Media Manufactures Acceptance of Cops Killing Whites-- Brain White Washing
by Dr. Nayvin Gordon
[Please read "Police Brutality and Oppression"]
What would change if, every day of the year, the lead story in the major news media was the police killing of a White man. Would White America still believe that the police officer is their friend? Would White America ALSO be in the streets demonstrating for an end to murderous police violence??
What if ABC news and the New York Times had regular editorials crying out against the police murder of 600 White people every year, would Whites, like Blacks, know that the true nature of the police is not to protect and serve, but to punish and savage working people?
For decades multiple sources have documented the police killing of over one thousand people every year. The brutal facts are that 1-2 White people are killed by the police every day—in 2016 total number of deaths was 574; for Blacks 2 are killed every three days, total deaths of 266, and due to anti-Black racism, they are 3 times more likely to be killed. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database
Contradicting this reality stands the mass media which rarely gives major attention to the police killings of Whites and generally does not even refer to their Whiteness. https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/10917/In%20Black%20and%20White%2C%20Morgan%20K.%20Johnson.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y The media focus is almost entirely on police killings of Blacks while reinforcing stereotypes. A recent front page New York Times article about police killings did not mention any specific police killings of white people, all killings were reported as Black, Latino or people of color. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/us/police-shootings-killings.html
Police violence against White people is minimized, obscured and neglected from coverage in the corporate media, and in this way kept OUT OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF WHITE, BLACK AND BROWN PEOPLE, thereby weakening their solidarity. In the words of the Great Frederick Douglas: “The hostility between the Whites and the Blacks…is easily explained. It has its root and sap in the relation of slavery, and was incited on both sides by the cunning of the slave (media) masters. Those (corporate) masters secured their ascendancy over both poor White and the Blacks by putting enmity between them. They divided both to conquer (exploit and kill) each.” (My edits)
The media continues to construct a false reality and brainwash the population. Police are not the friend of the people but a racist terror force to control all workers. The sooner America learns the truth that we are more alike than different and come together, the better it will be for ALL of us.
4/20/21
Dr. Nayvin Gordon writes about health and politics. gordonnayvin@yahoo.com