Lauren Spierer, an attractive young white woman from Westchester County, New York, which is practically the center of the civilized world, went off to college in the howling wilderness of Bloomington, Indiana, where the natives, called "Hoosiers", barely speak English and aren't more than three generations down from the trees.
About a month ago she went missing from everyplace but my television screen, where she has remained non-stop as both local and national news showed constant footage of the dogs and helicopters and scuba divers and thousands of volunteers that turned out every day for weeks, leaving no Monroe County stone unturned. This morning, an unidentified body was found near Fall Creek in Indianapolis (which is where I'd go look if I wanted to find a dead body, myself; I'd imagine the pickin's are usually pretty good there,) and they practically broke into the non-stop coverage of the Casey Anthony trial to tell me all about it, because it might be her. Or it might not.
Meanwhile, Morgan Johnson is still missing. But he's not from Westchester County, and he's a dude. And black. So the reaction from the media and the community at large has generally been "Meh." No dogs and helicopters and thousands of volunteers and national news coverage for Morgan. His distraught mom has actually filed a complaint.
The whole thing's almost enough to make me agree with the Huffington Post.
UPDATE: The dead body in Fall Creek turned out to not be Lauren, but rather an unidentified African-American woman. The press, predictably, lost interest almost immediately. I don't know whether to laugh or cry...
.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
35 comments:
Women should always carry an emergency bottle of bleach for their hair in case they're ever kidnapped.
And then the Sixth Circuit Cout did this:
from American Thinker
On Friday, a panel from the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Michigan's ban on affirmative action.
FWIW, apparently Ms. Speier had a heart condition. My best guess is that her friends lawyered up fast because she died doing something stupid with them -- snorted a line of coke, or got overly drunk and never woke up or some damn thing -- and they know exactly what happened to her, and where she is, and they ain't tellin'.
On the other hand, I have no particular reason to believe the cops aren't doing due diligence WRT Mr. Johnson...but I agree, it's a damn shame he wasn't female and blonde, or the media would have found him by now.
WV: raponia: Just wait one $#@!'d minute. Do you think I'm responsible for this???
Well, to stir the pot I'll propose this experiment: Some night at around 2:00 AM you and Bobbi hop in the Zed Drei and cruise Carmel. Report your experience. Now find a couple of African American male friends and have them repeat that and report THEIR experience.
Everyone wants to rescue a "princess." No one really worries about rescuing the "prince." He's expected to take care of himself. And when the footman goes missing, "The footman's gone? Better get a new one..."
Really, though, this all comes down to media coverage. Of course the police were going above and beyond to find this girl. When the media puts her face and parents all over the tv and papers all day long and the police aren't being seen to do anything the assumption is that they are doing nothing, and that's just how it would be spun. Everyone ignores the fact that almost every time a pretty girl goes missing for any length of time she turns up a few months later dead, usually raped, and decomposed beyond recognition.
I think for the poor dude they just looked in a couple of trunks at the car lot at the airport and gave up. Anyway, a pretty face makes copy. Hence that whole Lacey Peterson thing.
Ever see a slasher movie* where a black guy gets stalked, chased and cut up? No: it's always the pretty white girl. We're supposed to care more about them, I suppose. Further, as RobertM writes above, guys are supposed to be able to take care of themselves. Pretty blonde girls, not so much.
----
(*) Got stuck watching "Scream 4" this weekend. Jebus... I know that Hollywood is totally anti-gun and that a well-ventilated villain in the first five minutes makes for a short and dull movie, but one would think that at least SOMEBODY in the movie would think, "Gee, there's a knife-wielding serial killer on the loose. Maybe I'll get a gun carry it around - or, at least, keep it next to my bed - until he's caught."
Bah.
I'd say it has more to do with looks than race. If she was from Monroe county and overweight and not "pretty" then nobody outside of Monroe county would have heard of this.
Maybe we can just take all the unemployed people and have them on a constant search for bodies. It gives them something to do, and no regular resources need be used. Cops could retire the 10-57 code.
I better go get some coffee.
