Watching tonight's news I came to a sad conclusion . . . In my lifetime, the lives of minorities will always be less important than those of white people from affluent communities.
Argue that point all that you want, tell me how wrong I am, comment about how I'm really the person that's racist and all discrimination, prejudice and bigotry would end the second I stopped posting on this blog . . . Believe what you want my little d-bags, but the fact remains that the media outlets in this town were paralyzed for a week over the kidnapping and murder of one, single, white woman whereas this summer dozens upon dozens of Black males and assorted minorities along with poor white people will be killed and subsequently receive far less sensational news coverage.
Still, I can't say that I wasn't glued to the television to see who they had arrested and charged with the crime and I thanked heaven above that it wasn't a person of color; in fact the charges are filed against a suburban white guy . . .
Additionally, this very real and commonplace fear that a minority charged in a especially gruesome crime somehow reflects on the entire community is one of the many misconceptions at the root of the poor state of race relations in this country EXCEPT when it comes to Mexican immigrants who are nearly as dangerous as Al Queda according to Fox News.
But I digress . . .
So, just as so many folks in the comments have argued that the entire Black community is solely responsible for every single one of the homicides in their community. Quid pro quo, the entire populace of suburban Johnson County should take the rap for Kelsey Smith's murder as well. Makes sense to me.
Edwin R. Hall, 26, of Olathe, is being held in the Johnson County Jail in connection with the slaying of Smith, Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass said.As always, it's important to remind people that Edwin R. Hall is completely innocent as of now . . . And frankly, I'm just a bit suspicious about the level of communication and cooperation between the authorities and the mainstream media . . . Whenever they ask good questions, they're put off and it seems like they're basically getting played as nothing more than a mechanism to file press releases . . . (Brief aside, as of now they're saying there's no direct evidence that Smith knew her alleged killers but the phrasing was cautious . . . This early angle of the case may or may not change) . . . At last night's press conference the police asked reporters not to ask the Smith Family any questions and THEY COMPLIED WITHOUT A FIGHT. That's not exactly the kind of hard-edged coverage that they advertise on their TV promos . . . In fact, the Smith family deserves a lot more questioning because they (justifiably) used a lot of media and law enforcement (public) resources on a case that doesn't really have an impact on anybody but them . . . During the Precious Doe case, Alonzo Washington basically had to beg the authorities to listen to him and he was the one who got hold of a tip LONG BEFORE the police had even a clue as to what was going on . . . Put simply, the Smith family got a lot of public cooperation but last night they left the public in the dark when it came time to share information . . . Their grief is understandable but no one should be allowed to dictate the terms of reasonable public discourse . . . Put even more simply, a few questions wouldn't have hurt anyone.
Douglass said Hall will be charged with first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping charges on Thursday.
Honestly folks, if you can't smell the supremacy at play regarding the discrepancies between one privileged, white community versus the rest of the brown, poor and huddled masses than you're being willfully naive or purposefully ignorant. There have been so many innocent people killed in minority communities and most of the media has shown little or no concern . . . It's not just about the lack of cooperation from minorities or even lack of coverage . . . In the end, it's painfully clear that most people simply don't place a high value on the lives of poor people and people of color . . .
Viva El Tony!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat the fuck are you whining about? She shouldn't have had all this attention, then? Shouldn't you be complaining only about how others don't get as much attention, and not how much this case received? Or is being the poor little minority involve being as self-centered as the people you're putting down?
ReplyDeleteTony, I can't say I agree with much of anything you write in this blog but I know what you're talking about when you say you're relieved by the non-minority status of the accused killer. I hate to admit I was thinking something similar.
ReplyDeleteHow old are you Tony?
ReplyDeleteDo you know what grief and pain the family must be going through? Do you know what it is like to loose your child? Not to ask the parents questions in time like this is a basic human courtesy, decency. Your comments indicate your immaturity.
They ask you just one question. Just before you graduate from journalism school, they tell you to imagine you're a reporter.
ReplyDeleteImagine you work at a daily big-city newspaper, and one Christmas Eve, your editor sends you out to investigate a death.
The police and paramedics are there. The neighbors, wearing bathrobes and slippers, crowd the hallway of the slummy tenement. Inside the apartment, a young couple is sobbing beside their Christmas tree. Their baby has choked to death on an ornament.
You get what you need, the baby's name and age and all, and you get back to the newspaper around midnight and write the story on press deadline.
You submit it to your editor and he rejects it because you don't say the color of the ornament.
Was it red or green? You couldn't look, and you didn't think to ask.
