The Return of Racial Labels

In the 1950s and before, it was common for the news media to identify those accused of crimes by race, as in “John Doe, a negro, was arrested yesterday by police”. 

The labeling was certainly meant to be pejorative, at least by some, and left the impression that members of some races were more inclined to criminal activity than others.

With the arrival of the sixties and increased racial sensitivity, the practice largely ceased (at least outside the South), and properly so.  The race of an alleged law-breaker is not relevant; the individual, not his heritage, is responsible for his conduct. 

How ironic, therefore, is it that the liberal media has fixated on the race of individuals when there is a violent confrontation between a police officer who happens to be white and a criminal suspect who happens to be black.  Think of the “wall to wall” media coverage, in print and over the air, of the police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.  The phrase “a white police officer shot an unarmed black man” was the favored summary of the story.  What exactly did that mean?  The police officer, a white racist, targeted an unarmed man (thus posing no threat) because he was black?

Leave aside the fact that even the Obama Administration – never chary of ascribing racial motivations to opponents’ actions – put the lie to that canard.  Do you read a story about a white police officer named as such shooting a suspect of the same race?  Of course not.  Race is simply not relevant. So why is its relevance presumed in police shooting stories involving different races without any evidence to support it? 

Racial prejudice against blacks was rampant in the 1950s.  Press stereotyping reinforced it.  Are we now in the era of prejudice against whites who are police officers which is reinforced by negative stereotypes by the liberal media?

The bigotry is not only against white law enforcement officers.  Think of Barack Obama’s derisive reference in 2008 to white blue collar workers “clinging to their guns and religion”.  (The 2016 election is a reminder that they did not forget the slander.)

Were we then – and now – to believe that black workers in the same economic status were any less distressed by the loss of employment opportunities?  What did the workers’ race have to do with it? 

And to think that many white Americans were attracted to Barack Obama’s candidacy because they thought his presidency would lessen America’s racial tensions… it resulted in the opposite.