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"Framing his argument as the tale of a fan who simply wants to see women's tennis succeed, FOX Sports columnist Jason Whitlock instead uses tennis champion Serena Williams latest win to blast her for her looks, weight and being an "underachiever," despite her 11 grand slam wins."
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"My older brother told me something about profit being the number one goal for every business. I’m not sure I understand what that means, but I do know that your shows have to be entertaining enough to generate viewers, which is how you make your money. But surely our culture is rich enough to entertain without anything extra to “boost” ratings; why the over-the-top foolery? I listen to classmates talk about Baldwin Hills like it’s the Manhattan Project. It doesn’t take much effort to produce a throng of degenerative reality shows, nor does it take much to eliminate socially conscious shows off the air. MTV isn’t much better, but since when does two wrongs ever make a right? It’s one thing for white television shows to depict us in a particular way, but for black television shows to do it is just baffling."
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"Chaos and panic spread throughout the capital of the far western region of Xinjiang on Tuesday, two days after ethnic clashes between the region's Muslim Uighur minority and the dominant Han Chinese in the city's bazaar left over 150 dead and more than 1,000 injured. "
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"Finally, Tanveer Ahmad died after a few weeks in prison, apparently of a heart attack. The only really “actionable” event leading to his death was the neglect by his prison guard, who ignored his requests for medical attention when it was urgently needed. (It’s not the first time. Read this story from 2007 for several more instances of severe neglect of immigration detainees leading to possibly preventable death.)"
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Marcy Webb wrote:
The Black Retort and the piece by Clutch are really good reading, if you have not yet read them.
Posted 07 Jul 2009 at 11:42 am ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
The whole Chinese issue is a good example of what is wrong with Western media.
“Progressive/secular Muslims” fighting for “freedom” against an unpopular Iranin government draws full page CNN and Western coverage, meanwhile reports say some 800 people being killed in this unrest doesnt rate the same coverage? Why?
Here we have the native Muslim populace being effectively ethnically cleansed by an imported Han Chinese population………and very little is being heard about it.
Posted 07 Jul 2009 at 11:50 am ¶
Sobia wrote:
The piece on Tanveer Ahmed is sad, but very well written by Amardeep. I’m glad it was written.
I would have commented there but after reading some of those comments, I don’t feel safe there as a Pakistani. Wow…the hate of immigrants, especially Pakistani ones, is just shocking.
Posted 07 Jul 2009 at 12:00 pm ¶
Phil Deeze wrote:
Jason Whitlock’s comments on Serena were just flat-out disgusting. I’m not surprised that FoxSports’ editors allowed that mess in print.
Posted 07 Jul 2009 at 2:40 pm ¶
CHL wrote:
How IS Western press covering Xinjiang? Hard to know from China. Uighers protesting for civil rights but then fighting repressive police are countered by thousands of weapon wielding Hans out for blood. One credit to the Communist government is that they also stopped the Han lynch mob. Now let’s hope they are also sane enough to ignore the popular calls for genocide.
If it were Buddhists or Christians being abused, such a different story. But no one cares about liberal Muslims – doubly marginalized. I think the government is just trying to contain things, so far; but they have also so fomented racial nationalism that things may get out of control, if they haven’t already.
This has been a long time coming, but is no less terrifying.
Posted 07 Jul 2009 at 2:47 pm ¶
Danny wrote:
Media culture (business) thrives on shallow interpretations of people. The main way to counter that is with truth and empathy. Depending on what content, most of the time the best thing to do is to turn off the TV, ignore those images. It may not be a permanent “solution” however it can help a lot with the individual. Sometimes, working in the micro-view of issues can help a lot and eventually spread towards dealing with the macro-view. This is refering to the articles dealing with women of color. I wouldn’t bother giving the person who wrote such shallow things about Serena Williams any attention. The more publicity that person gets, the more he is going to feel justified in writing more of that low-grade comments.
