How the Media Paints a Story in Hues of Whiteness: The Waco Riot

[Tom Sawyer]

They do sound like the kind of people id be happy to see dead. It would have made the town a better place to get rid of more of them.

#NotAllLivesMatter

Some of them really don't.

 

[KeepTalking]

Here are some synonyms different outlets, as well as law enforcement officials, came up with:

CNN:
melee
ruckus
fracas
brawl
fistfight
brouhaha
“issues”
trouble
chaos

New York Times:
shootout
chaos
fight
confrontation
problems

Waco Tribune:
shootout
altercation
biker gang shooting
incident
“What happened here today” (Police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton)
“gun fights” (Swanton)
melee (Swanton)
scuffles and disturbances (on the issue of related violence around the city)
very dangerous, hostile criminal biker gangs (Swanton)
something akin to a war zone

KWTX:
turned a local restaurant into a shooting gallery
a rival motorcycle gang fight
melee
absolute chaos (Swanton)
a situation like happened Sunday afternoon

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/18/cov...illings_reveals_disparities_in_news_coverage/

Nine people are dead, 18 people were wounded and 170 people are charged in a brouhaha.

Gunfight and shootout seem to be the best descriptions of what happened, and the description of it as "something akin to a war zone" seems accurate as well. I don't see how "riot" applies, but then again, melee, ruckus, fracas, and brouhaha seem to be understating what happened, unless they are describing what led up to the shootout. Without full quotes in context, it's hard to tell.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

But at least they weren't gang or thugs.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

What does this have to do with "hues of whitenes"? Is this just Athena being Athena or is there more to this OP than I am seeing?

 

[Derec]

What does this have to do with "hues of whitenes"? Is this just Athena being Athena or is there more to this OP than I am seeing?

Maybe she means one half of this guy's beard.

Or alternatively, just like George Zimmerman was "white hispanic", maybe he (and other black bikers arrested at Twin Peaks) was a "white black".

 

[thebeave]

What does this have to do with "hues of whitenes"? Is this just Athena being Athena or is there more to this OP than I am seeing?

I think she's saying that it was wrong and probably racist to call what happened in Ferguson and Baltimore riots. We should have called them "kerfluffles" or something similar.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Oh, there were black people involved? We really need to do something about all these thugs rioting, then.

 

[Derec]

They do sound like the kind of people id be happy to see dead. It would have made the town a better place to get rid of more of them.

A fair question: do you feel the same abut the Michael Browns, Tony "not Baldrick" Robinsons, Vonderritt Myers, Freddie Greys etc. of the world?

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, there were black people involved? We really need to do something about all these thugs rioting, then.

Naw, can't call them "thugs" now if you want to remain politically correct. Misguided youth in arrested development maybe.

 

[dismal]

What does this have to do with "hues of whitenes"? Is this just Athena being Athena or is there more to this OP than I am seeing?

The media's habit of calling violent criminal biker gangs "violent criminal biker gangs" is now one of our top societal problems.

 

[dismal]

Good news:

The media thug boycott has been broken.

How we jumped from an outbreak of gang warfare at a Waco strip mall to a soul-scrutinizing debate over the use of the word “thug” is anybody’s guess.

The social media chatter makes me think — inappropriately, I’ll admit — of the old vaudeville saw:

“Call me a taxi!” “OK, you’re a taxi!”

If somebody needs a card-carrying member of the mainstream media to call the arrested Waco bikers “thugs,” here you go: They’re thugs. If it helps to call their chaotic violence a “riot,” OK, we can call it a riot. It doesn’t alter the net result.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/colu...oyd-waco-bikers-thugs-yes-and-maybe-worse.ece

Thugs.

Biker thugs.

White (and Hispanic) biker thugs.

White (and Hispanic) biker gang thugs.

Thugs. Thugs. Thugs.

Criminally anti-social biker gang thugs.

If this didn’t go without saying from the criminally anti-social, thuggish behavior Sunday in Waco, I hope saying it here makes someone out there feel better.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dalla...hugs-criminal-thugs-that-about-cover-it.html/

 

[laughing dog]

170 people have been charged in a situation the escalated from a disagreement to fights with weapons and 9 dead. This was more than a flapdoodle or brouhaha. Sounds like a mini-riot to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot

Thanks - it was a riot.

 

[Valjean]

What's the point of this thread? Is this a semantic debate? -- weather the "brouhaha" qualified as a "riot?"
And what's the black angle she's trying to introduce?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

A riot to me means a widespread action which includes looting and vandalism. The targets are random, but local.

What happened in Waco was confined, but I do have a problem thinking of a proper term for it. A gun fight sounds decent, but this was a large one, something that isn't typically seen. Gun battle seems a little over the top, but it comes closest I think.

What happened in Baltimore and Waco were two completely different incidents and using different terms wouldn't seem inappropriate.

"turned a local restaurant into a shooting gallery" seems like a reasonable interpretation of the event.

And what is wrong with calling the event in Baltimore a riot. The problem I see with Baltimore are people that equated all protestors with looters, vandalizers, and arsonists.

 

[Valjean]

"Barfight"

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

"Barfight"

It's a god damn cliche!

 

[AthenaAwakened]

A riot to me means a widespread action which includes looting and vandalism. The targets are random, but local.

What happened in Waco was confined, but I do have a problem thinking of a proper term for it. A gun fight sounds decent, but this was a large one, something that isn't typically seen. Gun battle seems a little over the top, but it comes closest I think.

