The Kansas City Star headlined its story on the recent water park death of a young black girl, “Three KC teens charged with murder in slaying of 14-year-old Alexis Kane.”
The Star is hardly unique in its use of the word “teen.”
For the media in general, the word serves two functions. One is to diminish the severity of the crime. If “teens” do it, even if the teens are old enough to be charged as adults as these three are, it cannot be all that serious.
The second function is to make the age of the perpetrators the most important identifier.
By classifying the three killers as “teens,” the Star does not need to touch on the subject of race, about which its editors are positively squeamish unless, of course, the perpetrator is white or at least a “white Hispanic.”
Michael Brown
In the case of Alexis Kane, the reader is left to infer the race of the suspects from the concocted names of the accused like “Ce-Antonyo.”
The unfortunate part of this kind of reporting is that nothing is learned. While thousands march through streets the world over celebrating the absurdly thuggish life of Michael Brown, Alexis will go to her grave unnoticed by all but her friends and family.
Meanwhile, other 14 year-olds, unaware of the risk they run, will disobey their mothers, ignore their curfews, and “get into [a] white Chrysler four-door vehicle in which there were two men with dread locks.”
Rich Steele is a citizen journalist and head of the NSAAS (Non-Smokers Against Anti-Smoking).
It all boils down to stupidity. These kids are stupid because of lack of discipline and education from parental figures. You need a Mom and a Dad who know what they’re doing…or at least trying. There are always exceptions but stupidity, not color, is the root of 99.99% of senseless crime. And we all know kids being raised in single parent households is alarmingly high among kids of color.
Hot Carl, I am sure its safe to say that what I am about to post probably doesn’t apply to these young men (not boys), but its worth saying.
When mom and dad split up the courts make it tougher than hell for a father to get enough time with their children to influence them anymore than a boys & girls club can. Unless a mother really screws things up you can bet that the county courts aren’t going to give the father any significant time with the children other than the every other weekend. how is a father supposed to instill values in their children only having 4 days a month?
Agreed. I’m a divorced Dad with a kid. Luckily, I have him 50% of the time and am engaged the 50% that I don’t. But I agree that the courts routinely give the mother the benefit of the doubt in any custody situation. As a father, you need to make the kid a priority and demand your rights if you’re not getting them. The only person that suffers when exes don’t get along and courts get lazy is the child.
Oh those wacky, knuckleheaded scholars. Shucks.
Hot Carl hit a homerun.
Easier said than done but in my humble opinion, the presence and participation of committed parents is the most important factor, by far. Once you decide to have a child, you damn well better be prepared to make that child your most important priority. Otherwise, give it up for adoption so that someone who is committed will have that precious opportunity. Divorces happen, but if they do, the welfare of the child better still be the top priority. I know plenty of single moms, dads, and grandparents who do an admirable job of raising a young person. I’m almost to the point in my thinking that you should have a license ( preceded by pretty intense counseling ) before you are allowed to have a child. Not quite there yet, but…..
spot on, stomper. (don’t agree with the licensed child birth). Parent’s make or break a child. Education? A great teacher can only help a student so much if there isn’t the support in the home. Healthcare? A doctor can only react to illness if parents don’t establish healthy habits at home. Society? Children make mistakes and society is pretty forgiving (some would say too forgiving, but I am not one of those people), but society can only take so much if parents aren’t teaching right from wrong at home.
I won’t call you a racist for your insinuation that a perp’s skin color can be discerned by the name given to him/her at birth. But either your age or zip code has sheltered you from the fact that more than just African Americans are choosing rather unique names for their offspring these days. It appears to be more of a socio-economic trend of poor folk.
In a 2003 paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, economist Roland Fryer found two things. First, that names like Reginald and Kiara are far more likely among black children than names like Jake and Molly, and second, that this is a recent development. In the 1960s, Anglo-American names were common among African American children. It wasn’t until the 1970s and the rise of the Black Power movement that this shifted in the other direction. ”The underlying philosophy of the Black Power movement,“ writes Fryer, ”was to encourage Blacks to accentuate and affirm black culture and fight the claims of black inferiority.” The adoption of “black” names is consistent with other cultural changes—like “natural hair”—prompted by the movement. African Americans wanted to distinguish themselves from whites, and naming was an easy means to the end.
I don’t think it is racist to embrace your culture. Are you implying that because African-Americans choose to embrace their culture, it is racist for a white to make that recognition?
Not at all. I’m saying the trend of which you refer has been adopted by parents of other races. So you can no longer assume an individual’s skin color based on how “black” his her name sounds. Many whites, usually from lower income backgrounds are attempting to provide their children with individuality by creating new unique names for them.
