up truck with stringy hair, should be picked up for questioning, whether they are looking for him or not.
Click to expand...
Hey! I got rid of the damned pickmeup, okay? I drive a frickin' Prius now, fer cryin' out loud. Besides, it was a Mazda: those don't even count.:mad:
 
OrnotBitwise said:
There's a distinct difference between suppressing information, on the one hand, and exercising judgment about what information is meaningful, on the other.
Click to expand...

Well, I've made my point. The "best" argument I've seen for gratuitiously putting someone's religion or nationality on a story is so that we can profile.
 
LadyT said:
That post is full of absurdity & impracticality. I don't even know where to start. But I'll give it a go.

#1) Wrong. The issue is about witholding facts that are not pertinent to the story which in turn fuel stereotypes.
Click to expand...
Pertinent to the story means what exactly? The story is not the focal point, it is the reader and more readers want to know details which includes yes race.
I know where you're going with this, so let me give you an example that may change your mind. I read an article about 2 years ago, it was written by a black male writer and he essentially said something along the lines of:
"We hear a lot in the news about our young black men committing crimes and I don't know about you but I am tired of it, they should be held to account and as a community we need to stand up and deal with it and not pretend that it's not going on or that all races do it equally."
He went on to say about what black community leaders are doing and need to do more outreach and so on, but how would he be able to write what he did without knowing who is committing the crimes?

LadyT said:
#2) I never said don't publish their photo. The discussion was on article. You know....with words. Would mentioning the person is Jewish/Christian or Muslim add any value to the reader if the alleged crime had nothing to do with religion? I don't think so. All it does is perpetuate stereotypes which apparently think is a good thing.
Click to expand...
So then what's the beef? What on earth is the point of worrying about mentioning race if you have a photo where everyone can see it plain as day?
This is a non issue.

I think you'd want to know religion, I can grant you that most of the time it's completely irrelevant but certainly if there was a crime on an airplane, you hear some name of John Smith, but it would be interesting to know if John Smith was a muslim convert. That's something people want to know.

At the end of the day, they are just facts, even if the media didn't report some crime's details, if someone is interested enough they can pick it up in a blog if they search hard enough, so why make them search?
 
Darla said:
Well, one thing is, that i think you will see an insatiable appetite for any details about him and his life. That is naturally going to include where he is from. I mean, it will be like the Anna Nicole Smith thing before it is all over, and we will know everything about this guy. And I think the same would happen if he were white.

But, probably, were he white we wouldn't see "a 23 year old senior, and white man, whose creative writing..."

I do think the initial reports, of his only being in this country a short time, if they had proved correct, would have been relevant for several different reasons though.
Click to expand...

White males can't write creatively?

F. Scott Fitzgerald? Earnest Hemingway? William Faulkner? Pretty much every other great writer of 20th century besides Kate Chopin and Zora?
 
Cypress said:
Good point. This has always bugged me. Unless there's some value in knowing the physical description of a person, why bring up skin-color? Or ethnicity? For that matter, why don't we ever make a big deal out of hair color, or eye color, to the same extent we do about skin color.

I remember when I lived in Texas, many people were obsessed about skin color. Whenever they were refering to something some colored man did, it was always "This black man did such and such". Even if knowledge of the dudes skin color had nothing to do with the story or anecdote. Even if it was a positive, or innocous, story or anecdote. Didn't matter. If it was a black dude, skin color always came up in the telling of the story.
Click to expand...

Well, whenever I'm writing, if I listed one of my characters as black the readers would change their viewpoint on the character completely. It would then be someone of some other ethnicity besides theirs, and therefoer different and unrelatble. Which proves racism is alive, or even natural. If I just don't refer to race in my books people can choose whichever race they want, which avoids a huge hurtle.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top