Facebook Publication Date: 9/7/2018 22:09

Botham Shem Jean And The Myth Of An Objective And Skeptical Press

The shooting in Dallas has me ill and restless, and in a funky state of mind.

I found myself mulling over this initial reporting, looking for what has made me unsettled, as unsettled as the fact of the murder, because that’s what it is more and more looking like, and I am mulling this:

The media does what it does. As much as the fourth estate claims otherwise, it is not impartial; it is not objective.

What it is though, is often definitive.

The media’s pushing of the what feels like fiction; of ‘accidental entry’; and mistaken premises has solidified what is a very peculiar narrative. To continue to advance that angle is doing two things, both of which feed into white supremacy.

Firstly, to swallow whole the fish of ‘mistaken’ and of ‘accidental’ is to go into state of mind and or the shooter’s words. To not critically examine that assertion, whether it be by assumption or by unquestioning acceptance of the shooter is at best lazy, at worse, it is complicity.

The only way this works is to buy into the Myth of White Benevolence; that there is no way a white person could possibly ever have bad intent, especially when there is a brown or black person in proximity; particularly when a brown or black person is dead.

Now, instead of finding facts, now there is something of a defensive posture; once again the victim is now the one under scrutiny and the person who made him dead controls the narrative and the dialog.

A simple thing that journalists say they have at the ready, that of agnostic skepticism is sorely lacking here.

I had a somatic response when I heard the words ‘accidental’ and ‘mistaken’. Embedded within them is a whitewashing of the shooter’s heart, motive and interior thought. We cannot assume she was a good actor, and by reinforcing this narrative, that is exactly what the media is doing, and what the public opinion is being shaped by. This is not right.

Now, whatever new facts emerge that challenge the Myth of White Benevolence will be in strong tension with the asserted character of the shooter.

Even the possibility that she and he were involved romantically invokes great apprehension in me; automatically my mind turned to Farrah Faucett’s movie “The Burning Bed”, and the reflexive need to turn white perpetrators into victims is real, and a real possibility here.

The dead man will not be able to defend himself from spurious assertions that this was prophylactic or after-the-fact self defense, and this professional, going to school for accounting, and respected church member will be cast as the goon from which she had to defend herself by any means necessary.

And the narrative will stick like glue into every prospective jury’s head, despite any protestations to the contrary.

Assuming there is a trial. The Thin Blue Line can declare this a ‘Good Shooting’ and she will make the talk show circuit, talking about self protection.

And the dead silent man will still be dead and silent.

These are the things that swirl in my head and psyche; no room to mourn a life, but to flinch and clench over the issues that those whose assertions of objectivity and neutrality have rendered, via the Myth, to laud the perpetrator, and by default, demonize the dead.

It is difficult to have to parse and analyze when my body’s somatic responses want nothing more than to feel and keen and rend my clothes. But alternative perspectives are crucial here, and I have waited a full day for others to say what must be said. They have not.

So it falls to me, and to all of us at Lace on Race to insist upon telling fuller, and harder truth.

We will continue to cover this and to provide insight, analysis, and commentary not found elsewhere. This will be a brutal walk, but walk we must.

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