I wish I knew more about the Uyghur situation because I am so distrustful of whatever the media, mainstream and the supposed “independent”—Western or non-western, reports regarding China. I have to look at a dozen or so reports to get a clear picture.
So far, from what I know, it started out as a protest for justice but it turned into a riot. Many bystanders were hurt and property destroyed. A lot of people were being hurt just for “looking” like the Han or Uyghur and I assume most readers are aware the problems associated with that. I’m really simplfying it but I’ll know more later.
The government as usual steps in and based on those articles, there’s plenty of blame to go around on who started and escalated the violence. It’s not limited to just one side. I’m no expert on this issue or any other ethnic-tension situations and don’t know anyone that lives there but this is what many reports say, from Western, Non-Western, Mainstream and Independent views. A lot of bigots are turning this into anti-muslim or anti-chinese case when it’s not that simple.
Posted 07 Jul 2009 at 4:17 pm ¶
RCHOUDH wrote:
Like Danny and Abu Sinan I also don’t trust the US MSM and the way they’ll try to simplify and distort the tensions between the Uighur Muslim community and the Chinese government.
And Sobia I agree that SM piece on Tanveer Ahmed was well written as most SM pieces are. While the writers there try to be sensitive and nuanced in writing about the different issues they do it’s the commenters that kill me. And they never fail to reveal their bigoted nature any chance they get.
Posted 07 Jul 2009 at 8:32 pm ¶
m. wrote:
I think it’s pretty disgusting that I have had to do so much Googling (also, I am reading the linked Washington Post article) just to get a better idea of what’s going on in Xinjiang. This morning my roommate and I were trying to figure out why reporting on the events has been so vague and cryptic, if not completely biased. I don’t trust a source that’s quick to condemn the actions of ethnic Uighurs, but I also don’t need to hear self-righteous “activists” demonizing all Han Chinese. (The latter seems to be the past-time of choice/chosen ‘activism’ for a lot of “do-good” white people in California…)
Posted 08 Jul 2009 at 1:01 am ¶
Ei wrote:
I think the main reasons why the Media is so shifty is due to the fact China as well as Muslims/minorities are involved.
In the initial riot, with the info we know, majority of the victims are Han, the perpetrators of the riot are Uighur. As with anything that involves China, bias politics always comes first. Since the general concept here is that everything China does is evil, the media find it very difficult just come out and say Chinese are not the bad guys or the direct cause in this riot, and in fact, are the victims.
Then on the other end, Uighur are Muslims minorities involved in an ethnic riot that mirror Rodney King riot. Besides being Muslims which comes with its own whole slew of negative stereotypes, unfair treatment of minorities, ethnic riot, and Muslim violence and cultural clashes is not exactly something people here want to hear about, as it hits too close to home.
So the end results. First, the victims of the riot are pretty much ignored along with the real cause. The focus inevitably shifts to something that is more simple, like Chinese politics and seperationist when the main issue IMO has more to do with real or perceived social and economic inequality between Han and Uighur, as well as cultural clash between Han, Urighur, and with some Hui thrown in as well.
Now, to be quite frank, I found most of the media did side with the Uighur on a superficial level only because the other end is China, and is content with painting the cause as plain old communist being evil when the problem goes deeper than that. Problem that not only exist in China but is also a serious issue in many Western nations as well.
Posted 08 Jul 2009 at 9:30 am ¶
Nate wrote:
From what I’ve seen the ‘western coverage’ – at least in europe is pretty comprehensive, – front page spreads, leaidng the evening news and regular updates on the websites (bbc, guardian, telegraph, figaro, le monder)of the left and right leaning outlets. And the reporting seems pretty fact based (from what’s actually known and not being vetted) and non-manichean. US and western aren’t exactly the same thing.
Can’t comment on the US sources, but it does get on my tits (I’m looking at you Abu
) when its appears people make that assumption, that western media is the states and states only.
its a bit like the iraq invasion – pretty much every mainstream source in europe (outside the UK) thought bush was on crack for even considering the idea. On the left and right.
Posted 09 Jul 2009 at 4:58 am ¶