That Twitter headline is pretty bad. It's worse if the fact they show it was updated yesterday was to rewrite it but don't acknowledge the reasons. That's a story in itself.
They acknowledge the rewrite and reasons beneath their headline on Twitter, but the website link seems to just show a rewrite last I looked. That's fairly common as these things go. I gave the Twitter link because that's where I could find an image of the original story. I'm fairly certain the firestorm of criticism this article received has caused other articles on this, and there are lots of them, to use much stronger language in emphasizing the racism of the comments.
There are people, and I suppose I'm one of them, who are fed up with journalistic norms that refuse to call obviously racist comments and actions as such in preference for euphemisms and dancing around the subject. This was about as clear-cut of an example as possible. Whether this help break the dam or just is a one-off because it is so egregious remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, Right Wing media is still trying to frame the narrative as Liberals causing violence and death. I think over the past month we've had daily protests involving tens of millions of people, and the handful of deaths that have come from all that were at the hands of Right Wing extremists.
"One of the hardest things for me to accept is the fact that Kevin Graham has blonde hair, blue eyes and an English last name. This ugly truth blows any arguments one might have for actual white supremacism out of the water. He's truly a disgrace." - Ajax
Another disturbing incident that resulted in the death of Elijah McClain.
Last August, police officers in Aurora, Colorado, approached 23-year-old Elijah McClain as he walked home from a convenience store. The Aurora Police Department later said that a 911 caller had reported a “suspicious person” in a ski mask, and that when officers confronted McClain — who was not armed and had not committed any kind of crime — he “resisted arrest.” In the 15 minutes that followed, the officers tackled McClain to the ground, put him in a carotid hold, and called first responders, who injected him with ketamine. He had a heart attack on the way to the hospital, and died days later, after he was declared brain dead.
McClain’s family maintains that law enforcement’s use of excessive force led to his death. The officers, however, were subsequently cleared of wrongdoing, apparently on the basis of questionable body-camera footage and an allegedly inconclusive autopsy. McClain’s case has attracted renewed scrutiny amid national protests against systemic racism and the deadly tactics that police often deploy against Black people.
"One of the hardest things for me to accept is the fact that Kevin Graham has blonde hair, blue eyes and an English last name. This ugly truth blows any arguments one might have for actual white supremacism out of the water. He's truly a disgrace." - Ajax
For people who constantly bug me about what I do, one piece of it is to be called to situations like McClain's to make sure stuff like that doesn't happen and/or give plans to the police so stuff like that doesn't happen. I'm a behavioral/mental health professional that people sometimes say should exist rather than treating this situations as primarily a police problem. I exist.
I don't have a weapon; I'm not allowed to use force. I've only ever had to go to the hospital once for injuries and I've never been seriously hurt.
"One of the hardest things for me to accept is the fact that Kevin Graham has blonde hair, blue eyes and an English last name. This ugly truth blows any arguments one might have for actual white supremacism out of the water. He's truly a disgrace." - Ajax
So instead of fixing policies that encourage school segregation or result in the 4th amendment being printed on toilet paper in black-dominated neighborhoods, we're gonna purge Netflix of episodes that superficially seem problematic in the way someone might think Huck Finn is problematic?
Since we're gonna fix racism by stupid gestures, can we at least stop the practice where TV shows cut to the live reactions of people from a race being referred to by the material? That needed to go decades ago, and it's still happening for some reason.
"One of the hardest things for me to accept is the fact that Kevin Graham has blonde hair, blue eyes and an English last name. This ugly truth blows any arguments one might have for actual white supremacism out of the water. He's truly a disgrace." - Ajax
For people who constantly bug me about what I do, one piece of it is to be called to situations like McClain's to make sure stuff like that doesn't happen and/or give plans to the police so stuff like that doesn't happen. I'm a behavioral/mental health professional that people sometimes say should exist rather than treating this situations as primarily a police problem. I exist.
I don't have a weapon; I'm not allowed to use force. I've only ever had to go to the hospital once for injuries and I've never been seriously hurt.
EA I just saw this story running on CNN. It made me immediately think of you and your comments here. And, it put a name to the concept we've all been thinking about that I hadn't thought of--a holistic approach. (Smacking myself upside my own head on that.)
