Chapter 5

Chapter 5 of The Culture of Fear is titled Black Men: How to Perpetuate Prejudice Without Really Thinking. This chapter is shorter than most of the previous chapters but talks about how median plays up or down particular groups, the groups focused on are black males and Jews and it ends by talking about music which I find particularly interesting.

We start with Glassner telling us that "Journalist, politicians, and other opinion leaders foster fear about particular groups of people both by what they play up and what they play down."(pg 109) Glassner then goes on to cite some examples of this with the minority group, black men. The example focuses extensively on the dangers that a small amount of African American males create for other people. It also talks about the lack of attention to dangers that black males face themselves. Both of the focuses are seen when we look at crime coverage. Seeing as more black men are casualties rather than perpetrators of violent crime the news tends to focus on minority crimes and away from black victims. This can even lead to false patterns being seen and related to the public. The case in question is the unrelated and random murders of Florida tourist in the 1990s. Though tourist from Germany, Britain, and Canada were the supposed targets the real victims consisted of young, local black and Hispanic men. A similar occurrence happened in New York around the same time when "the killing of innocent bystanders, particularly in the crossfire of this nation's drug war, has suddenly become a phenomenon that greatly troubles experts on crime," began a headline in the New York Times. This was false however and most victims were people connected to drugs in one way or another and the only time bystanders were hurt or killed was in a drug bust gone bad and this was stated in police records. One problem with the way media covers crime is it furthers the problem in a sense; "criminologist have documented that the amount of coverage a victim receives affects how much attention police devote to the case and the willingness of prosecutors to accept plea bargains," says Glassner.  This can keep the assailant behind bars. In the case of race, patterns are more obscure if the are obvious, but the opposite is also true.  This is what segways us into Anti-Semites, and the pattern is that blacks "are America's preeminent anti-Semites."(Glassner pg 115) What follows is the true statistics and other information disproving this statement. Now I've always felt that the examples Glassner uses are good but think they are excessive to the point where they take up more time talking about examples than the problems at hand. Next, we get into the world of rap and this is to showcase that media has tried to deny black musicians their powerful influence. Tupac Shakur a late rapper had powerful messages in his songs. The majority of these songs focused on not, I said not, living the thug life and to want better for yourself. Media portrayed him and other rappers as causes of shootings and gang violence because of some of their music even if the majority of songs focused on peace. media tries so hard to keep the public from looking at things from a different perspective and this limits us as a nation and keeps us from being united.

Article of Relation, TAKE 2!!! 

Alright, I've typed this once got kicked off my internet and lost everything so this time it's gonna be shorter because I'm  really upset. The Article I choose is from the Atlantic and is titled When Rap Music is a Crime. It was written by Karlanna Lewis in March of 2015. The Article focuses on two people, Brandon Duncan and Anthony Ebonis. Duncan was charged with 9 counts of "Gang Conspiracy" a year after a shooting due to a rap song he wrote and performed. "Gang Conspiracy" which according to the STEP Act penalties anyone who "“willfully promotes, furthers, assists or benefits from any felonious conduct” by gang members. Ebonis was arrested and sentenced to three and a half years in prison for rap lyrics he wrote and posted on Facebook. One major difference in the case of Ebonis is that he and made prior comments about his wife outside of the lyrics of the song which contributed to his sentence. The deeper meaning that Lewis made in the article is that " The real threat from a case like Tiny Doo’s (and even Anthony Elonis’s) is that the government will chill the expression of inner pain that makes art powerful, whether judges and jailers like it or not." This statement means that rappers with different credibility or ethos will be handled differently than those that lack it. I had more to say and I felt like this was my best blog post for the Culture of Fear so far..... I no longer feel that way. Thanks and I hope you learned something. HERE is a link to the Article.