With the pressroom screaming for the front page, your choices are: Call the parents and ask the color. Or refuse to call and lose your job. This was the fourth estate. Journalism. And where I went to school, just this one question is the entire final exam for the Ethics course. It's an either/or question. My answer was to call the paramedics.
Items like this have to be catalogued. The ornament had to be bagged and photographed in some file of evidence. No way would I call the parents after midnight on Christmas Eve.
The school gave my ethics a D.
"...this summer dozens upon dozens of Black males and assorted minorities along with poor white people will be killed and subsequently receive far less sensational news coverage."
ReplyDeleteIf every time one of those people are killed, the police received over 500 calls from people who saw something suspicious and wanted to report it, if the friends and families came forward and were willing to tell the police anything they wanted to know if it helped capture the killer, if they were willing to SNITCH instead of standing in a circle holding candles, then maybe something would change.
But when somebody is shot multiple times in front of 100 witnesses but nobody saw anything?
No one can help you if you can't help yourself.
Tony,
ReplyDeleteGreat minds see alike. You nailed what I stated in my blog. National news coverage of this case causes us to put our best and brightest efforts out there. Oh, while this is an unfortunate situation, somewhere in Johnson County, there are law enforcement personnel hi-fiving each other on their hard work.
Yes. Let's talk about the fact that you're glad the killer isn't a minority. That part is a true notion. I never considered it in this case, especially when they had the person of interest. Most minorities I know frequent Walmart instead of Target. Most minorities don't make a habit of snatching innocent women in broad daylight...especially in Johnson freaking county where the law has been conditioned to keep all eyes on minorities....speaking from experience.
My blog cuts down on the fact that the same energy by police isn't granted towards all in a similar situation. Now, they want to talk about the Belton teen who came up missing last month...now, they're wondering if there is a connection. How do you think THOSE parents of that caucasian teen feel? Oh, well, they don't possibly have the same connections that Kelsey's father had. We don't want to acknowledge that there are yet lines of privileges that exist. Hey, if it works for you, why on earth would you complain? I thought the police were supposed to see everyone as equals?
They told us to see all as equals in the military...all enemies...foreign and domestic, were the same...enemies. No separation due to race...just the fact that if you showed yourself to be against us, you were an enemy.
Hopefully the law here can get busy and give everyone the same effort they gave the Smith family...even when the eyes of the nation aren't looking towards KC.
XO is correct. We have seen you on this very blog complain about the stop snitching culture Tony. Yelling at white people cannot change the culture amongst minorities. Bitch all you want. But when an entire group of people who actually saw what happened refuse to cooperate with law enforcement or drop a tip to an a hot line until the reward is high enough, says volumes.
ReplyDeleteSo quit of your ass and quit asking for pity every time something like this happens. Why don't you investigate why this happened instead of trying to ply attention from whatever avenue you can.
Tony, tony tony...see the main difference is that this girl wasn't a drug dealing, corner hanging out, no job having waste of space. She didn't wear baggy clothes and carry weapons, (although had she been packing, there could have been a happier end to this story...dead bad guy, alive girl) The other difference is this wasn't some drive by, gangland robbery, home invasion...she was KIDNAPPED, snatched off the street, check me if I'm wrong but wasn't there a huge media blitz for years looking for the precious doe killers, and her identity? I seem to remember she was black.
ReplyDeleteBut as soon as the "minority" populace stop taking offense to every perceived slight and "dis" real or otherwise, then maybe the old white people who run the media will pay more attention.
I'm thinking that as soon as everyone quits hollering racism, sexism, ageism, any "ism" those things will take a back seat to what really matters, like puppies, and ice cream and ski boats.
Sorry for the typos, that would be get off your ass, not quit.
ReplyDeleteYou people are fucking daft. Having read this post that's way too long I can honestly say that the point here is that you can't hold and entire community responsible for the actions of one or two or several criminals and every argument you racist white supremacists make in blaming the entire Black populace for the crime that exists in their community just makes you seem that much more bigoted.
ReplyDeleteIt is simple. Media only cares about this because a white girl was involved. As far as crime goes, if it's not white then it's alright and just another story and believe me that Black community has come out in full force to fight crime in their neighborhoods but it's overshadowed by people who would rather report on what rappers say or what's on some stupid shit written on a t-shirt.
It's all sensationalism and it's all supremacy in action.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Tony is the little brown boy who cried racism.
ReplyDeleteYou keep beating that horse man.
ReplyDeleteKeep globbing on to the latest self-defeatist mantra that "keeps the minorities down." What will be on the race card next year? Or is it seasonal, like fashion?
I feel so so so very bad for the minorities. They kill each other and then put on their "stop snitching" T-shirts and everyone refuses to talk to the media.
You can't put it on TV if you don’t have an interview, new evidence, a new angle on the case, etc.
