Knoxville Rally

[Hugh Lincoln]

http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/7704982.html

If the whites were protesting the killing of two whites by blacks, what were the counter-protestors saying? Kill whites?

[Kathianne]

http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/7704982.html

If the whites were protesting the killing of two whites by blacks, what were the counter-protestors saying? Kill whites?

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_5557685,00.html

The story was terrible enough without being exaggerated:


Murder victims lost in the furor

Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom's slayings have become the subject of racial tension, falsehoods

By JAMIE SATTERFIELD, satterfield@knews.com
May 27, 2007

In the blogosphere, Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom are an indictment of mainstream media.

On the Internet, they are a Wikipedia entry. Among white separatists, they are a tool. Within a racially divided America, they are a cause.

That they are murder victims in a horrific Knoxville crime has gotten lost in all that noise.

"There are people out there that just want to make something even worse than what it already is," Christian's father, Gary Christian, said in a recent interview.

It has been nearly five months since Newsom, 23, and girlfriend, Channon Christian, 21, were slain. Four suspects were charged in the January slayings while a fifth faces federal charges of helping one of the suspects hide out.

The victims were white. The suspects are black.

Authorities said the case began as a carjacking but wound up a kidnapping, rape and murder. They have said little else, however, tightlipped on every aspect of the case, from where it occurred to how Christian died.

It didn't take long for details -- horrific ones -- to eke out. The problem is, many of them are wrong.

False information, bad information

The first major dose of misinformation in the killings came from a deputy U.S. marshal in Kentucky, where three of the five suspects were arrested.

He insisted Christian was held captive and repeatedly gang-raped for four days before her body was found inside a garbage can in one of the suspect's Chipman Street rental house.

Mainstream media reported the marshal's statements for at least two days. The stories and broadcasts were posted on the Internet and sent out over The Associated Press' news service.

As it turned out, Christian, though repeatedly raped, was dead within 24 hours of her abduction.

Some media corrected the earlier accounts in follow-up stories. But the claim kept surfacing -- and it remains out there today on the Internet and even among traditional outside media.

That was just the beginning of misstatements about the crimes, although the source or sources behind later falsehoods is largely unknown. Those misstatements included claims that Newsom and Christian were sexually mutilated.

They weren't, authorities say.

There also have been persistent claims that Christian was dismembered. As late as last week, a local television station on its Web site reported that Christian's body had been dismembered and found in "five trash bags." The fact is, Christian's intact body was wrapped in five trash bags.

But real details were slow in coming and largely remain cloaked in secrecy. Authorities insist they're trying to protect a case. Pundits and media experts contend they instead stoked the fires of conspiracy theorists.

Here's what is known from court records and relatives:

On the night of Jan. 6, Christian and Newsom were leaving a Washington Pike apartment complex when gunmen confronted them. The pair, inside Christian's Toyota 4Runner, were taken to a rental house on Chipman Street near Interstate 40 and Cherry Street.

Both repeatedly were raped, according to authorities. Within a few hours, Newsom was shot, his body wrapped in bedding, set afire and dumped alongside nearby railroad tracks.

Christian remained alive for several more hours. She was raped and strangled, and her body was discarded in a trashcan, according to investigators.

All five suspects, including the four accused in the slayings, have given statements about the killings, most implicating each other. Authorities have amassed a mound of evidence, from fingerprints to DNA.

They have unearthed nothing to suggest Christian and Newsom were targeted because of their race, according to law enforcers.

"There's nothing whatsoever that indicates any hate crime," said John Gill, special counsel to Knox County District Attorney General Randy Nichols. "There are things that really, coincidentally, would prove just the opposite."

As is typical in this case, he would not elaborate.

Race and volatility

The lack of evidence signaling a hate crime has not stopped white supremacists from using the case to advance their cause. Alex Linder, operator of the Vanguard News Network and an admitted supremacist who organized Saturday's rally in Knoxville to protest "black-on-white crime," said in an e-mail to the News Sentinel that the case is being "covered up" by mainstream media, "which intends white genocide."

Knoxville police arrested Linder at the rally's start, charging him with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, assault on a police officer and vandalism.

Using the Internet and e-mail, the white-supremacist groups began a campaign of complaints to and about the mainstream media's coverage.

