Read our post "Why Aren't the Lives of Black Women Treasured"
Mainstream media is once again enthralled with the death of a young, angry, and murderous Caucasian male. While Robert A. Hawkins was preparing to make his mark on human history and SELFISHLY grab 15 minutes of fame by mowing down innocent civilians, Alexis Goggins a 7- year-old first grader from Detroit, MI was SELFLESSLY throwing her body in front of a gun to save the life of her mother. She took six bullets.
Um so tell me what is newsworthy about yet ANOTHER disaffected White male taking psychotropic drugs and committing mass murder before committing suicide? Cue the cameras to the family members who had NO IDEA what a homicidal little maniac was living under their own roof and can't fathom where he got an assault rifle from. Cue the statements from friends, neighbors, and classmates about how quiet or moody or introverted the gunman was. Cue the profilers who basically say , "Yeah, we could have seen this coming." Been there done that.
For those who say that the victims of these mass murderers are newsworthy, I AGREE! however, in the immediate wake of the mass slaughters, the first picture you see repeatedly on every news outlet in every newspaper is that of the KILLER not the victims. Name two victims of Columbine. Name one victim of Virginia Tech. Since these killers are now leaving press kits so that they can speak from the grave, it appears now that the news media has to do some soul searching about the role they are now playing in these homicides. The suicidal attention seekers now know that they'll finally get what they longed for in life by taking a few innocent people with them.
In my humble opinion, the news agencies ought to treat these homicidal young men in the same way that they treat juveniles and victims of sexual assault, REFUSE TO DISCLOSE THEIR IDENTITIES! If people want to know, let them look it up. Refuse to paste their pictures on every front page and news website in America. Yep, they've decided not to divulge the identities of juveniles and sexual assault victims as a matter of editorial policy. I think they need to add a category to the list: suicidal mass murderers.
There is a precedent for NOT covering suicides. In San Francisco, the newspapers stopped covering jumps from the Golden Gate bridge:
For years, local media reported every victim, and the grisly countdown reached a frenzy in 1995 as the 1,000th suicide approached. " The media agreed to stop the count. SOURCE
Why not do the same thing at the national level. Report the deaths, have a media blackout of the suicidal killer.
While mainstream media is basically ignoring the Alexis Goggins on a national level - She can't even get on the Associated Press national wire- the Blogosphere is hailing her a the hero she is and some are contrasting Alexis with Hawkins . A Google News Search brings up only 31 stories about Alexis Goggins. Robert Hawkins ( 5,423). When you type in Alexis Goggins in the Google Blog Search, you get 251 results.
Here is an interesting take on the few articles that have appeared about Alexis- Saying Nothing Charmingly appears to be upset with Fox News' article mentioning that the shooter was Alexis' mother's boyfriend twice. She thinks that it appears that they are blaming the mother:
They chose to start and finish the story with that little piece of information. No mention, though, that she'd already left him, had a restraining order out on him and he had been stalking her ever since. Nope, none of that now.So, here's a question. How many posts does it take to reach the center of the average person's capacity for victim blaming?
Interesting comment. We kind of went into that on the podcast last night. maybe the reason Alexis isn't getting coverage is because they don't find the shooting of Black women and children to be newsworthy... Oops, I'm sorry. We already know they dont.
To read more blog posts about Alexis, go here
"Why Aren't the Lives of Black Women Treasured"
