Yes, Scott, but there were children sexually assaulted in Madison. That is really a useless point in this discussion and works to negate what you wrote above it.

There is no way to intelligently downplay the role of white flight (especially immediately after the schools integrated), which changed the landscape (and tax base, etc.) of Jackson and many other cities. You just can't rewrite that history with revisionist posts, and my trying to argue with people naive or gullible enough to think that is a waste of my time.

I also assume you're familiar with what redlining did to our communities? And, yes, that was race-based as well. Just because some people don't like this history to be discussed doesn't make it false. And if we don't learn that history and use it to solve problems, we will keep abandoning neighborhood after neighborhood instead of digging in and solving the problems.

Fortunately, younger generations have a different view on here, including here in Mississippi. THAT was the point of my column. They will very soon change our city and state, and it doesn't really matter what the revisionists have to say about it. That is very, very exciting.

If people really care about reducing crime, you won't get it from "body bag media."

We dedicated an entire GOOD Ideas issue to the research behind what causes crime and how to prevent, as well as making neighborhoods safer. [You can read that issue here,][1] starting on page
14 (where we discuss the problems with "body bag media," in fact.)

I've found that there are two types of people in the world when it comes to crime:

1. Those who want to use it for their own purposes: often to make "the other" look bad (usually people of color), or in the case of media, want to use it as a cheap way to get page views, ratings, etc).

and

2. Those who want to figure out what causes it and change those causes to help keep kids from growing up to become criminals and to make the rest of us safer.

If you're serious about reducing crime, I urge you to choose the smart choice of No. 2. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of sound and fury, signifying nothing (except maybe bigotry and hate).

And what's interesting to watch about the hysterical responses to R.L.'s stories about Mr. Brown and Mr. Thomas is to watch people who salivate over "Stand Your Grown" and open-carry laws say anything to change the subject away from a discussion of whether those laws actually make our society more difficult and help put guns in the wrong hands. I know attempts to change the subject when I see them, which tells me our coverage is spot-on. Y'all wouldn't whine so loudly about the articles if you didn't think they raised issues that might affect public opinion.

[1]: http://issuu.com/jacksonfreepress/docs/…

One thing we never do is pick and choose and cover crime episodically. We cover them in context when we do when there is a larger reason other than sensationalism. The main reason R.L. wrote about the Thomas and Brown killings is that they both raise important questions, and teach important lessons, about how laws like "Stand your Ground" and open-carry laws (which now everyone knows about) might actually cause law enforcement and districts attorneys not to investigate killings that should be, regardless of the ultimate outcome. They also prove the point that such laws make it easier even for would-be criminals to openly carry guns, a problem that urban law enforcement can't seem to get through the heads of many gun lovers.

Even in the case of Mr. Anderson, [our coverage was anything but episodic][1]. And it didn't take cheap shots at either Rankin County or Brandon for being responsible for what those kids did -- although there are certainly lessons in there that communities should consider if they actually care about crime rather than whining about black thugs. Thugs come in all colors, and that alone is a lesson many people in these parts don't seem able to grok.

Besides all that, you can watch a TV newscast any night and see selective crime coverage, and pick up the Ledger and get crime sensationalism, although they're not quite as bad as they were when we started the JFP. It's funny to me that you think we should spend our resources giving our readers the same useless drivel that you can find in any corporate media outlet or blog where people are too chickenshit to use their own names. You will continue to be disappointed in us on that front, I assure you.

[1]: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/20…

That's easy to explain, Scott. The hunt and murder of Anderson was a night-riding hate crime where a group of white teens came into Jackson looking to commit violence against a black man. If you can't see how/why this discussing/preventing this kind of crime is of special interest to a community and a society (especially in the state that had the most lynchings), I doubt I can convince you.

It's also really goofy to say that the JFP says crime doesn't exist in Jackson. If select crimes do not lead media coverage every day and feed hysteria such as yours, they don't exist? Obviously, the crime against the white visitor was awful; so is every crime that occurs in Jackson and in our bedroom communities, whether a murder, DUI homicide, sexual assault of children, domestic abuse and rape. It would be unethical for us to feature that crime any more prominently than any of the others in episodic, hysterical coverage ... because certain people want us to. No life is any more precious than another. We never cover any murder just to be covering it or to make the very obvious point that crime is "bad." Seriously: Our readers are dumb enough not to know that?! That's quite the insult to hurl on Mississippians, no?

It is important to distinguish between the kinds of crime coverage a responsible media outlet does: Media should not cover crime episodically and "if it bleeds, it leads" because it is harmful to a community and its ultimate ability to prevent crime. And what inevitably happens (as it did with media in this case, as R.L. points out, is that media put the most emphasis on white victims and black perpetrators. Seldom are black victims, especially those perceived correctly or not as crime-prone themselves, presented as living, breathing human beings. We saw it months ago with the coverage of the white young man killed at MIssissippi State (who, it turned out, might have been involved with the drug trade) and the black kid at Jackson State killed by his cousin (no evidence of being a criminal). Regardless, media including the Ledger initially ran gangster-ish photos of the black victim and talked about the lost potential of the white one. This is an age-old problem that is ingrained in our culture.

Often, people whine that we don't plaster certain crimes on our front page, and it's usually the ones in white neighborhoods or against whites that they want to see get top billing. If we run a story (such as about Mr. Brown or Mr. Thomas), while people pile on complaining that they deserved it, blah, blah. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's embarrassing to the state, frankly.

waynebob, I'm curious when you think JPS was excellent and when you believe it started changing to less-than-excellent. Serious question.

Bubba, don't be dense. You can't know if shootings are "justifiable" if they're not actually investigated. Some of y'all make it sound like if a shooting of a black man looks vaguely like it "might" have been justifiable under questionable laws, then they shouldn't even be thoroughly investigated.

This is the same mentality of the old west when it was cool to shoot a man on site if he was stealing a horse. This is not what civilized society, or a democracy, looks like. Mr. Brown's and Mr. Thomas' families are correct to be outraged at DA Robert Smith, the Jackson Police Department, the state Legislature and anyone who tries to make it sound like those killings didn't deserve a real investigation.

And we all know they would have been had the deceased been white. Whine all you want, but it doesn't change that.

As for tsmith, you just made yourself sound like an idiot. Congratulations.

Actually, property owners say same thing.

Amen, R.L. amen.

I don't really see that sequence problem, Lance, but thanks for clarifying in case anyone else reads it that way.

Haha, just seemed like the question to ask. ;-)