It says above when it was published, Bill. Please read more carefully before responding to save us both time.

How silly to say that "nothing has changed since the 60s." Of course, it has. The whole point is that the media must work harder to reflect those changes, and not act so much like it did in the 1960s. Again, we've come full circle to the point of the above blog post -- the one so many of you have ignored and, I'm guessing, didn't actually understand based on some of the characterizations of what people actually did not write. Putting words into people's month is about as useful as showing up to refute something without even trying to understand it first. Meh.

No, js. THe whining is about us daring to talk about race. Discussing disparities is actually important dialogue. Some of you are just trying to silence, and that's boring, predictable stuff that adds nothing to a larger conversation about violence and racial disparities. You just don't want the conversation happen, thus giving ammunition to those who say white Mississippians have our heads in the sand (or worse) on race issues. Could you be more predictable?

A media-money quote from Kerner (the use of "negro" was more accepted in the 1960s):

The Media and Race Relations

> Our second and fundamental criticism
> is that the news media have failed to
> analyze and report adequately on
> racial problems in the United States
> and, as a related matter, to meet the
> Negro’s legitimate expectations in
> journalism. By and large, news
> organizations have failed to
> communicate to both their black and
> white audiences a sense of the
> problems America faces and the sources
> of potential solutions. The media
> report and write from the standpoint
> of a white man’s world. The ills of
> the ghetto, the difficulties of life
> there, the Negro’s burning sense of
> grievance, are seldom conveyed.
> Slights and indignities are part of
> the Negro’s daily life, and many of
> them come from what he now calls “the
> white press”—a press that repeatedly,
> if unconsciously, reflects the biases,
> the paternalism, the indifference of
> white America. This may be
> understandable, but it is not
> excusable in an institution that has
> the mission to inform and educate the
> whole of our society.

Sadly, the media have yet to go the distance on these recommendations. The uneven treatment of victims (as in R.L.'s post above) is just one of many, many ways most of the media just report from a "white" perspective.

And, of course, when the report came out, there were the inevitable complaints much as we've seen above. But it didn't change the need to talk about these problems then or now. Good luck trying to stop us.

All stories should be whine-free. ;-) You've offered nothing so far but a defense of blowing a kids' brains out for trying to steal a car. Are we to be impressed?

Duan, the point is that it is useless to use a crime to point fingers at each other in ways that aren't useful. All of these crimes are "black eyes" on all of us if we don't use history and research-based information to do something about it so it happens less often (and, no, that doesn't replace prosecution, etc.; binary thinking is useless). The young woman murdered in Madison, or the drunk man who killed a family of kids a few years back with his car leaving the reservoir, are not black eyes on those towns, either: that's just a dumb cliche that plays into a blame game. If we want to do more than point fingers (or gleefully pull triggers), we're going to need to work a bit harder as a community.

We can replace those kinds of cliches with real information if we will on what can be done. And that starts with modeling a community that values every life the same, which I've seen way too little of on this thread and others recently. There is much more talk about blowing brains out than mentoring and education and facing poverty, and that is backward and counter-productive.

Saying any crime is a "black eye" on a town or county is always counter-productive. It's finger-pointing at it's most simplistic. So every community around here has a black eye based on recent murders. We're all even. What's next?

For those that it's not obvious to, the media's treatment of some killings as more tragic than others, especially when so obviously do it by race (oooo, that word again!) sends the message that lives of certain people in certain communities mean less. This, along with other disparate treatments, leads to notions that lives are not meaningful. The devaluing of life is what sets up people to commit senseless violence. We all play a role in reversing this cycle, and the media are very responsible (and know it; this is a huge topic in the media academy that is often ignored in the desire for sensationalism).

This goes all the way back to the [Kerner Commission's report][1] on the causes of urban violence in the 1960s and its warnings to media. If you haven't read it, yet, it might set a foundation for more education and understanding of the very vital role that media pay in perpetuating violence. This is a topic we will continue talking about regularly because it would be irresponsible not to--and because we believe in preventing violence in every way possible.

If this angers some of you, so be it. It's never been easy to talk about race disparities in public in Mississippi, so nothing new there. We must do it anyhow.

[1]: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6553/

By the way, all, just to be clear: There is nothing you can say or do to scold us out of talking about the disparate treatment of different ethnicities by media, officialdom or the general public on crime issues or anything else.

You. Are. Wasting. Your. Time.

These are research-based problems, and we're not going to bury or ignore them just because a discussion about race disparities makes some of you uncomfortable or angry (strangely).

