Is political correctness to blame?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-20-2008
Is political correctness to blame?
5
Tue, 10-20-2009 - 1:28am

Is political correctness to blame for lack of coverage over horrific black-on-white killings in America’s Deep South?

"I think it would have gotten a lot of national play faster if it had been a black couple kidnapped and killed by five white people." University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds told the local paper in Knoxville.

It was the kind of crime that strikes terror into the hearts of parents everywhere.

A bright young couple were carjacked after a Saturday night date and murdered in the most brutal way imaginable.

Christopher Newsom, 23, was tied up and raped, shot in the back of the head and then dragged to a railway track and set on fire.

His girlfriend, 21-year-old University of Tennessee student Channon Christian’s fate was even more horrific.

Her death came only after hours of torture, during which time she was raped and savaged with a broken chair leg.

She was beaten in the head and a household bleach was poured down her throat and over her bleeding and battered genital area in an attempt by her attackers to cover any evidence of rape – all while she was still alive.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/10/15/article-1220695-06D64C3C000005DC-820_468x350.jpg
Torture: Channon Christian was forced to watch the attackers rape and kill her boyfriend Christopher Newsom before she was murdered

Then she was ‘hog-tied’ with curtains and a strip of bedding and a plastic bag was wrapped over her face.

Her body was stashed inside five bigger rubbish liners and dumped in a bin, where, according to the autopsy report, she slowly suffocated to death.

On Monday, the alleged ringleader of the gang accused of the killings goes on trial in Knoxville, Tennessee.

One of the gang has already been convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

But, even though the killings happened in January, 2007, they have attracted very little national and international coverage.

That’s because they do not fit into the conventional contours of an attack in America’s Deep South, where a shameful history of racial intolerance has meant assaults by whites on blacks have historically been regarded in the context of race.

In this case, the races were reversed: the victims were white and the four men and one woman charged in connection with the murders are black.

Ironically, the case has now generated more publicity surrounding the furore over whether or not political correctness was behind the US media’s decision to largely ignore the story than it did for the murders themselves.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/10/15/article-1220695-06D64A08000005DC-392_468x409.jpg
Lemaricus Davidson, centre, goes on trial in Tennessee over the murders this week. Letalvis Cobbins, top right, has been jailed for life. Eric Boyd, Vanessa Coleman and George Thomas will be tried after Davidson

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/10/15/article-1220695-06D64AA9000005DC-428_468x468.jpg
Life: Letalvis ‘Rome’ Cobbins was found guilty of multiple counts of first degree murder. He was also convicted of rape, kidnapping and robbery

http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/2009/10/18/is-political-correctness-to-blame-for-lack-of-coverage-over-horrific-black-on-white-killings-in-americas-deep-south/

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 10-20-2009 - 9:02am

This horrendous crime took place in 2007.


Many crimes are kept locally & not picked-up by the national media.


I do not view this as anything to do with PC.

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Community Leader
Registered: 04-05-2002
Tue, 10-20-2009 - 11:08am
Sadly, there are many horrific crimes committed that we don't hear about, for different reasons but I don't think it's about PC but interest.





Avatar for ddnlj
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 10-20-2009 - 11:19am

I've lived my entire life in the south. Hate and racism have always been a seething undertone, but the most important thing to recognize is that it has varying degrees.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-30-2008
Tue, 10-20-2009 - 10:12pm
this was a horrific article to read - I dont understand what makes people do these things to another human being.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-04-2009
Tue, 10-20-2009 - 11:18pm
I don't think it is an issue of political correctness, but an issue of it being a matter of local and not national news. I live in suburban Baltimore, and we have a very high murder rate. All the gory details of the murders are on our nightly news and in the Baltimore Sun, but they don't make the national news. Less than a block from my former place of employment a man was murdered and his body was set on fire on the street corner. The sidewalk still had the black marks a month later. It never made the national news. Also, there was a horrific murder-suicide in the courtyard next to mine where a woman, her live-in boyfriend, and the babysitter were shot. The murderer then stepped out onto the front porch (this was 7 p.m. on the night before Father's Day) and blew his head off in front of two of my son's little pre-teen friends. It never made the national news. If you want stuff to make the national news, it has to have some extremely gruesome circumstances. Instead of complaining about lack of national exposure, people should pick up the phone and call CNN.