Do you
remember the Trayvon Martin case a few months back? Probably not, as it has
been relegated to the ancient history of last spring’s cable news cycle. Troy
Davis occurred somewhere in the Silurian Era I believe. Anyway, it was the case
of a young, unarmed black boy who was gunned down in claims of self-defense. In
spite of the circumstances, there was no trial, nor was there even a serious
investigation of the shooter. As a nation we were outraged. Looking into the
beaming thirteen-year-old’s eyes from a recent photo, we saw our own sons, our
own brothers our own neighbors. Well, metaphorically speaking, that is. There
aren’t too many black people around where I live.
We put on
hoodies, we waved bags of skittles, we crowded the streets to let it be known
that the racist system that allowed small black children to be gunned down
could not stand. But then something funny happened. As we flipped over to MSNBC
to get our wall-to-wall Trayvon fix, we turned past Fox News and caught a
different photo of Trayvon. Surely that wasn’t him. It must have been some Fox News
spin. They do have those computer generated aging systems now-a-days; maybe it
was that. In desperation we took to the internet, and to our despair we found
that it was true. The “teenager” as presented to us through a years old class
photo of near-Webster cuteness, was not the small 13 year old we had been led
to believe he was. Shit, this kid was bigger than me! We’d been lied to! Fuck
Trayvon Martin!
This sense
of backlash occurred in spite of the fact that what had happened was an outrage. Regardless of Trayvon’s
age, the fact that a fatal, and suspicious, slaying had occurred without the
police even mounting a serious investigation was a travesty. What is
infuriating is MSNBC’s coverage of the case. They had cheated so to give
themselves a hand of five aces. They had a genuine outrage in their hands, and
yet they still felt the need to be emotionally manipulative and dishonest. In
all likelihood, they were merely outraged by the obvious injustice and made it
their mission to do whatever necessary to gather support. But in doing whatever
necessary, they undermined the cause that they so hoped to champion. Suddenly
those charges that this was all just some drummed up controversy of the
left-wing media became a bit harder to fight. Suddenly people’s ingrained sense
of cynicism began slowly creeping in.
Beyond
undermining its cause, MSNBC discredited itself as a serious source of
information on the case. His age shouldn’t have even mattered, but once they
dishonestly led us to believe that he was a small child, no amount of pinky
promises in the world could make them credible again.
And this
case is indicative of everything wrong with MSNBC, of everything that
discredits them. They have their viewpoint. Great. They want justice in cases
where workers and minorities and women are being oppressed. Terrific. They want
the Democrats to win. So do I. But in their desire to achieve their
goals—having democrats win—they begin to leave truths out. They lose their
critical eye. They become cheerleaders.
My God,
have you ever seen Chris Matthews in the same room as Bill Clinton? He talks
about him like he’s the second coming of Christ—getting all water eyed and
deeming him America’s President. Each time he has him on Hardball, Matthews
spends the entire twenty minutes awkwardly crossing his legs, and by the end of
the show, a cameraman has to come on and clean the underside of his desk. This
is in spite of the fact that it was Clinton who repealed Glass Steagall; that
it was under Clinton that we saw the spending allotted to fighting the phony
“War on Drugs” rise from 12 to 18 billion dollars annually; that it was Clinton
who said “I have long opposed
governmental recognition of same-gender marriages” before signing the
motherfucking Defense of Marriage Act.
But see, their cause needs a hero.
Critical reality does not matter. And maybe they’re right. As much as I want to
believe in the self-evident merits of intellectually honest argument, the fact
remains that the average American is a hopelessly stupid animal. And if right
wing media is championing the Republican candidate as a model of everything
American, Christian and decent, while the left wing media is championing their
candidate as flawed and corrupt, but slightly less so, Vegas odds are swinging
real fast. Hell, maybe if it weren’t for their emotional manipulation in the
Trayvon Martin story there would have been no cause to undermine. Maybe it just
would’ve been another nigger in a hoodie getting gunned down.
Do not take
this as an endorsement of MSNBC’s tactics. I’m not writing in judgment. We get
the leaders we deserve, and the media as well.
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