You are just another example of how the minority community is destroying itself. The Real Powerful Racists are sitting in their penthouses, looking down on people like you, and laughing.
Minorities are only on TV when they agree to an interview.
You go on ahead and keep thumping your chest and recycling these stale ideas. If you would bother to look in the mirror you would see that you put on a KKK smock this morning.
I guess Precious Doe must not have been a minority since she got national attention. Hmmm.
ReplyDeleteAye, yi yi!
ReplyDeleteWhat a whiny lil bitch, you are.
Keep up the good work Tony. The Smith family knew how to make the media dance and dance they did. Hopefully some of the brown and poor white folks learn from this tragedy and make that same media dance when tragedy strikes them.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Tony's post, I am grateful to learn that living in a modest, suburban Olathe home and being a white guy makes me a member of an "affluent" community. I had no idea! My only question now is, what am I going to do with my Ford Focus? As a member of the privileged upper-class, my four year-old car that cost less than 10 grand (which I'm still paying) simply won't do!
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, why are some people so amazed that the world pays more attention to power and wealth than weakness and poverty? Did the wealthy not have privilege in ages past? Are the wealthy just now getting into the best schools, living in the safest neighborhoods and receiving the best plastic surgery? Did wealth and power just now start to pay off? I suspect this has been going on for some time. I'm fairly certain that if someone randomly shot me today, Paris Hilton's legal troubles would be a far bigger story . . . and this is in spite of my extreme affluence as a member of the exclusive enclave known as Olathe, KS.
Final note: If Kelsey Smith’s family is considered wealthy in this town, then most of us must be some really poor SOB’s!
What kind of correspondence J-school course was that, Chuck?
ReplyDeleteThat was you get for living in little mexico bitch
ReplyDeleteDouglass said a tip from the public led to the arrest of Hall.
ReplyDeletehow many crimes on the eastside have been solved due to tips from the public?
brother from another planet, i don't think anyone is blaming the ENTIRE black community, i think they are blaming the gangbanging assholes that kill people and then none of their friends send in tips.(12th street gang, 51st etc.)
i spent a great deal of time living on armour and cherry and remember a triple shooting that occurred because one girl called another girl ugly. that's right, ugly. 3 people were shot because of a petty dis. is that the entire black communities fault, fuck no. is it those involved that are at fault? fuck yes. the media cares just like they cared about precious doe; the community came together to express their grief and willingness to help. do you honestly think that the community is going to reach out to a small niche of the black community that has consistently shown a no snitch policy, not to mention the fact that these members just up and kill eachother over what the rest of the community sees as down right idiotic reasons? regardless of your racial identity, shit like that should be intolerable.
You people are sick. I can't believe that you have no sympathy for the grieving family. Apparently, you have never been truly struck by a tradgedy of this magnitude. I'll never visit this page again.
ReplyDeletethese are not rich people- yeah they do have jobs..quit trying to draw lines between people.
ReplyDeleteso what would you have asked the family at 11:30 at night as they left the podium last night, what questions do you think would have helped you with the story that the family could have answered? keep in mind you will be going to press conferences with the family all week as new information comes out and you might want them to talk to you then, keep in mind you have been working on this story for four days and all the people up at the podium have been awake longer than you. what are you going to ask. better to stay home so no hint of emotion or campassion can color your rant. you are a fucking idiot if you think the "media" doesnt care about minorities, lots of us are minorities. get off yur ass and get a job, get on the street, go to a candle vigil, see wailing families and then tell us how to stop it.
ReplyDeleteThis wouldn't happen if the fucking spics cooperated with Police occassionally.
ReplyDeletePrecious Hoe was just a headless girl from a nigger topless bar
ReplyDeletePrecious Doe was a minority. What they found in the dumpster was a minority of her body.
ReplyDeleteTHEY COMPLIED WITHOUT A FIGHT.
ReplyDeleteYou haven't ever been to something like this have you? Are you saying that you would have looked at these parents with grief and tears in their eyes, just hours after learning their daughter is dead, and yell at them "DO YOU REALLY THINK ALL THESE RESOURCES SHOULD HAVE BEEN WASTED LOOKING FOR YOUR ONE LITTLE WHITE GIRL???"
Then I'm glad you're not a journalist, becuase those are the ones that give all journalists bad names.