Suggestions of a racial bias by the media haven't been limited to fringe groups.

Conservative syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin is among those weighing in on the issue.

"This case -- an attractive white couple murdered by five black thugs -- doesn't fit any political agenda," she said. "It's not a useful crime. Reverse the races and just imagine how the national media would cover the story of a young black couple murdered by five white assailants."

The case has tapped into themes of racial tension and media liberalism, University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds noted.

Reynolds operates www.instapundit.com, one of the country's most popular blogs.

"You've got three things going on here," he said. "First, not that much information has come out, which always fuels speculation. Second, you've got plenty of public places for people to speculate. Third, you do have some people who are trying to milk it politically, and you have suspicion of the media."

Once the blogging furor began, often fueled by false information, Fox News took note, airing a couple of stories. CNN followed with coverage.

Neither focused on the slayings themselves but instead on plans for rallies and claims of media bias.

CNN correspondent Rusty Dornin came to the News Sentinel last week as part of her story coverage.

"We, like you, started getting all these e-mails," Dornin said.

Bob Steele, a media ethics expert at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., isn't surprised.

"The issue of race is so tension-filled and so volatile in our society that when there is a crime involving different races (and) when individuals spray some gasoline around that case, new flames emerge, and that prompts the national media to cover it," he said.

Reynolds said those who complain that the national media would have reported on the case sooner had the victims been black and the assailants white could be right.

"I think it would have gotten a lot of national play faster if it had been a black couple kidnapped and killed by five white people," he said.

That's because the national media has a "template" for covering white-on-black crime but not the reverse, he said.

But Steele said he doesn't think it's that simple, citing a mix of factors that fuel media coverage.

"The uniqueness of the crime, the brutality of the crime, what the police and prosecutors say or don't say can significantly drive what's being published," he said.

"What you hear from family members or families of the accused. If there are individuals speaking out freely and significantly, there are interviews and sound bites to be had. Inevitably, the amount of coverage is dictated by what else is going on in the news."

At the center of the storm

Knox County Public Defender Mark Stephens finds himself a bit mystified at the notion that the slayings, though horrific, should have rated as national news.

"I refuse to believe these guys were laying in wait. It seems to me unlikely that the race of the victims had anything to do with this crime," he said. "It seems to me when we read about a black defendant shooting a black person in the projects, nobody gets upset about it.

"Why is this (case) worthy of national news coverage?" Stephens asked. "Unfortunately, this probably happens in major metropolitan areas every month."

The Rev. Ezra Maize, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the case has been hijacked by agenda-driven outsiders with no regard for the survivors of the slain couple.

"The NAACP wants equality and justice for everybody," he said. "If these families reached out (for help, support or advocacy), we would be just as eager, just as demanding to see that equality reigns. It's about equality and justice for everybody. We stand behind the Christian and Newsom families 100 percent."

Gill agreed.

"The DA's office is outraged they have tried to abuse the victims by using the death of loved ones for racist purposes," he said. "The things that are being seized on by these hate groups are things that never even happened."

Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV and Knox County Sheriff Jimmy "J.J." Jones have said they're worried that the storm surrounding race and media will cause a judge to move trials for the suspects out of Knox County.

"I haven't seen any evidence to indicate this is a hate crime, and I interviewed two of these suspects," Jones said. "I don't believe if they'd been Mexican, Chinese or Japanese it would have mattered. I believe these people were evil. I believe it was a plan.
...

[Pale Rider]

Tell me we shouldn't be allarmed...



High Numbers of Black on White Crime





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Approximately 34 million acts were committed in the U.S. in 1992--about 94,000 crimes daily. This is a Justice Department estimate. We don't know the exact number, because many, if not most, crimes are not reported. We do know, however, that the national crime rate-crimes per capita-has tripled over the past 30 years, and at least 71 percent of all violent crimes involve some kind of economic loss.