Right on, I am not familiar with it among anglo-american culture, but I don’t doubt you. I remember when you had to have a christian name to get baptized. I’m sure thats why these unique names are a recent phenomena.
Canon 761 of the 1917 code said that pastors were to ensure that those who were to be baptized received a Christian name. It added that if this could not be done, the name of “some saint” was to be added to the name chosen by the parents, and in the baptismal record both names were to be recorded.
But, much has changed in the world since those days.
Just go ahead and break out the N-word.
It is obvious you want do. You surely do it in private. So just take that next logical step and say it publicly.
The useful idiots who run/write for this site are on your side.
You first.
whites once used names like jack/bill/bob/steve/jim etc.
Now they use names like Jacob/brett/Allison/phoenix/karina/and other
fancy names for their kids.
Is there any sociological reason for people changing the names of their
kids beside what is the “cool” name at the time?
It’s very simple. The race of a person is immaterial in a news story unless there are some facts to make it relevant. such as: A suspect is at large and police seek public assistance in apprehending him or her. or: If there is evidence that the crime is racially motivated. I don’t see any claims that these guys targeted the victim because they were black or because she was black. So it appears the only reason you want the suspects identified as black is so that you can use this incident to confirm your bias that blacks are predisposed to violent crime and that the Star has signed up as part of the vast liberal media conspiracy to downplay the amount and severity of crime among African Americans. Are these “teens” alleged criminals because they are black? Is it because they are poor? Is it because they are Kansas City Royal fans? (How can the Star write about this and not let readers know whether these guys are Royal fans? Do we know that is any more relevant than their skin color?)
There probably is an element of truth that the use of “teens” tends to soften the brutality of this killing. But the intention is not necessarily to put those charged in a more favorable light. It’s the best term to use for all three when one is a “man” (18 years old) and two are “boys” (17 year old.) You can quibble with the distinction, but your 18th birthday is the dividing line in journalistic style for being called a boy or a man. Terms like “youth” and “teen” let you blur the difference. And there definitely is a mentality among newspapers to avoid calling young black males “boys” because of the ugly history associated with the way white people made “boy” an especially virulent and demeaning racial slur. But for a headline that has space limitations, “teens” is probably the most descriptive yet least loaded way to identify them.
What is the material need to identify the suspects as male? It appears the only reason suspects are identified as male is so that we can use this incident to confirm the bias that males are predisposed to violent crime.
The gender of the criminal is irrelevant and paints men in a bad light. As a man I ask that all news organizations refrain from identifying the gender of suspects. It adds no value to the reporting and only serves to further disparage men based soley on their gender.
Good one!!
You are being disingenuous, just as you have been in your comments on my posts. The reason the Star uses euphemisms like”youths”(the melee at Independence Center) or “teens”(the Kane and Shawnee gun shop murders) is to conceal the political calculus that shapes its coverage. Remember: Blacks kill blacks-no big deal,Whites kill whites-no big deal,Blacks kill whites-no big deal,Whites kill blacks-VERY BIG DEAL.Was Alexis Kane less of a victim than Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin,or Eric Garner? Were these “teens'” less culpable than Darren Wilson,”White Hispanic”Zimmerman,or the cops in New York who subdued Garner ? If not,why no equivalent outrage ?We both know the reason,i.e. the death of Alexis Kane and the three other black children murdered here since October can’t be used by the Black Grievance industry as “usable political moments”for playing the white racism card. Spare me all this tripe about standard journalistic usage designed to reflect the “transitional”legal status of young people in their late teens.
Come on Dwight. You have described yourself ” as someone who has spent years defending indigent criminal defendants in the state and federal courts of Kansas and Missouri. [as someone] all too familiar with the mentality of law enforcement types who feel that once they’ve made an arrest they’ve solved a crime,even though there is no evidence tying a particular individual to that crime.”
Your comment here is disingenuous, and mind you I agree with you on the topic. I think Jimmy put it best in a previous post on STL reporting stats. “This sure seems like false equivalency. You compare a man who was killed by a police officer to a man who was killed by a criminal. There is no doubt both murders were tragic but what exactly do you expect from the media? Do you want every single murder to be weighted the same and to be given the same amount of media coverage?”
With all of your constitutional background, you don’t see a difference in covering a killing by a police officer vs a killing by a criminal? Not saying the police weren’t justified in the cases you cited, and all killings are tragic. But killings by police, given their extraordinary powers, require higher scrutiny than other homicides and as the “fourth estate” its the media’s job to scrutinize government killings.
