Disappointment
My morning started off with disappointment and frustration today, not my preferred kick off. While listening to NPR on the way to work I was excited when the newscaster began talking about 4 Corners New Mexico, my parents live very near there. Then to my surprise the story was actually about Farmington, which is their town. It pretty much went downhill from there.
The story was about discrimination against the Navajo Nation which borders Farmington and just about everywhere else in the state. It's big. In the1970s there was a bad incident involving some white teenagers and some Navajo people. It was a hate crime, definitely, and showcased a problem with race relations in the area.
Now certain vocal members of the local tribe are arranging protests because they feel that discrimination continues and is being overlooked. That is their right. Their protests may be inconvenient and perhaps annoying to the town's people, but they are peaceful and if the discrimination is as widespread as the protest leaders allege then it is good to call attention to it.
I'm not going to proffer my own opinion here, but I will say I believe there are both ignorant and kind people on both sides. But my issue wasn't with the protests. My issue was with the examples of recent problems that the story gave.
When I was out to see my parents this summer the local paper had just started publishing about the discrimination allegations, so I came into the story fairly early, read and heard a lot from both sides. I'm probably more informed about it than the average person who doesn't live in that area.
The NPR story cited one of the recent incidents being investigated was the shooting of a Navajo man in a Wal-Mart parking lot by a white police officer. That was the entirety of the statement. Sounds a little like Rodney King, doesn't it? What the radio didn't say was that the officer was called to the parking lot because the Navajo man was beating a woman in his vehicle.
Now, domestic violence is the most dangerous situation a police officer can walk into. There is every possibility that if they detain the abuser the spouse/partner will then attack the officer. It is just part of the conditioning that occurs with domestic violence.
So the officer came up to the vehicle and ordered the man out. He continued to beat the woman, but the officer did manage to get him out of the car. At which point he advanced on the officer, wrestled him to the ground and took his baton. The man then charged the officer with the baton and the officer shot him to defend himself. Sounds a little different now, doesn't it?
There is an FBI investigation into the incident, but so far it hasn't found any wrong doing on the officer’s part. Why couldn't that have been mentioned in the story? How much more time would it have taken to say, "A Navajo man was shot in a Wal-Mart parking lot by a white police officer who was responding to a domestic violence call?"
I just expected better from NPR...
The story was about discrimination against the Navajo Nation which borders Farmington and just about everywhere else in the state. It's big. In the1970s there was a bad incident involving some white teenagers and some Navajo people. It was a hate crime, definitely, and showcased a problem with race relations in the area.
Now certain vocal members of the local tribe are arranging protests because they feel that discrimination continues and is being overlooked. That is their right. Their protests may be inconvenient and perhaps annoying to the town's people, but they are peaceful and if the discrimination is as widespread as the protest leaders allege then it is good to call attention to it.
I'm not going to proffer my own opinion here, but I will say I believe there are both ignorant and kind people on both sides. But my issue wasn't with the protests. My issue was with the examples of recent problems that the story gave.
When I was out to see my parents this summer the local paper had just started publishing about the discrimination allegations, so I came into the story fairly early, read and heard a lot from both sides. I'm probably more informed about it than the average person who doesn't live in that area.
The NPR story cited one of the recent incidents being investigated was the shooting of a Navajo man in a Wal-Mart parking lot by a white police officer. That was the entirety of the statement. Sounds a little like Rodney King, doesn't it? What the radio didn't say was that the officer was called to the parking lot because the Navajo man was beating a woman in his vehicle.
Now, domestic violence is the most dangerous situation a police officer can walk into. There is every possibility that if they detain the abuser the spouse/partner will then attack the officer. It is just part of the conditioning that occurs with domestic violence.
So the officer came up to the vehicle and ordered the man out. He continued to beat the woman, but the officer did manage to get him out of the car. At which point he advanced on the officer, wrestled him to the ground and took his baton. The man then charged the officer with the baton and the officer shot him to defend himself. Sounds a little different now, doesn't it?
There is an FBI investigation into the incident, but so far it hasn't found any wrong doing on the officer’s part. Why couldn't that have been mentioned in the story? How much more time would it have taken to say, "A Navajo man was shot in a Wal-Mart parking lot by a white police officer who was responding to a domestic violence call?"
I just expected better from NPR...
posted by Liz @ 8:02 AM
1 Comments:
At 12:37 PM,
Monika Kruemmling said…
or NPR could do their job and find a useful example, rather than one handed to them, probably by the underwhelmingly generic newsgroup, the AP. is it too much to expect journalists to put a little effort into their work, rather than just regurgitate the AP? so sick of the pathetic corporate media...
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