Big trial going on for a serial killer up here in Cleveland. Turns out that Anthony Sowell chopped up close to a dozen women and kept their Body Parts. Turns out the Cleveland Po Po had lots of Missing Persons reports for these women, all in the same neighborhood, yet they just classified them as "Crack Whores," and did nothing to find out what was going on. It wasn't until one of his victims escaped were they able to look into the Slaughterhouse and stop the guy.
BTW, the fact that ALL the women and Sowell were African-American had nothing to do with fact that it took so long to stop him, even though there was complaints about the smell of Decaying Flesh wafting through the neighborhood for months, and the City even walked around his property on the Outside looking for its source. At least that's what the Cleveland Police Chief said.
Right.
*sigh* and your surprised?
Media = Liberal
Liberal = Secretly racist
Proof? hmmm ok
The watering down of the 1957 Civil Rights bill
Filibustering of the 1964 Civil rights bill
The fight to keep slavery
The first established Section 8 housing "to keep the undesirables to themselves (Senator Bryd)"
Planned parenthood (highest concentration is IN THE HOOD)
So in conclusion .....
liberal = racist pig
Les,
Robert Hansen, the "Butcher Baker" up here preyed on prostitutes back in the '80s. One escaped and went to the local PD who blew her off (they've gotten better). It was the Staties who finally put the time in to catch the bastard.
He would fly them in his plane out into the boonies and hunt them, but hey, hookers go missing all the time.
=/
This is a pretty commonly observed media behavior. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome Especially notable was Natalee Holloway, with my own cynical opinion that media coverage also netted any assigned journalist a free tropical vacation with an expense account.
Fark calls it "Missing White Woman Syndrome".
Seriously: Drew Curtis' book should be required reading for anyone who has even a passing relationship (consuming OR producing) with news.
How timely. I was just commenting on Facebook about certain people — namely, all the people who were getting all het up about that woman down in Florida accused of killing her kid who was acquitted. I bet you none of them take even a bit of their time or outrage and remember Dannarriah Finley, Alexis Patterson, Cynteria Phillips and all those other murdered kids who didn't get national press coverage. Dannarriah Finley was a little black girl from my old stomping grounds in Southeast Texas whose killer has yet to be found; I think of her every time something like this comes up.
"He would fly them in his plane out into the boonies and hunt them, but hey, hookers go missing all the time."
Like The Most Dangerous Game?
Anthony was charged with murder only after her daughter's body was found. It wasn't found by police work, it was found because someone else suspected it was there and called the police. Repeatedly (This is cause for criticism IMO.)
If Dannarriah Finley's body were found do you believe police and prosecutors would ignore that because she is black?
Yeah, I think Family Guy covered this a while back...
Seriously though, while for some the big "R" is pretty much the go-to explainer for everything, in this case it's really just a matter of profiling...which is something all of us -and especially LE at all levels- could stand to do a lot more of, PC bullshit be damned.
While the MSM would never admit it, they're really just another business looking for a hook, and there's nothing wrong with that. Young black guys getting dead or gone is totally Dog Bites Man in Indy as it is in Quahog I guess, while the PYT is going to be a headline grabber every time. If profiling the vics successfully predicts the popularity/saleability of the story, that's a legitimate business decision...it's the hypocrisy that galls me.
And the only thing more pathetic than media's being loath to admit their capitalist essence is the need for some to ascribe anything and everything to racism and then appoint themselves to "protect" and speak for the downtrodden as if they themselves are incapable of that.
There's nothing more racist than that.
AT
Yeah, that's me. I'm all about the PC.
I was going to say that not every comment is about you, and certainly mine was not.
But if that touchiness indicates seeing something of yourself in my last para, then maybe it is.
Like most else, PC is subjective as to interpretation and degree. And mine is that substituting one's own outrage by proxy for those one perceives as being helpless without it, is a huge insult to the protected species at hand, and PC all to hell and back.
This being your Porch and one of my favorite places, I would not and did not intend personal attack. But as long as I'm here, I might as well have my say. As one who has oft voiced the importance of circle nod/jerk/diddle avoidance, I wouldn't think you'd want it otherwise.
AT
If Dannarriah Finley's body were found do you believe police and prosecutors would ignore that because she is black?
Ahem. My comment had nothing to do with the police & prosecutors and everything to do with the media coverage.