What happened in Baltimore and Waco were two completely different incidents and using different terms wouldn't seem inappropriate.

"turned a local restaurant into a shooting gallery" seems like a reasonable interpretation of the event.

And what is wrong with calling the event in Baltimore a riot. The problem I see with Baltimore are people that equated all protestors with looters, vandalizers, and arsonists.

DING! DING! DING!

We have a winner!

Thank you for thinking about the situations. It is more than the media has done.

And the habitual coverage of everything from political protests to shootings to college kids after a championship game does not take snapshots of time but creates a meaning in history and can dispel or perpetuate any given propaganda. the media does cover different groups differently, uses a different vocabulary not just to describe different occurrences but describe different people. the poorer and darker the people, the less likely you will see the word brouhaha to describe a fight, vandalism, or even a killing.

Mild words and euphemisms convey a benefit of the doubt to the people descibed that the use of harsher words does not. I have never seen the paper describe a fight between Bloods and Crips described as a fracas. Gang shooting, gang war, gang violence. There stories about Waco that actually call the combatants motorcycle clubs. My cousin Greg, a fireman in New Jersey who some time works as a mechanic for the port authority to make extra money and complains about Giants needing a better defense, HE belongs to a motorcycle CLUB. What happened in Waco was Gangs fought, killing and wounding each other, and the violence spilled out in the public space of the city. What happened in Baltimore was a large protest and small groups of vandals using that actions of a legitimate majority to mask illegal activity.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

170 people have been charged in a situation the escalated from a disagreement to fights with weapons and 9 dead. This was more than a flapdoodle or brouhaha. Sounds like a mini-riot to me.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A riot to me means a widespread action which includes looting and vandalism. The targets are random, but local.

What happened in Waco was confined, but I do have a problem thinking of a proper term for it. A gun fight sounds decent, but this was a large one, something that isn't typically seen. Gun battle seems a little over the top, but it comes closest I think.

What happened in Baltimore and Waco were two completely different incidents and using different terms wouldn't seem inappropriate.

"turned a local restaurant into a shooting gallery" seems like a reasonable interpretation of the event.

And what is wrong with calling the event in Baltimore a riot. The problem I see with Baltimore are people that equated all protestors with looters, vandalizers, and arsonists.

DING! DING! DING!

We have a winner!

Thank you for thinking about the situations. It is more than the media has done.

And the habitual coverage of everything from political protests to shootings to college kids after a championship game does not take snapshots of time but creates a meaning in history and can dispel or perpetuate any given propaganda. the media does cover different groups differently, uses a different vocabulary not just to describe different occurrences but describe different people. the poorer and darker the people, the less likely you will see the word brouhaha to describe a fight, vandalism, or even a killing.

Mild words and euphemisms convey a benefit of the doubt to the people descibed that the use of harsher words does not. I have never seen the paper describe a fight between Bloods and Crips described as a fracas. Gang shooting, gang war, gang violence. There stories about Waco that actually call the combatants motorcycle clubs. My cousin Greg, a fireman in New Jersey who some time works as a mechanic for the port authority to make extra money and complains about Giants needing a better defense, HE belongs to a motorcycle CLUB. What happened in Waco was Gangs fought, killing and wounding each other, and the violence spilled out in the public space of the city. What happened in Baltimore was a large protest and small groups of vandals using that actions of a legitimate majority to mask illegal activity.

Foot, meet bullet. You're arguing against your own thread here!

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Foot, meet bullet. You're arguing against your own thread here!

How does she do that? She seems to be making the exact same point that she made in the OP.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

A riot to me means a widespread action which includes looting and vandalism. The targets are random, but local.

What happened in Waco was confined, but I do have a problem thinking of a proper term for it. A gun fight sounds decent, but this was a large one, something that isn't typically seen. Gun battle seems a little over the top, but it comes closest I think.

What happened in Baltimore and Waco were two completely different incidents and using different terms wouldn't seem inappropriate.

"turned a local restaurant into a shooting gallery" seems like a reasonable interpretation of the event.

And what is wrong with calling the event in Baltimore a riot. The problem I see with Baltimore are people that equated all protestors with looters, vandalizers, and arsonists.

DING! DING! DING!

We have a winner!

Thank you for thinking about the situations. It is more than the media has done.

And the habitual coverage of everything from political protests to shootings to college kids after a championship game does not take snapshots of time but creates a meaning in history and can dispel or perpetuate any given propaganda. the media does cover different groups differently, uses a different vocabulary not just to describe different occurrences but describe different people. the poorer and darker the people, the less likely you will see the word brouhaha to describe a fight, vandalism, or even a killing.

Mild words and euphemisms convey a benefit of the doubt to the people descibed that the use of harsher words does not. I have never seen the paper describe a fight between Bloods and Crips described as a fracas. Gang shooting, gang war, gang violence. There stories about Waco that actually call the combatants motorcycle clubs. My cousin Greg, a fireman in New Jersey who some time works as a mechanic for the port authority to make extra money and complains about Giants needing a better defense, HE belongs to a motorcycle CLUB. What happened in Waco was Gangs fought, killing and wounding each other, and the violence spilled out in the public space of the city. What happened in Baltimore was a large protest and small groups of vandals using that actions of a legitimate majority to mask illegal activity.

A timely NPR piece on media portrayal of motorcycle clubs:

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/22/408517195/two-biker-rallies-one-white-one-black-one-badass-one-just-bad

Very different perception of two very similar groups of motorcycle enthusiasts behaving in a very similar manner.

aa