So in your comments going forward, I suggest you leave out the whining about the mention of race and move discussion to a higher level. Otherwise, it's just noise.

When I get a minute, I'll post some links to various research that can move this conversation beyond its 101 tone. Buried in work obligations right now, though.

David, you just turned a question I asked into a statement. Seriously? You must read more carefully before telling me what I say/think.

It is a serious question that people need to consider: When it is a member of your family and not the people many perceives as "thugs" who have hopeless lives that they de-value (see above), do you want the same standard applied? A home owner gets to come out of his home (thus, endangering him more should the kid be armed) and unload bullets into your son/brother/cousin who did something stupid and bad, but not life-threatening--and the police and district attorney refuse to investigate the case. You can't twist my words in any way to lessen the seriousness of that question because that is exactly what so many are arguing for.

Not to mention that it sets up a bad person to pretend that the kid (who was perhaps selling drugs for the adult?) shoots the "robber" and then act like it was an attempt at theft. We had that happen in northeast Jackson back when Melton was mayor. So no investigation and people like some of y'all don't even know you just let a murderer go free. (Not saying that happened with Thomas, by the way. This is a what-if scenario.)

As for Dedmon, what he did was awful and horrifying. But like Mr. Anderson's family, I have compassion for him as well, although that does not mean I believe he should go free. Even in that extreme case, I don't believe he should be executed. And the most important part at this point is how he got that way, what forces led him there, what rhetoric about blacks led him to lead that posse of kids to do what they did. What were the roots of his violence? It's the same questions. Asking them doesn't mean he goes free, but it does mean that some other people might live, and kids' lives not be ruined, in the future if we're serious about it. Maybe that's not as fun for you as imagining "a few shots to the skull," but it is the more useful approach.

I also do not believe that the murder of James Anderson is a "black eye" (as a Clarion-Ledger reporter wrote this week) or creates a "stench" on Rankin County or Brandon. It means the people of that community need to come together to prevent it from happening again just as it does here. But violent crime happens everywhere, and we need to dig out its roots everywhere and solve it together, not just spew bloodthirst. That just leads to more violence. The kind of sensationalistic, blame-game "body-bag journalism" that so much of the media do just hurts our communities and creates conditions for more violence.

Let's try a quick hypothetical. Let's say the teenage son of Gov. Phil Bryant or Haley Barbour (or fill in the blank with the name of a prominent white man) got mixed up with drugs in school (even happens in academies you know). Or, he has a mental-health issue. Or, he and his friends are just out on a crazy lark because all teens think they're bulletproof.

On a dare, or under the influence of drugs or part of a hazing or whatever, he or his friends decide he should go try to steal a car parked in somebody's driveway in front of one of thise big houses in northwest Jackson (heck maybe even in Eastover). The homeowner hears the car door open and creeps out with a weapon. He sees the kid in his car and unloads his weapon on him.

He pleased, as someone says above, to see the kid's brains splattered all over the car.

Should there be no investigation of the death of this kid? Should JPS and the DA walk away, saying that a homeowner gets to come outside and blow a potential car thief who is unarmed and not trying to break into his home to hurt him. The kid just made his decision. Should we be gleeful about his death?

What is a G-child or G-mama? I don't know that lingo.

You don't know what we've read on these cases, but it's fun to watch you assume. R.L. is amassing a file; we're not done reporting on them.

Curious: Do you enjoy talking about a kid's "brains on the deck" as much as you seem to? The whole swagger-without-a-sense-tragedy is what strikes me the most about many of these posts. I get the filling some of y'all want to kill these kids. Maybe I'm wrong, but your posts do not dispel that sense. Maybe you should consider that. Of course, few of you post with your real names, so maybe you don't care that you come across that way to the world.

It's staggering, though, to read.

It seems to me that people who believe they need to arm themselves against crime (which is a valid argument from one perspective) wouldn't seem so *joyful* about the proposition of blowing away a young person who clearly has problems. It's one thing to believe in self-defense, but another entirely to see to enjoy the idea so much.

THAT is my overwhelming sense from reading these comments the last couple days. It makes me sad.

Of course he was armed. I wonder where the gun originated.

I haven't defended that kid, nor R.L., or anyone else I've seen -- except to say that his life is as valuable as any other human beings. I sure would like to see our community actually try to help save kids before they devalue their own lives enough to kill someone else. It's a double tragedy.

If my believing that offends you, so be it. I haven't said he shouln't be punished if guilty. That was a heinous crime. But it's too late to stop it. My interest is in stopping future ones. And the culture of violence you'd advocating won't do that.