AT,
Perhaps I should have put a winkie smiley? You'd have seen it in real life; sometimes I just assume that the person to whom I'm typing is in the room...
"You'd have seen it (winkie smiley) in real life..."
One of these days my Baby 'n me gonna drop into one o' them Blogmeet things of ya'll's.
You've said you feel more natural and riffy talking (and apparently winkin'/smilin') than typing; that's an experience I would relish. But 'til then, ;)
AT
There's a reason "The Perils of Pauline" was such a big hit at the Saturday Afternoon Matinees in movie theaters all over the US of A during the Great Depression. Macho Males always have, and probably always will, turn heaven and earth to rescue The Damsel in Distress.
Macho males needing rescue? Not so much. Aside from the obvious embarrassment of actually needing to be rescued, the true macho male is supposed to be able to both take care of himself in dire circumstances, and rescue anybody else in the immediate vicinity to boot.
All whilst fighting off legions of zombies, pirates, ninjas, and machine gun toting Nazis.
I can understand Tam's take on it though - she just doesn't see life through the eyes of a Damsel in Distress.
More like over the sights of a 1911. :-)
Boxstockracer
WV: pinte - what the True English Gentleman version of the Macho Male has after rescuing The Damsel in Distress and her hangers-on.
For the record, I think it's particularly awesome that this post originated from a tall, startlingly attractive blonde woman.
That's empathy. Sorry, Tam - no offense or anything.
The funny thing is that, in my experience, journalists don't think much of the phenomenon either but if it bleeds (and it's white), it leads.
As an Alabama journalist, I grew to hate Natalee Holloway's name. I realize that's crass, unfair and unkind. She didn't ask for whatever happened to her, she didn't ask for all this media attention. But one rich kid from lily-white Mountain Brook (98% white in a state that is 26% black) vacationing for the summer goes missing and the alarms are sounded. I never wanted to hear another word about that case but if it bleeds, it leads. And white people bleed more money than black people, I guess.
Attractive? Not particularily good bone structure,kind of skinny and ugly clothes.
Shame she got lost, but hey, we all should take care of ourselves.
And if I were a white woman, I'd make damn sure to be completely sober and very armed at 0430 am.
Unless I were like 6'3" tall and meaner than most men. Then staggering home drunk in red-paint spattered T-shirt while waving a red paint-spattered machete around would be okay.
Me... I scare women when I'm out running at night. Not by design, it's just that I run rather purposefully.
It's not just race or gender.
Case in point: Crystal Grubb. Almost same conditions of disappearance, but similar "meh" to the pattern likened to missing black males.
It's rich girls that get attention. Daddy usually has well-connected friends to ensure his little princess gets the proper reaction. You can bet your ass a pretty black girl from a well-to-do family wouldn't go under the radar.
Buzz,
Yup, there's a whole tangled intersection of "-isms" at work here.
Suppose that young Mr. Johnson had gone missing from an upper-middle class subdivision right after getting a full-ride roundball scholarship to Very Big U.?
And what about that body floating in the swimming pool...?
Apparently she wasn't Lauren, either.
Maybe there is no body. Maybe someone ate her. We had a cannibal in Slovakia this year.. an ex-soldier and a sports shooter. (just what we needed as good PR..)
A nice, mild mannered family guy with a good reputation in his village.
His family still can't believe he ate two young girls(19,21) who wanted to die and whom he contacted over the internet.
Police bungled up the arrest. They tried to shoot the gun out of his hand, yet he shot his CZ-75 SP 01 seven times and put the arresting cop into a hospital. Police hit him seven times, and it took some days for him to die.
I've got no problems with the "took some days to die" part, but the "tried to shoot the gun out of his hand" and "put the arresting cop into a hospital" just piss me off.
We can do some nation building by sending Massad Ayoob to Slovakia; teach them what the funny stickie-uppy things on top the slide are for. Better yet, what the round, glass filled thingie on top the Vz58 or Cz2000 is for. Along with "center chest hold".
Fewer giggles in ICU. . . but fewer tears, too.
CZ-2000? Wussthat? Our police use...hmm. CZ-75s, I think.
They'll likely be moving to Glocks, which is a travesty, considering that the STI GP6 is made here.
Post a Comment