Trayvon Martin was not killed by the police,yet it was his death that started this whole media circus. So much for your theory that we’ re only subjecting the police to an appropriate higher standard in the use of force. You also seem to confuse my recognition of my duty to zealously represent my clients with a journalistic bias against the police,at least when the suspect involved in an altercation with the police is African-America. Goodness knows the police are not always right. Neither are they always in the wrong. I tell all my clients,black or white,rich or poor that there is no percentage in fighting cops(or mouthing off to them either). I don’t care how in the wrong you think they are.
Dwight, I think you misunderstood what I said. I didn’t state any theory, let alone a theory that we’re ONLY subjecting the police to an appropriate higher standard in the use of force.
What I said was that you can’t compare media coverage of police killings to media coverage of criminal killings. Which is exactly what you did mentioning the coverage of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. I never mentioned Trayvon Martin, or killings by neighborhood watchmen. I narrowly tailored my comment to include only police killings.
Lastly, I don’t appreciate your statement that I think the cops are wrong. I never said or even insinuated that. I never passed judgement on those cases. All I stated was that the media SHOULD cover police killings with higher scrutiny than criminal killings. If you had limited your comment to Trayvon Martin there would have been no need for my comment.
But you artfully dodged my question, so law school did you well. So I will ask again. You don’t see a difference in covering a killing by a police officer vs a killing by a criminal (or neighborhood watchman)?
For the record, lest my reading comprehension be questioned. I did recognize your use of the adjectives “appropriate” and “higher” when describing the scrutiny of police killings. But your answer wasn’t clear. My follow up question is a matter of clarity.
jr….I’ve asked you several times for some positive answers to what you are always
whining about. Lets hear some so we can
see if you’re really more than a whiner.
Lets see some solutions!
A murder is tragic to the extent the perpetrator is blameworthy and the victim is innocent. For example,it’s hard to work up too much sympathy over anyone killed in a shoot out between two gangs of drug dealers,unless they are unfortunate by-standers. The deaths of the four children here in Kansas City,most recently Alexis Kane,qualify as tragedies. The Martin/Brown/Garner deaths do not,at least not to the extent the killings of innocent children do.Who would not be shocked at the shooting of a seven month old baby? Wasn’t anyone struck by the fact that Alexis Kane was taken from the same South KC convenience store parking lot that a little old girl was killed in several months ago? What should be more troubling to us as a society and to the press as society’s watchdogs? Why isn’t it? Because of partisan politics,thus the Star’s emphasis on so-called “government killings”,at least as long as those who die are African-American.
Is this deja vu or did Mary Sanchez just write an article in the Star that sounded eerily similar to your comment? So I guess the watchdog media is listening to your calls.
I’m with Gerald
Jerry boy…nice article. Like the part about black “boys” and whythey
don’t use that word in the paper.
I never learned that at mu.
Or perhaps they use the word “teen” because two of the suspects are 17 and one is 18. All teens. Or would you prefer, “Two boys, one man charged in teen’s death”? Or “Suspects, 17, 17 and 18, accused in killing of girl, 14”? Or “Three Black People Accused in Crime”? Say what you mean, man.
I think the important thing is to be consistent. Since Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin,and Eric Garner we’re consistently described as “unarmed young black men” in press reports, the suspects in the Bieke and Kane murders should be described as “armed young black men”. Would that make you happy?
I think both sides are kind of missing the point. So lets step back from the race issue and talk about the media slant in general. Take the government shutdown, headlines said Republicans threaten to shutdown government. They could have very easily said Democrats threaten government shutdown if all demands not met. A proper headline probably would have been Congressional impasse threatens government shutdown. The latter places blame evenly upon both houses. The republican house for not using the shutdown card, and the democratic senate for threatening to shelve any bill from the house that doesn’t meet all of the senates demands.
I don’t agree with FoxNews slanting right or MSNBC slanting left, both are wrong. Same with the issue of race and homicides. The problem people have isn’t that there is some compelling reason for disclosing race, but that it isn’t applied evenly.
When a standard isn’t evenly applied it creates propaganda tool and is not fair and balanced.
Facts are facts and should be presented as such. But when you favor one set of facts over another it becomes a problem. Apply the same standard across the board to maintain journalistic integrity.
Mom is the answer and big fist that hurts and teaches!!!
you’re all full of bull. what does it matter whether they’re teens/adults/black/
white/Hispanic….THEY KILLED SOMEONE…SOMEONE DIED….
IT MATTERS HOW THEY’RE CHARGED…BUT THEY’RE ALL STILL
YOUNG PEOPLE (17/18) WHO ARE IN SOME HOT MESS.
and now we’re seeing jrs. real colors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! more on that later.
