Sample Media Journal
Last night I watched CNN’s Paula Zahn Now. Zahn has been doing a series of shows about race in America, and last night’s show (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/16/pzn.01.html) was specifically about the role that race has played in the Duke assault case. The story is probably quite familiar to most people, but here is a quick summary. Last March members of the Duke University men’s lacrosse team threw an off-campus party and hired 2 female strippers to perform at the party. One of the strippers, who is black, accused 3 white team members of raping her that night. The players were charged with rape, kidnapping, and sexual offense, but the rape charges were dropped last month.
This case is a great illustration of the intersection of race, class, and gender. The alleged kidnappers/sexual offenders are white males who attended an elite, private university. The alleged victim is a black female who attended North Carolina Central University, an historically black university. Indeed, these differences of race, class, and gender between the accused and the accuser seem to be a main reason why the case has attracted so much national attention.
The stripper was, not surprisingly, vilified by many observers in the media. Unfortunately, that is almost to be expected for a black woman, particularly one who is a stripper, who claims to have been raped. I don’t think that would have happened had the situation been reversed. Imagine a white female student (who did not work as a stripper) from Duke accusing 3 black men from NCCU of raping her. I believe the media would have granted her much more credibility than they did to the accuser in this case.
What did surprise me, however, was the way the lacrosse players have apparently been mistreated by the legal system. They are people who are privileged by their race, class, and gender, yet they have been subjected to a shoddy investigation by the police and the (white, male) district attorney, who has recently been recused from the case. According to the program last night, crucial evidence was withheld from their defense attorneys by the prosecution for months, and the police line-up where they were identified by the accuser as her attackers was conducted in a way that did not conform to state or national guidelines. One is left to wonder if these players are actually privileged at all. On the one hand, their race, class, and gender seem to have been an advantage to them by making them appear more credible to some in the media than their accuser. On the other hand, if these men were not treated fairly by the legal system, then who is?
Comments
I found a clip on CNN.com of Keith Oppernheim looking at the death of quality food choices in some American urban areas. (http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/health/2007/03/01/oppenheim.food.deserts.cnn). The clip shows a 50 year old African American grandmother that has to walk a mile to a dollar store because she doesn't own a car. In order to buy fresh produce she must catch 3 buses to get to the grocery store which is over 2 miles away. Although these areas are food deserts, fast food resturants and liquor stores are plentiful. Half a million people in Chicago have difficulties getting to the grocery stores. Studies show that the driest food deserts are in African American low-income neighborhoods. Blacks travel 50% further than whites to get a grocery.
I think this clip ties in perfectly with the topic of the social inequalities by race and class. The government should realize that food access is a public health issue. It's really interesting to see that these neighborhoods have more liquor stores than grocery stores. Are they saying that liquor is more important than foods to African Americans? It doesn't surprise me that businesses don't want to invest their money into an area where they don't think they can maximize profits but it shouldn't mean they have the right to make it even harder for those who are already economically disadvantaged. The government claims that they give a tax incentives to businesses in urban areas but they should do more because everyone has a right to public access to food. A black man's dollar shouldn't be worth less than a white man's.
Posted by: Amanda L | March 2, 2007 11:29 AM