During my morning commute, I regularly get assaulted by images and headlines from NY’s astoundingly obnoxious dailies, the Post and the Daily News. I generally do my best to avoid those papers, but with so many people holding them up in front of my face on the F train on my way into work, I just can’t help but see what garbage they’re spewing this time.
This morning was no exception.
First off – the cover of yesterday’s Post. I saw this yesterday and was troubled by it, but, luckily for me, some readers were a little behind, so I got to see it again this morning.
(click for a larger version)
The article itself begins:
The female half of a husband-and-wife suicide team yesterday calmly detailed her chilling role in the al Qaeda bombing at a Jordanian hotel wedding reception — even posing in her explosives vest on TV like a fashion model.
Note that the picture the Post selected for the cover was not a photo of the woman “posing in her explosives vest.” Rather, it’s a photograph of the woman in a headscarf. Maybe the Post didn’t intend to equate being “dressed to kill” with “wearing traditional Muslim garb,” but the connection is there on the cover, and a (possible) lack of intent doesn’t do away with that connection, especially when it’s an equation that’s so prevelant in our society.
Case in point: on yesterday’s edition of Democracy Now, Amy Goodman interviewed Aman Mehrzai, a journalism student who witnessed last week’s protests and subsequent arrests outside of Colin Powell’s speech at De Anza College in Cupertino, California. In the preface to the interview, Goodman states that “confrontations occurred with the police and arrests were made. While the majority of those who engaged in confrontation were white, most of the people arrested were people of color.” Speaking about what he witnessed, Mehrzai says:
But there were many Middle Eastern people amongst the protesters, and they were dressed in Middle Eastern garb, and a lot of observers noticed that the confrontation between the Middle Easterners and the police were mainly verbal, and apparently what they are claiming – the police are claiming – that there were spotters who saw the Middle Easterners throwing things. But most of what everybody that I know saw, the actual confrontation was verbal, and out of all of the people who were apparently spotted, seven out of the — six out of the seven who were arrested on the outside were Muslim. And many of them were part of the MSA, and many of them were dressed in their Middle Eastern garb.
Again, traditional Muslim clothing is deemed a sign of propensity to violence, whether those wearing the clothing are actually violent or not.
Now, back to the Post.
This morningI also caught a glance of this headline:
NYPD BIAS SQUAD: White…
I couldn’t see the rest, but what little I could see made me say uh-oh right away. When I got to work I looked up the article (for which the NY Post website required me to register, grrr), and, surprise surprise, it was yet another article about “reverse discrimination.”
Three white female detectives were subjected to discrimination by a black commanding officer who stripped them of plum assignments and overtime pay in favor of their minority counterparts, a lawyer for the women told jurors yesterday.
“The evidence will show that the three women were discriminated against because of their race,” attorney Louis LaPietra said in opening statements as a trial began in Manhattan federal court.
Now, I don’t condone unfair treatment. If these women were truly treated unfairly, then there’s a problem there. And that’s a big if – because frankly, I wonder if these women were used to being on the “right” end of racial discrimination, and when suddenly things got a little more balanced out, they cried foul. Just sayin’.
But, regardless of whether or not these women were treated unfairly, I am immensely tired of hearing about “racial discrimination” against white folks. It seems like every time I turn around, there’s another story about white folks being treated oh-so-badly because they’re white.
People of color are treated badly because they’re not white a gazillion times a day. Why aren’t there a gazillion articles a day documenting every instance of true racism? Where’s the “NYPD Bias Squad” report about the people of color who are most certainly discriminated against both by and within the NYPD on the daily? Oh, that’s right, that’s just business as usual, no big deal, no surprise. But when the tables are turned and the white folks don’t get all of the perks and privileges they’re used to getting – well, that’s headline news.
