The American media have control over our narrative

Remember when we were bombarded with headlines about the COVID-19 pandemic across every news website we could possibly think of? Well, that already seems like a distant memory. In the wake of the despicable killing of George Floyd, media outlets immediately rushed to push the narrative that cops are racially biased against African-Americans, and soon enough, news of this incident was widespread across all news websites and social media. Rampant protests ensured across all major cities in the United States, and although the majority of protesters were peaceful, numerous riots occurred, leaving copious small businesses - already in a dire financial situation due to COVID - in a state of ruin.

In the midst of this chaos, many media outlets continued to downplay rioting, some even inciting it. For example, Chris Cuomo of CNN said: "Show me where it says that protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful, because I can show you that outraged citizens are the ones that made America what she is." It is right in the Constitution that conflicting evidence is found: The First Amendment grants you the right of the people peaceably to assemble. Our perception of the world is largely moulded by the narrative of the media, whether it is completely realistic or not.

According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2019, police officers fatally shot 1004 people, which mostly consist of armed suspects. Of those 1004 people, around a quarter of those are African-American, already less than what the black crime rate would predict. A Washington Post database indicates that the police fatally shot 38 unarmed blacks and 32 unarmed whites in 2018. In 2019, the numbers plummeted to 9 unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites. It is evident that the police force has already made substantial effort to reduce these incidents. In 2018, there were 7407 black homicide victims. If we assume that the number of victims remained approximately the same in 2019, the 9 unarmed black victims compose of around just 0.1% of all African Americans killed. A police officer is actually 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than vice versa.

It is true that racist cops exist, but this is inevitable. In a large sample size, there will always be anomalies, but statistics show that blacks being shot by police are actually disproportionately lower than whites being shot by police. Is this indicative of the media skewing the truth? Of course, racism still plagues this nation and there are instances of explicitly racist acts, but in a society, we will always have bad people. The media should assist with fostering healthy relations between different races, not pit one against the other, as we sporadic cases of racism may never stop until we do. The best we can do right now is to try and reduce stigma of negative African-American stereotypes. The ongoing looting and rioting is not doing this any good.

#peace #America