Racial Tensions

There have always been racial issues, but we seem to be hitting a low point during my life when it comes to race relations. Never before has the media made such a big deal about blacks dying at the hands of whites. This has been followed by protests, riots, and even murders.


The media is loving this. Fueling and exploiting racism is providing a big ratings boost. They are clearly benefiting from the hatred. As a result, blacks feel more justified in hating whites. Meanwhile, whites are becoming more resentful of blacks. (I should probably note that this was originally written before the Charleston shooting) While there were historical times with worse racial situations, I have never personally seen so much hatred between blacks and whites as there is right now. The only real winners from all of this has been the media.

Among the problems that we are seeing from the media is that they are cherry-picking their stories. There are plenty of examples of blacks killing blacks, whites killing whites, blacks killing whites, and fatalities involving other races. The media downplays a lot of these stories and emphasizes the white-on-black stories.

Another media-related issue is the irresponsible injection of race. Of all of the stories portrayed as definitively racial, no evidence of racial motivation is ever presented. If they have to cover a story that is not white-on-black, race becomes irrelevant.

Let me put this another way. I know the names of Treyvon Martin and Michael Brown, two black men who were killed in self-defense. While I could look it up, I don't know the name of two police officers who were killed during the backlash for doing nothing more than sitting in their police car. This is because the media made a bigger deal of the injustice caused to those who were harming others than the injustice caused to two men without any evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing.

I will concede that we need answers that were never provided regarding Eric Garner, although I still have not seen any evidence to back the media's racial spin.

Here's a weird quirk. When a police officer shot a black man in one of the Carolinas, we did not see the media hype it up the same way. As with the murdered police officers, I could look it up but feel that it's better to emphasize the limited coverage. I believe the reason for this is that there were other incidents going on that was better for the media's narrative. This police officer was charged with murder. That doesn't help the arguments that police can kill blacks without punishment.

I can say that I don't trust 100% of the white population to even try to look past skin color. Of course, racism is not strictly one way. What kind of problem do we currently have? I'm not entirely sure. The media has proven itself completely untrustworthy in regards to this issue. They are the ones who control the information in our country.

Rather than have the media try to dictate my opinions, I would prefer that they provide facts. They have done such a good job of controlling and restricting information available to the general public that it's nearly impossible to know what is really happening in this country. If racism is as problematic as they claim, why are they so afraid of giving us the facts?