Centrum for the Masses
Published October 16, 2007
By Nate Bradbury
I don’t watch the news. Nightly news anchors with perfectly coiffed hair and non-descript “American” accents don’t appeal to me. Harrowing tales, fiery crashes, and the adorable Brownie Troop 2647’s fundraiser are packaged into each station’s daily dose of reality to be taken every evening with food - just like a multi-vitamin.
If I were to watch, it seems that Katie Couric (CBS) or Brian Williams’s (NBC) delivery of troublesome stories followed by feel-good exposés of local accomplishment (to dull the biting edge of each day’s harsh events) should be all I need. They must be missing a B-complex - riboflavin, anyone? - in their vitamin’s formula because I get the feeling that they are ignoring news that doesn’t fit their demographics.
Viewer demographics - age, gender, race, and geographic location - must determine what makes the nightly lineup because news that I find important doesn’t usually make the cut.
I understand that being reminded how big and bad the world can be is discomforting. Speaking broadly, Americans seem to only want reassurance that the problems in our past are dead and gone. They don’t want to see reflections of their buried prejudices in the actions of their peers.
In January 2006, Martin Lee Anderson - a 14-year-old black male - was murdered outside of Panama City in Northern Florida, following his collapse at a boot camp for juvenile delinquents. Seven white male guards surrounded, kicked, punched, and choked the boy as one white female nurse looked on. As a matter of policy, the camp had video cameras running 24 hours a day and Anderson’s murder is clearly captured on the security footage.
Check YouTube, search for “florida boot camp death” and see for yourself. You can watch the guards “subduing” an “aggressive” subject while the nurse intermittently checks his vitals in all of its grainy, low-quality glory. Be warned, the video is disturbing.
However, the video of Anderson’s murder is not nearly as disturbing as the fact that an all-white jury deliberated for 90 minutes before acquitting the seven guards and one nurse on Friday. Clearly, race relations aren’t a real problem in America, right? After the verdict, the Anderson’s family lawyer, Benjamin Crump, was deservedly bitter and told reporters: “You kill a dog, you go to jail - you kill a little black boy and nothing happens.”
Anderson didn’t make the nightly news cut.
Last Tuesday, Madonna Constantine - a 44-year-old black professor at Columbia University - came into work and found a noose hanging on her door.
This came on the heels of the public controversy over another noose-hanging incident in Jena, LA. Later on Tuesday, police found another noose hanging outside of a downtown Manhattan post office.
Incidents of racially motivated terrorism - yes, these are legitimate “acts of terror” - are surging across the country.
However, everyone is tired of talking about race and fighting for change; didn’t our parents do that for us in the ‘60s?
That excuse is not acceptable. Hanging a noose on a black person’s door or on a tree in a schoolyard is tantamount to a declaration of war. In terms of magnitude, the painful collective memory of lynching in the black community matches the n-word in vitriolic power. As a white student at UVM, I can’t give you an example that will help you relate to the biting memory that nooses can evoke for black Americans.
For those of you who don’t think that these nooses are a “big deal”, would you think it was a “big deal” if someone erected a replica of a Nazi death camp on your Jewish friend’s lawn?
Either way, I guarantee that THAT would be part of your Recommended Daily Allowance of harrowing tales in your nightly multi-vitamin.
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