Gabby Petito and White Privilege

Ana the Ist

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If that is true, then why so defensive about the opinion of a tv personality?

I see nothing wrong with calling out racism.

Surely you don't see anything wrong with calling out racism?

And what does calling out racism have to do with a "racial heirarchy" anyway? Does it exist or not?
 
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RocksInMyHead

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Do we? Or is it just confirmation bias?
I certainly can't recall any. Can you?

What's the difference? More unarmed white men are shot and killed by police every year than black men...why does the media only focus on black men? Does the media have "unarmed black man syndrome"?

Would that be a valid cultural discussion? If Tucker Carlson came on tv one night and suggested that the media had "unarmed black man syndrome" would you sit there and think "gee...he really has a point."?
There's some truth to that. Popular opinion would probably call such a discussion racist because of the inherent issues surrounding the Black community in the US, but it is still worthy of discussion.

As you said in your other post, what gets an audience, gets coverage, and in the current climate, police shooting a black person gets way more of an audience than police shooting a white person.

I already posted an explanation...full stop. Did you read the rest of the thread? Try post#7
Fair enough - I did see that post but didn't register that it was yours. See below.
The couple were YouTubers and had some presence in the public eye to start with.
It's not really accurate to call them "Youtubers". Their Youtube channel has one video from just before her disappearance, and prior to the media coverage, they had less than 1000 followers. For perspective, my cousin, a random girl in her twenties with no aspirations to be an influencer or otherwise achieve fame or profit via social media, has more than 1000 followers on her Instagram.

There's footage of them being stopped by police on the side of the road where they seem to have been arguing recently.

There's random footage of a passerby who might have passed their van near the forest while driving.

Then there's the return of the boyfriend, alone, his refusal to help investigators and subsequent disappearance.

These elements add up to a little bit more intrigue than the typical missing person case.
Ultimately, these details do add to the drama and intrigue, but that requires the media finding and covering them first - which is a conscious action. I have no doubt that there are plenty of missing persons cases with similar levels of intrigue associated with them that haven't been blasted across the news 24/7. One example I can think of off the top of my head is the case of Adnan Syed. I know about it thanks to the podcast Serial, but the story went pretty much unreported outside of the local news. 15 years later, the maker of the podcast took up the investigation and still managed to dig up tons of juicy and intriguing details despite the amount of time that had passed.

Of course, the media has one unflappable rule when it comes to media coverage....whatever gets an audience gets coverage.
Sure, and the way that the story is told gets an audience far more than the actual subject. The media made a conscious decision to push this story to a national level.
 
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Ana the Ist

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I certainly can't recall any. Can you?

Mostly those that turned up dead shortly later.

Cases regarding black girls/young adults tend to get famous for different reasons. Apart from the obvious Breonna Taylor case, the Jazmine Barnes case drew a lot of attention for awhile

What A Case Of Mistaken Identity Tells Us About Race In America

As did the Sasha Johnson case...

Sasha Johnson shooting: Four men indicate not guilty pleas

Generally speaking though, black on black crime doesn't tend to draw a lot of media attention. Perhaps that's something Joy Reid could consider before jumping to the conclusion that the media/public only cares about "white girls".

There's some truth to that. Popular opinion would probably call such a discussion racist because of the inherent issues surrounding the Black community in the US, but it is still worthy of discussion.

As you said in your other post, what gets an audience, gets coverage, and in the current climate, police shooting a black person gets way more of an audience than police shooting a white person.


Fair enough - I did see that post but didn't register that it was yours. See below.

It's not really accurate to call them "Youtubers". Their Youtube channel has one video from just before her disappearance, and prior to the media coverage, they had less than 1000 followers. For perspective, my cousin, a random girl in her twenties with no aspirations to be an influencer or otherwise achieve fame or profit via social media, has more than 1000 followers on her Instagram.

I don't know anything about her social media presence. I simply read an article that described her as such...

A timeline of the disappearance of Gabby Petito

Perhaps social media has since removed her content...or perhaps she has pages you don't know about. It's also possible the media is completely wrong.



Ultimately, these details do add to the drama and intrigue, but that requires the media finding and covering them first - which is a conscious action. I have no doubt that there are plenty of missing persons cases with similar levels of intrigue associated with them that haven't been blasted across the news 24/7.

I'm sorry, but I disagree completely. It's pretty rare that this degree of digital evidence surrounding the case is available to the public shortly after it's uncovered.

