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Michael-Brown-Ferguson-Mo-Racism-Aegis-Academy

Michael Brown, the 18 year old man shot by a police officer in Ferguson is now, nothing more than a rotting corpse and a million dollar story. My manner of expressing may be too rough and insensitive, but it is the cold truth. It is another death that gave profit, power and prestige to the media.

Right after Michael Brown’s death, media, political figures and civil rights leaders gathered in Ferguson to empathize with the locals and the family of the deceased. One might see the Jacksons, the Sharptons, the liberal media, the “race baiters” as vultures rushing in to feast from a corpse. But one may be biased. Because after the officer’s name was revealed and the matter of institutional racism and racial profiling was brought back alive, the right wing media, feeling their audience threatened, struck back trying to fabricate a legitimacy and a justification for the killing of Michael Brown. They felt that the liberal media created an image of Michael Brown as a innocent teenager, something similar to Trayvon Martin’s case.  Photos circulated the newspapers, social media with the headline :”The Michael Brown picture you haven’t seen”. It presented Michael Brown in different poses,  holding his hand in a way that the right wing media speculated it could be a gang sign. Afterwards video of an alleged store robbery attempt was released fabricating more justification for the killing of Michael Brown. Was Michael Brown a thug, a gangster or an innocent A student? We don’t know anything for sure. Michael Brown could have been a great student he also could have attempted to rob that store. But neither of this justifies his killing, unless of course he was caught in flagrante delicto, or the police had a warrant of arrest on his name.

Now let’s analyze for a bit the political figures, the civil right leaders and the media. President Obama, not only he refused to take a personal stance on Michael Brown case, as he did with the Trayvon Martin case, but condemned the protests and the looting. He assured the population of Ferguson that thorough investigations will be made, thus the President proved to be quite impartial.

As I mentioned, the media took opposite stances, with liberal media debating racial profiling and bringing into discussion the factor of race and the right wing media trying to justify the police actions and to debunk and destroy the image of Michael Brown that the liberal media had  fabricated.

While Fox News comes with such an approach:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTwrdJLRKUk

allegedly showing Michael Brown robbing a convenient store

Huffington Post replies with this:

“Over the past couple of weeks, there has been a considerable amount of attention paid to the events of August 9 in Ferguson Missouri. Unfortunately, the color of your skin or your political affiliation plays a big part in how you view the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, by Ferguson police offer Darren Wilson.

If you are white or Republican, you are likely to think the racial component of the shooting of Michael Brown is getting far too much attention. If you are black or a Democrat, you are likely to feel the opposite is true.

This divide suggests we don’t live in a post-racial America like many would have you believe. The problem is that the typical white person’s experience with law enforcement is completely different than the typical black person’s experience. As a result, each group has a drastically different view of the events in Ferguson.”

Even though the front page of the Fox News website is inundated with stories related to Ferguson, and Fox has reporters on the ground, Fox’s talking heads still insist that liberal news outlets have turned white on black crime into a cottage industry to boost ratings.

The old “liberal media” claim is just one of many slick tactics the conservative media uses to legitimize their viewers’ prejudices. Another thing you’ll notice, if watching, is the standard attack on Rev. Al Sharpton. It should be noted that by showing up, Sharpton is hoping to draw attention to the situation. If you think he doesn’t deserve the attention, commenting on his words and presence every time he finds himself in front of a microphone is an odd way to show it.“

So Huffington shows their own bias speculating that all white republicans will try to minimize the issue while all black and democrats will take the racial aspect into much more consideration. Unless you are in possession of statistics, such speculation denote a great deal of ignorance. Of course Fox News might try to minimize the white on black crime but the truth is there is an industry created out of white on black crime, of which both republican and democrat media profit. The democrat media will bring back the idea of a racist white America, raising tensions and the right wing media will enforce the stereotypes of violent blacks. In such way a conflict is augmented and perpetuated, thus generating more conflicts, more stories, more reports and maybe even more protests, more tension, thus themselves generating more coverage and more stories which translate into money, profit, more capital, more prestige, more power.

Too often conservative whites say that black on white crime is under reported and in comparison with white on black crime, it is much higher. Left wingers will often reply that “black on white” crime does not receive such coverage because usually justice is done and the perpetrators receive a heavy and long sentence.

What we have to do  is to look at the case in matter through the lens of the conflict theory. We all know that most of the big media outlets (Fox News, CNN, MSNBC) are influenced or even serve a certain party. So the political conflict is reflected in the media conflict. Members of the audience are also voters. Political parties are fighting for voters and the media for audience. Their aim is to make their version the dominant opinion, the  widely accepted version of truth. But as i mentioned the media struggles not only for monopoly, or to impose their version of the truth  but also to generate more coverage, more stories more real or perceived conflict, and it is the case with this story.

As always we cannot know the exact truth, the exact truth will not be revealed to us, but by watching which media outlet wants to perpetuate the conflict more, to inflate and increase tensions we may draw a few good conclusion of their bias and thus the facts that they are trying to hide or trying to fabricate. In closely studying and watching the media everything is important, content, word repetition, cliches concepts, speculations and tone of the discussion, especially the emotional involved tone. I don’t want to say, who you should study more closely but by analyzing my article you should figure out by yourselves.