Distorted Statistics Prior to 1986, Hispanics were classified as a distinct and separate racial group. Not anymore. The FBI and U.S. Census Bureau no longer distinguish between Hispanics (who are actually Spanish speaking Indians for the most part) and Whites; their crimes are lumped together in one ethnic pot. The 22,354,059 Hispanics living in the U.S. do not exist, at least not in the ethnic sense when it comes to the FBI compiling criminal statistics for mainstream and news organizations. Included by the FBI as "WHITES" is not only Hispanics, but also West Asians, Jews, Middle Easterners, North Africans, Iranians, Iraquis, Libyans, Palestinians, and refugees from the former Soviet Union. The question that immediately comes to mind is: "Why would the FBI and the U.S. Census Bureau classify persons of Hispanic origin as being white?" The answer might surprise you. The FBI and the U.S. Census Bureau, along with mainstream media purposely distort criminal statistics and conveniently classify Mexican-Americans as white because they do not want the American public to know the truth--that Blacks are responsible for committing the vast majority of crimes here in the United States. For example, in 1993, there were 20,343 Americans murdered: Blacks, who compromise 12 percent of the U.S. population, committed 11,686 or a whopping 58 percent of those murders. The black murder rate was 38.8 per 100,000. Based on their murder rate in 1986, Hispanics committed an estimated 2,242 murders in 1993. This is 10.7 per 100,000. 76 percent of the U.S. is White (European-American) and they committed only 29.5 percent of the murders. On the other hand, Black and Hispanic minorities combined constitute 21 percent of the population, yet they committed a staggering 68.7 percent of the murders in the U.S. during 1993. This means, on a per capita basis, a Black person is 12.3 times as likely to commit murder as a White person. Since this information is not deemed "politically correct" and would perhaps offend the black segment of society, it is offset by falsely inflating the per capita basis for whites by backhandedly including Hispanics and other ethnic groups.


Here are some more shocking statistics:

More than 1,600 Whites are murdered by Blacks each year.

Blacks murder Whites at 18 times the rate Whites murder Blacks.

About 1 million Whites were murdered, robbed, assaulted, or raped by Blacks in 1992.

In the last 30 years, 170 million violent and nonviolent crimes were committed by Blacks against Whites in the U.S.

Blacks under 18 are more than 12 times more likely to be arrested for murder than Whites the same age.

Some 90% of the victims of race crimes are Whites.

Blacks commit 7.5 times more violent interracial crimes than Whites, although they comprise only one-seventh of the White population.

On a per-capita basis, blacks commit 50 times more violent crimes than Whites.

Some 27 million nonviolent crimes were committed in the U.S. in 1992 alone. 31% of the robberies involved Black offenders and White victims; only 2% involved White offenders and Black victims.

1.3 million of the 6.6 million violent crimes committed in the U.S. each year are interracial.

Between 1964 and 1994, more than 45,000 people were killed in interracial murders in the U.S., compared to 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam and 38,000 killed in Korea.

The above stats were collected by an Australian reporter, Neil Sheehan, who dug out half-concealed U.S. crime figures for an article in the Sydney Morning Herald (May 2, 1995). The contents of his article, he commented, could not possibly be published or discussed in the U.S. mainstream media. One wonders how many Whites have to be killed by Blacks before the N.Y. Times and Dan Rather break the conspiratorial silence about the number of White casualties in the guerrilla war being waged against them by Blacks. Paved With Good Intentions, a book by Jared Taylor, also studies crime statistics by race. It must be stressed that Blacks make up only 12% of the population according to the 1990 U.S. census (and Black males about 6%), but they commit a vastly disproportionate number of violent crime. Mr. Taylor reveals: 1) 58% of all arrests for weapons violations are Blacks. 2) 46% of all arrests for violent crimes are Blacks. 3) 73% of all "justified self-defense" killings are committed by Blacks. 4) 60.5% of all Blacks are armed with some type of weapon at all times. 5) 98% of all youths arrested for gun fights in Atlanta are Blacks.



In 1989, the FBI reported the following:



A) Blacks commit 8 times more assaults than Whites. B) Blacks commit 9 times more rapes than Whites. C) Blacks commit 14 times more murders than Whites. D) Blacks commit 19 times more armed robberies. E) Black neighborhoods are 35 times more violent than White neighborhoods. F) There were 629,000 interracial attacks committed in 1985 (the last year the FBI "chose" to report this information). Some nine out of every ten were committed by Blacks against Whites. G. Black males (6% of the population) make up 46% of the nation's prison population.