The scant details that came out after her initial disappearance didn't indicate that this case was likely to see not 1 but 2 related videos near the time of her disappearance. That's not normal.

One example I can think of off the top of my head is the case of Adnan Syed. I know about it thanks to the podcast Serial, but the story went pretty much unreported outside of the local news. 15 years later, the maker of the podcast took up the investigation and still managed to dig up tons of juicy and intriguing details despite the amount of time that had passed.

I don't think that story has the same level of new video evidence popping up during the search for the victim. A quick look shows that there was only a "last known footage" from some parking lot security camera and that's it. That's not unusual or particularly compelling.

Imagine if she and Syed went out one day, only he came back, and he provided no explanation for what happened to her. Then imagine if just a short time later, police bodycam footage of the aftermath of a fight/argument between her and Syed surfaced.

I'd be willing to bet dollars to cents that the case would be known nationally within a week.

Sure, and the way that the story is told gets an audience far more than the actual subject. The media made a conscious decision to push this story to a national level.

But there's no reason to believe that it's because she's white. You have to see everything from a highly racialized perspective that makes vast assumptions about a lot of people to jump to that conclusion.
 
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rambot

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Joy Reid dismisses interest in Gabby Petito as ‘missing white woman syndrome’

I've long called discussions about white privilege to be thinly veiled racism against whites. In it's most academic arguments, it's a poorly evidenced and basically immeasurable/undetectable accusation of unconscious racism that favors whites over everyone else. In that form, it's an interesting bit of speculation that doesn't really explain anything. After all, there's no way to detect "white privilege" and certainly no way to measure its effects.

That should have been the beginning and end of the term...but instead, it's been picked up and used as an explanation for anything by people who are racist against whites. Does a white person have a better job than you? White privilege. Does your child's school teach them about European history? White privilege. Even if you aren't white and you have achieved the same thing as a white person....be it a degree or level success at a career....you can still claim that you worked harder, or the white person didn't have to overcome as many obstacles, because of white privilege.

Here now, we have a black woman on tv lamenting that a dead white girl has benefitted from her white privilege even as a corpse. These racists think there's never a bad time to draw attention to some imaginary racial victimhood....even if that time is during a tragedy where a family has found their dead daughter.

"Well, the answer actually has a name: Missing White Woman Syndrome - the term coined by the late and great Gwen Ifill to describe the media and public fascination with missing White women like Laci Peterson or Natalee Holloway, while ignoring cases involving people of colour,” the host of ReidOut on MSNBC said."

Remarkable. It's as if these racists were in a coma during all of 2020 when millions protested daily over crimes committed against black people. I suppose they imagine that no white people were wrongly shot by police during that whole time. They don't see this horrible tragedy unfold and think "what an awful thing for this girl's family to go through"....

They think "how can I make this story about black people and how they are the real victims"?

It's as if this case doesn't deserve the attention the media has given it...because the victim is white. You would think that since they spend so much time bringing attention to black victimhood, no matter how small or petty, they would appreciate taking a little break from it.

Instead, it appears they resent it. It's as if the constant stream of racism towards whites, and the devaluation of our struggles and achievements (through the accusation of white privilege) has left these racists at a point where they become angry that the media would dare give attention to the horrible tragedy and struggle this white family is going through.

It's disgusting that these racists and their racist beliefs have become so mainstream on the left that discussions like this are taken seriously...instead of dismissed as the racist garbage they are.

Thoughts?
Here's MY question:
Why is the media (and I choose the media because they foist this sadness inappropriate content on us) choose, out of the THOUSANDS of missing person cases, to highlight this one?

I think it is quite likely that the finding of her body and the persueing of the ex-bf is likely DEFINITELY going to benefit the family. People know what the suspect looks like.

There are a LOT of missing people whose suspects never get flashed on national news. To be clear, they are people of every race, for sure; INCLUDING white folk.

At the SAME time, it does seem as if it's ALMOST always beautiful white women who we hear about as missing adults.
 
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Hazelelponi

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Out of curiosity, did you live in or near Kansas City at the time?

Yes... I did. But it was national also. America's most wanted as well as another show also featured her multiple times (AMW twice if I remember) on top of being national headlines... it was the national news coverage that caused the child's grandmother to eventually be found because she didn't live in or near KC, Michigan if I remember, but I could be wrong on that.