Speaking of showing your true colors,what is with your prior comment that I should assume a mantle of shame and contrition because Sutherland’s sells toilet plungers for 50 cents more per item than “the jew at Home Depot down the street”? What can you have been thinking when you posted that?
That’s a head scratcher alright, Dwight…
H Man?
hahahahahaha….your comment is “COMMENT OF THE
YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
im rolling on the floor laughing!
Hearne….take him to Hereford house!
hearne…don’t know…but jr. has to have no contrition for anything…it
was in fun. I’ll go back and read what I wrote…but I’m sure it was
in jest.
Just that the prices at one store were higher than at home depot (owned
by Brown).
Black mothers need to have the talk with their pre-teen and teenage daughters about the dangers of black males aka gentle giants.
But you bring up male genatalia…..crucifix in urine…while
those high priced overcharging robbers at sutherlands
are selling bathroom plungers for $1.98 (40 cents more
than the jew at Home depot).”
here’s actual quote hearne….it was just something that
I wrote in relation to an article bout losers putting crucifix
in urine. Nothing more! I can’t stoplaughing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The founder of Home Depot was a man named Bernie Marcus. Was this the “jew at Home depot’ you referred to in your post from last week and again today ? Why is this anti-Semitic remark funny ?(“I can’t stop laughing!!!!!!!!!!!!!”) Why would you post such a bigoted comment on a blog that thousands of people will read?
I’m jewish….and its brand who is in charge now.
It was to create some fun…it wasn’t even a real deal.
Sutherlands might have plungers on special price and I’m sure you
get some kind of discount so you might buy you and the
kids one.
hahahahaha.
Yeah,sure you are.That’s why it took four tries before you came out with that belated ” excuse”, if it is one. (Are you channeling Richard Pryor who said;”I can say n——r because I am one !”) You’re no more Jewish than I am,any more that you have a class action lawyer named “Stan Greenberg”,who you’ve been known to impersonate on occasion.(That’s a crime by the way.) Small children have “imaginary friends”.Harley has an imaginary attorney and an imaginary religious affiliation which he uses to save himself from embarrassment.
I know you got 10K….bring it on …..puffly cakes.
didn’t impersonate stan…and by the way fyi
law in our yahoo name has nothing to do with “LAW”
BRING YOUR 10k TO HEARNE…WE’LL GET
AN ARBITRATOR…AND I’LL GLADLY TAKE YOUR
10 K AFTER I PROVE EVERYTHING.
IN OTHER WORDS…BOYS…NOW I’VE GOT
A LIVE ONE ON THE HOOK.
PUT UP OR SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LETS SEE WHO’S RIGHT ON THIS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
show me the money.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ll even give odds!’
that’s lunch money to you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thanks hearne…that’s three straight posts
….I’m just trying to entertain and educate
somepeople.
The world is not black and white….its many
shades of color.
People like chuckles and glaze and jr.
and Wilson all commenting and speaking their
minds about subjects is an incredible
world.
we allwant the same things….why can’t we
sidt down and find that common ground and
take it.
its because of greed and money and power.
god bless America!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
god bless the American sniper!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hahahahahaha!
what more can Harley say!
I’m the king!
the big kahuna.
the man with the plan.
and now ……lets say thing…due to high blood pressure
ad possible heart attacks I suggest certain writers
on kcc refrain from reading Harleys comments…
its just too tough on their hearts when Harley
spells out the truth.
god bless you all..
your friend
Harley
and to jr……l’haim~
Its good to see readers/disciples and followers
of Harley counting the number of responses I give.
Boys/dudes/oldsters….I’m herefor a good time…
and to debate some issues of important.
but no other commentator can keep up with me.
but thanks for following my writings…its humbling to
know that people do read ALL my posts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Something I didn’t say in my previous comment (because I hadn’t yet seen the hard copy newspaper), but that I sort of suspected: As part of the article published on the front page of the Star are three mug shots of those charged with the crime. The original argument of Steele’s post that the use of “teens” was some clever and sinister way to cloud or undersell the racial identification of these guys is rendered silly and inflammatory by the presence of these photos. Steele’s wish that these guys were identified as “black” (men, boys, teens, youths) betrays a ostensibly racist belief that their blackness is their most relevant characteristic. Running their photos is a factual journalistic statement that those charged are these three specific guys; readers can make their own subjective judgments about whether their alleged criminality is the result of their skin color, poor home training, economic conditions, or some undisclosed character flaw.
Hard to argue with, Gerald