It's kind of sad how riled up TKC gets everybody. I don't think he's a bad guy, just an opportunist. When there's a tragedy that affects an innocent family who happens to be white, then BAM: a few insensitive comments (i.e. calling a kidnapped, murdered 18-year-old a "white broad") mixed with some indignant message about racism in the media, and we all get upset -- probably redirecting some of our anger and frustration about this violence onto anyone who decides to make light of it.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with that kind of flippancy and insensitive timing(i.e. typing posts making fun of someone even as their body is being found) is that it turns people off from paying attention to any message this blog purportedly conveys. Tony does raise some interesting questions about racism in the media, and I generally find this to be an amusing and informative site. I just think that if he held back on the sarcasm/snarkiness in some of these more sensitive stories, it would show a respect for both the victims and the message he feels so strongly about. But that's entirely up to him.
RDM --
ReplyDeleteI already explained the behind the scenes situation with KARA.
KARA was considered a runaway. The news doesn't cover runaways. Then police said "well, it's suspicious now" so we covered it. Then someone said they saw her with a boy in KS somewhere, so police were considering it a runaway again. NOW it's been a month with no activity in her bank account or cell phone (also she "left" without her new iPod... I mean come on, she's a teenager, without her iPod??) SO NOW yes, police are again considering this supicious.
Her case isn't as clear cut as having a kidnapping on videotape. That's the only reason it wasn't given the same kind of level of attention.
well said lukas
ReplyDeleteI feel so so so very bad for the minorities. They kill each other and then put on their "stop snitching" T-shirts and everyone refuses to talk to the media.
ReplyDeleteFrogpjs: a small niche of the black community that has consistently shown a no snitch policy
Hey frogpjs, a bunch of folks are blaming the ENTIRE black community.
Which 'bunch' of people? Tony often seems to claims tht it is the 'white' community.
ReplyDeletei don't think the post was fair, it clearly stated your side and opinion but then you wanted everyone to forcibly swallow what you were saying. YES! you do make valid comments. YES! the world is unfair to minorities. i know i'm half cuban, dad first person born in america for my family.
ReplyDeletebut each case and instance has to be taken on it's own circumstances.
this was broad daylight, on a weekend, in a busy area. it's scary, it's scary whenever anyone goes missing.
oh you're mad that it got lots of coverage, i can't say much for the national media, but in kansas locally they tend to report all or most dissaperances, and every shot that hits someone. the police cooperated and were all over the place cause of the tips and because, what, oh yeah Kelsey's dad has been a police officer for 16 years.
people are impacted when something happens to people close 2 them.
if you watch out for people in their time of need, they'll do the same for you. but say "why the fuck is everyone supporting that person cause they're (race entered here)?" and then are mad when no one's there for you, stop and remember, what did my mom teach me when i was young.
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ReplyDeleteHello my delicious brotherly-nuts. I just wanted to tell you that I love you like a fat girl loves biscuits. I have to confess that I stopped reading the comments page on your blog to look for anything positive or constructive a long time ago, but every once in a while I glance at what others say and I'm still surprised at others' negativity and lack of rationality in face of the evidence. So I thought I'd just stop by to drop you a line to say that I always appreciate your insight and I believe you are a sexy-man-beast to boot. I hope you don't waste time bothering listening to the wacked-out-cracked out craziness of others. You stay delicious and don't let anyone tell you different.
ReplyDeleteLove,
~Sexy Beans Magoo :)
Kelsey Smith wasn't "white."
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem with media coverage and minority violence is that most view gang/drug related murders as "business as usual." A gang member just got gunned down? No shit. That's not news to me.
Kelsey Smith wasn't "white."
ReplyDeleteshe was passing.
Wow Tony, could this thing BE any longer? (rrrimshot - ew)
ReplyDeletetess, you're being a bit defensive there about Kara. You and everybody else (at Fox and, just everywhere) knows rdm is right (and has the most intelligent comment on this longass freaking post, btw). If Kara's daddy had police ties, and the whole fambly lived in JoCo instead of Belton, that whole situation would've had a lot more press, "runaway" suspicions or otherwise. You know these things are a huge part of why her case hasn't been "given the same kind of level of attention."
Not that anyone can really blame the law or the newshounds, of course. I mean, what the hell fun is Belton? All that road construction. All those chain restaurants. It's completely understandable.
Again, you are the racist...there is a missing black female out of Florida while on vacation....it received National attention because people have compassion and love and care about anyone that has been taken against their will. It doesn't matter the color. It only matters to the people who shout hate and racist remarks and make every tragedy a race issue. Grow up and be mature and loving and decide if maybe you are the one that doesn't care unless it is about a black issue. You have no compassion for the spanish community and group them in your remarks about how violent they are...that is racisim. You remark about Kelsey Smith being white and rich. It shouldn't matter unless you are a racist. May God bless your heart and give you love for all races including the ones that are not black. Reading your comments leaves no doubt what your race is therefore you again you are a racist.
ReplyDelete