It can be seen that in only one category of crimes, driving under the influence, are Blacks actually underrepresented, and even this is only by one percent. Perhaps this statistic can best be explained by the fact that Blacks own fewer cars than do Whites percentage-wise. It can further be seen that overall, Blacks are committing 2 1/2 times the amount of crimes percentage-wise as their population in America and as far as violent crimes are concerned, they are committing almost four times as much as their population percentage-wise. As far as murders go, Blacks are committing almost five times as many as their population percentage-wise. Why isn't this ever reported on the news? Furthermore, it must be pointed out once again that many crimes go unsolved or are unreported, particularly those involving random acts. Therefore, the number of crimes that Blacks and Hispanics are committing may actually be much higher.


http://www.libreopinion.com/members/standarteslc/race05.html

[Yurt]

It really is getting beyond pandering for the vote, it is getting to the point of destroying this country. There is virtually no politician who will stand up for "whiteys" (though they are the majority) because it is political suicide. There is not a moment in all of history that mirrors this. We have become weak. Not just "whites," but those of us who will not speak up against this pandering bullshiteth.

If we are all "equal" what is the focus on white crime? Why the silence the other way? Because of the past? It is the past, leave it and move on.

I sense a major backlash coming, and you know what, I don't have a problem with it.

[Pale Rider]

It really is getting beyond pandering for the vote, it is getting to the point of destroying this country. There is virtually no politician who will stand up for "whiteys" (though they are the majority) because it is political suicide. There is not a moment in all of history that mirrors this. We have become weak. Not just "whites," but those of us who will not speak up against this pandering bullshiteth.

If we are all "equal" what is the focus on white crime? Why the silence the other way? Because of the past? It is the past, leave it and move on.

I sense a major backlash coming, and you know what, I don't have a problem with it.

If you're white, you're automatically a racist. If you're black, there is no way you can be a racist. That's the way it is.

[Trigg]

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_5557685,00.html

The story was terrible enough without being exaggerated:

It wouldn't have had a chance to be exagerated if it hadn't been completely ignored by the media.

It's not only the white supremecists sites that are crying foul here, many people I know say that if the races had been reversed the media would have been all over it.

[nevadamedic]

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_5557685,00.html

The story was terrible enough without being exaggerated:

The White Supremists getting involved is definatly not helping matters.

[Mr. P]

White supremacists are as bad as Sharpton or Jessie. IMO

[Kathianne]

It wouldn't have had a chance to be exagerated if it hadn't been completely ignored by the media.

It's not only the white supremecists sites that are crying foul here, many people I know say that if the races had been reversed the media would have been all over it.

I agree that if the races had been reversed, NYTimes and WaPo would have covered. However, AP did cover anything worth reporting. They just didn't sensationalize as they would have if the races had been reversed.

[nevadamedic]

White supremacists are as bad as Sharpton or Jessie. IMO

They're worse. The promote hate and violence. The are a disgrace to our race.

[Kathianne]

They're worse. The promote hate and violence. The are a disgrace to our race.

Sharpton and Jackson also promote hate, which leads to violence. No group has a monopoly on stupidity or glory seeking.

[nevadamedic]

Sharpton and Jackson also promote hate, which leads to violence. No group has a monopoly on stupidity or glory seeking.

How does Jesse Jackson?

[Kathianne]

How does Jesse Jackson?

Pitting race against race. Calling racism when it is not what is occurring. Threatening to destroy jobs through intimidation, to actually gain management positions for his children and cronies. He's done all that and more in Chicago.

[Yurt]

If you're white, you're automatically a racist. If you're black, there is no way you can be a racist. That's the way it is.

Let's change it.

[Yurt]

How does Jesse Jackson?

Don't forget, the REVEREND Jesse out of wedlock Jackson.... that guy is so full of....


But, he's black, so he's good. Not all black people think that way, but Jesse represents a large group who does. If we whine, we will get $$$$$$$$$$$.

[nevadamedic]

It wouldn't have had a chance to be exagerated if it hadn't been completely ignored by the media.

It's not only the white supremecists sites that are crying foul here, many people I know say that if the races had been reversed the media would have been all over it.

:clap: Well said :clap:

[Kathianne]

Pitting race against race. Calling racism when it is not what is occurring. Threatening to destroy jobs through intimidation, to actually gain management positions for his children and cronies. He's done all that and more in Chicago.

