The Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case has brought this question up again. If you watch the media, you may think that blacks only get upset when a white person kills a black person. This outrage never seems to occur with black-on-black crime. Some observers online even claim this as a fact.
I’m not sure this is true at all. While it is true that black leaders like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson seem to only get up in arms when they feel a black person has been victimized, that could be because that is their job. They don’t see other killings as a racial issue, so they don’t necessarily respond to it.
But this is not important. People like Sharpton do NOT represent all blacks. They represent themselves and their own opinions and agendas.
This may be part misperception and part media distortion. Blacks seem extremely upset over the Trayvon Martin case, but that’s because the media is shedding light on this incident. What about black-on-black crime? You don’t usually see the media take this on because it is not juicy enough for them. But if you talked to the people in the neighborhood where a black-on-black killing occurred, you may find that they would be upset about that.
The media distorts everything. Again, there is a reason you don’t see reports of black-on-black crime usually becoming a big story. The media doesn’t have enough hype to sell that story. Whether blacks are as outraged over such killings as they are with white-on-black crime is something that is hard to answer because the media will never find a way to help answer that question.
By the way, I find it odd that George Zimmerman is being called “white” by so many people when HE DOESN’T EVEN LOOK WHITE and is actually Hispanic (his father is Caucasian, though). Jordin Sparks has a white mother. Is she white, too? This latest issue doesn’t seem to be about race at all.
Conclusion: Never trust the media to gauge the real pulse of society. They report what they think makes them the most money and sensationalize it the best they can. Count on that.