When racial clichés drive murder stories

by Eric Deggans,

As scores of people head to the National Mall this week commemorating 50 years since the March on Washington, some corners of the media are still featuring passionate debate over whether African-Americans have ignored “a culture of violence” in their midst.

The finger pointing this time comes after the senseless killing of Australian baseball player and college student Christopher Lane, shot dead August 16 while jogging on a street in Duncan, Oklahoma.

From the moment three teenagers were arrested in the crime — first misidentified as three black youths, later found to be two African-Americans and one white guy — some media outlets tried to draw comparisons to the killing last year of black teenager Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman.

But if Lane’s death has anything in common with Martin’s — besides the sad fact that both killings seemed avoidable and were possibly committed by people of a different race from the victim’s — it’s the sometimes sloppy reporting used to make points about race that deserve subtler, more precise treatment.

In the early days of reporting on Martin’s death, Zimmerman was identified as white because police in Sanford, Florida, listed him that way on the incident report. Those early reports about a white man killing an unarmed black teen fit an easy black-and-white narrative about racial profiling in America, while the truth was that Zimmerman identified as Hispanic, but still could have profiled Martin.

This past week, Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends” and The Daily Caller website both reported the three teens who killed Lane were black. The Daily Caller also published a photo featuring a different, dark-skinned black youth identified as Michael Jones, the white teenager police believe drove the car during the shooting.

Both outlets also criticized President Obama and activists such as the Rev. Al Sharpton for not making an issue of Lane’s death in the way they spoke on Martin’s killing.

Still, an unspoken argument seems to be wrapped up in these stories. It’s the conflict over institutional prejudice and racism.

It seems obvious that real-life incidents rarely fit neat categories and the need to explain senseless deaths can lead to a lot of jumped-to conclusions.

But if the Chris Lane and Trayvon Martin cases teach anything, it’s that cherry-picking facts to fit a preconceived narrative can be a road to inaccuracy and unfairness.

Here’s hoping somebody is taking time to soak up the lesson.

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