Here's a good everyday example of Jesse and minions in Chicago. Better than many, but you can get the idea. Links at site:

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_05_27-2007_06_02.shtml#1180477447


Tuesday, May 29, 2007
[Eugene Volokh, May 29, 2007 at 6:24pm] Trackbacks
Jesse Jackson Ally Calls for "Snuffing Out" Gun Store Owner:

The Second Amendment Foundation is complaining about this incident:


Chuck's Gun Shop, 14310 S. Indiana Ave., was the target of the protest [march led by Jesse Jackson]. The protesters blamed Chuck's, which is just across the border from Chicago, for many of the guns on the city's streets....

Jackson and Revs. James Meeks and Michael Pfleger encouraged the crowd to push for stricter gun laws. They vowed that the rally was just the beginning and that civil disobedience was possible....

The SAF reports,


In a stunning audio recording of Pfleger’s remarks, the pastor of St. Sabina’s Church can clearly be heard stating, “John Riggio ... we’re going to find you and snuff you out.” Moments later, Pfleger added, “We’re going to snuff out John Riggio, we’re going to snuff out legislators that are voting ... against our gun laws and we’re coming for you because we are not going to sit idly.”

The SAF argues that this is a death threat, and demands that the Justice Department investigate Pfleger for this.

My sense, from having listened to the audio, is that Pfleger meant "snuff out" as referring to lawfully driving Pfleger out of business using protest and social condemnation. This is a public, peaceful rally. The speaker does not have a history of violence. The surrounding statements relate to political actions. I know of no pro-gun-control violence against gun store owners; a statement such as this might be interpreted differently against the backdrop of such violence.

And of course whether something is intended to be understood, and is likely to be understood, as a threat does turn on context. The newspaper story, for instance, further reports: "About 30 counterprotesters stood outside the store. One man carried a sign that read, 'Jesse — How many armed guards do you have?'" In some situations, "How many armed guards do you have?" might be a threat, suggesting that you don't have enough guards to protect you against my retaliation. In this situation, it pretty clearly means "Isn't it unfair that you employ armed guards, but you're not respectful enough of law-abiding citizens' rights to arm themselves to guard themselves?"

This having been said, "snuff out" does seem like a pretty poor choice of words, since it sometimes means "kill," especially when used about a particular person. "Let's snuff out Jesse Jackson," for instance, would likely convey at least a possibility of physical menace, and a considerably stronger possibility than involved in the "armed guards" statement (which might be interpreted as threatening, but only with a good deal more indirection).

It's ambiguous enough that, in many contexts, people should understand it as likely not being a threat. But the ambiguity also suggests that it may rightly, and needlessly, worry people who think a less benign meaning is intended. Nor is there even the justification that there's something particularly logically or rhetorically apt about the statement that makes it an especially valuable way of conveying the message.

I see little justification in general for trying to drive out of business a particular gun store, at least in the absence of some evidence — and none is mentioned in the newspaper article — that it is somehow unusually lax in, say, checking buyers' backgrounds or stopping obvious straw purchases. That the gun store is particularly near Chicago is hardly justification itself; driving it out of business would simply require criminals to go a little further down the road. But at least there is a plausible argument to be had on these points. There seems to me no justification for putting the debate in terms often associated with murder.

UPDATE: Reader Brett Bellmore suggests that the call might be for illegal "civil disobedience" as well as legal protesting and social pressure; the article says, "Jackson and Revs. James Meeks and Michael Pfleger encouraged the crowd to push for stricter gun laws. They vowed that the rally was just the beginning and that civil disobedience was possible." I hadn't focused on possible civil disobedience against the gun store (I suppose a sit-in at a gun store would be conceivable but rather unusual). But if such action does turn from "possible" to "real," for instance involving blocking the door of the store or some such, then the action would indeed be illegal.

[Hugh Lincoln]

YouTube video from the white perspective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2Gb3NM9GOg

[Kathianne]

YouTube video from the white perspective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2Gb3NM9GOg

Spamming WJ, beneath you.

[nevadamedic]

Here's a good everyday example of Jesse and minions in Chicago. Better than many, but you can get the idea. Links at site:

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_05_27-2007_06_02.shtml#1180477447

Wow, ok thanks. I always thought Jesse Jackson fought foor everyone as equals.