My point is that blacks do make headlines... with this child specifically it was expected the murderer was white because of the dismemberment.. (I had thought white serial killer myself, I was absolutely shocked it was the parents of the girl).
 
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Ana the Ist

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Joy Reid is the media. If she wants to know why the media doesn't pay more attention to missing black people, she can look in the mirror and ask herself.

Here's Terry Crews talking to Don Lemon about black on black crime, BLM, and other topics...

Don Lemon to Terry Crews: Don't like Black Lives Matter? Start your own movement

Don Lemon, a well known black man in the media, made it clear that they wanted to focus on other issues than black on black crime. For the past 5 years, anytime someone brings up the fact that black victims of shootings, kidnappings, domestic violence, etc, don't get the same media coverage as a black man shot by police....it's been dismissed, by black people in the media, as a right wing talking point or otherwise attempt to distract from more "important" issues.

So now that the media is paying attention to 1 dead white girl....these same hypocrites and racists now think it's a good time to bring up the black victims they ignored?

Exactly what is this "valid point" you think they're making?

Because when we're talking missing persons....the victim almost always knows the offender, and even if they don't, they're almost always the same race as the offender.

Joy Reid doesn't want to talk about black on black crime...she just resents attention being paid to a non-black victim.

Seriously, Joy Reid is wondering why "the media" isn't talking about a black guy who went missing three months ago?


That's Joy Reid talking about a 2 year old case just 2 weeks ago. How come she isn't talking about this missing black guy?
 
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rambot

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Generally speaking though, black on black crime doesn't tend to draw a lot of media attention.
Do you mean the crimes don't draw media attention or the fact that it is black on black crime is not mentioned when discussing said media attention?
 
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Ana the Ist

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Do you mean the crimes don't draw media attention or the fact that it is black on black crime is not mentioned when discussing said media attention?

They tend to not draw that sort of national media attention.
 
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rambot

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I do wonder how someone can explain why beautiful white women who go missing will show up on thenational news while aboriginal women have never had it

Personally I can't think of a single missing back woman a sorry that is getting Gabby level coverage.

And it is hard to argue that it is not a consistent pattern of national news outlets.

So now I wonder why?
 
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rambot

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Mostly those that turned up dead shortly later.

Cases regarding black girls/young adults tend to get famous for different reasons. Apart from the obvious Breonna Taylor case, the Jazmine Barnes case drew a lot of attention for awhile
but those aren't missing person cases.

I can't think of missing person story where there was a possibility they were alive and the woman was black.

Do you have any stories?
 
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Ana the Ist

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I do wonder how someone can explain why beautiful white women who go missing will show up on thenational news while aboriginal women have never had it

I can't speak intelligently on Australian media.

Personally I can't think of a single missing back woman a sorry that is getting Gabby level coverage.

I can't think of a single white man that was killed by police that got the level of coverage that George Floyd did.

And it is hard to argue that it is not a consistent pattern of national news outlets.

It's really not that hard to argue at all.
 
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Ana the Ist

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but those aren't missing person cases.

Right...what's your point?

I can't think of missing person story where there was a possibility they were alive and the woman was black.

What do you mean "a possibility they were alive"?

If they're just missing, there's always a possibility they're alive.

Do you have any stories?

No. Again though, I don't see your point.

If 50,000 girls and women going missing this year....you aren't going to see any national coverage for 49,999 of them.

Pointing out the skin color of the one you did hear about and claiming it's the reason why you heard about her is pretty racist.
 
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rambot

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I can't speak intelligently on Australian media.
You're thinking of aborigines. Aboriginals is another common name for first Nations people, or Indians.


I can't think of a single white man that was killed by police that got the level of coverage that George Floyd did.
Matthew Sheppard!!
Or does he not count cause he's gay?

I like how you talk about his death like it was just another run of the mill death.
Also, I don't know if you noticed but his death kinda caused an uproar and so the coverage for deeper and longer.
 
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rambot

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Right...what's your point?



What do you mean "a possibility they were alive"?

If they're just missing, there's always a possibility they're alive.



No. Again though, I don't see your point.

If 50,000 girls and women going missing this year....you aren't going to see any national coverage for 49,999 of them.

Pointing out the skin color of the one you did hear about and claiming it's the reason why you heard about her is pretty racist.
So you really don't see it eh?
That people of colour, any colour, in that situation are not put into the national limelight?

Besides it's a critique of news networks, not individuals. Don't see why that's so unbelievable
 
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