Under their African American anchor Lester Holt, the “NBC Nightly News” takes special care to report on incidents of racism and racial insensitivity … typically by white people. On June 22, Holt touted at the beginning of his show “a shocking racist incident on the basketball court. Tortillas hurled at a team from a majority-Latino high school. The growing outrage.”
A few minutes later, this ridiculous prank received a national airing. “After a crushing championship loss for the predominantly Hispanic Orange Glen High School basketball team from the outskirts of San Diego, insult added to injury when several players were pelted by tortillas,” reported NBC’s Guad Venegas. “They say fans and players from the opposing team, Coronado High, a predominantly white school in an affluent area, were throwing them.”
This is not only stupid but also bound to result in disorder and even violence. The coach reported some Coronado community member brought the tortillas, so you can’t just blame the teenagers. The Coronado school board denounced this post-game ugliness: “We fully condemn the racism, classism, and colorism which fueled the actions of the perpetrators.” The NBC reporter added, “Members of the Orange Glen’s team say the sting of defeat pales against the wounds of racism.”
But there are times when you wonder about the news judgment of networks like NBC on the “wounds of racism.” In assessing “minorities hardest hit,” shouldn’t a double-murder pack a bigger wallop than a tortilla-tossing?
On June 22, Tom Schuba of the Chicago Sun-Times reported: “Yasmin Perez and Gyovanni Arzuaga fell in love at first sight and were inseparable. They died together during a brazen weekend attack. The parents of two young children, Perez and Arzuaga were gunned down Saturday night amid Puerto Rican Day festivities in Humboldt Park. Arzuaga, 24, died that night and Perez, 25, Tuesday morning.”
The young couple was involved in a minor car crash and then ambushed. “Several people beat Perez and then shot her,” chief of detectives Brendan Deenihan said, and when Arzuaga came to her aid, “he was shot by a second person ‘almost execution style.'” A video widely shared on Twitter shows the couple lying in the street next to their car as the attackers ran off. The race of the killers is still unclear.
These two young Latinos were among eight people murdered in Chicago over the weekend, out of 50 shooting victims, according to the Chicago Tribune.
NBC didn’t do that story, even though Lester Holt anchored the evening news for 14 years in Chicago. Apparently, the violence there is too routine to be network “news.”
Jorge Bonilla, director of the Media Research Center’s MRC Latino project, tweeted: “A Puerto Rican couple gets mowed down on the streets of Chicago without so much as a peep from the national Latino networks. Had an Anglo yelled ‘Speak English’ at them, we’d have seen multiple A-Block coverage segments splashed across all platforms.”
NBC and everyone else dramatically overcovered the fake hate crime alleged by African American TV star Jussie Smollett in Chicago in 2019, so purported “thought crimes” are apparently bigger news than the worst violent crimes. We’re lectured that “black lives matter,” but only if they’re useful in blaming white people.
This distortion is what happens when “news judgment” is overwhelmed by progressive conspiracy theories of race and systemic racism in America. The coverage of offenses depends not on their gravity but on how it serves a malignant master narrative of oppressive white privilege, patriarchy and policing.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
We already know the news practices censorship and is selective in what they report when it comes to “racism” and playing the race card. The liberal news media are nothing but race baiters, a product of the school communist indoctrination centers
I am trying to figure out how anyone could call “Tortillas hurled at a team from a majority-Latino high school.” Racist??
Throwing a tortilla like a Frisbee at the opposing team may not be to sportsmanship like, but it isn’t racist.
Well it isn’t except to whiny negro racists.
These racist Negro Democrats see racism every where they look.
and by injecting racism where it does not otherwise exist
And what exactly is “Colorism”?? Another name FOR racism?
It would of been better if they threw threw the tortillas at Lester holt or don “idiot” lemon. Maybe they could have thrown colt 45 at them too. Look at the dirtbags who killed that Hispanic couple. You make the call.
Maybe if Lester Holt and his script writers thought that the executioners of those innocent Puerto Rican people were actually white people in black face, THAT would make the headlines for weeks. What a joke that “news” program is!!
I’ve found that frozen flour are the best tortillas for tossing and can be aimed as accurate as Frisbees. They work great for food fights, However, like knives, never bring one to a gunfight, especially if you are in Chicago.
“Racism” is the Democrat Party’s new “Go To Word” like sexual misconduct,
NO Proof is required just an accusation and Presto you are GUILTY.
The Democrat Party’s intension is to stir up as much tension as possible between our citizens.
These Dishonorable liberal Democrat’s phony crusades have little or nothing to do with protecting the sensitivities of Black Americans and everything to do with the Democrats setting themselves up as their saviors. Their practice of patronizing groups cannot yield to the facts that the Democrat Party has a long history of racial discrimination. For their cause is not defending the oppressed or the offended but about making themselves look wonderful with their latest destructive political Con.
Yusra Khogali co-founder of the anti-racial “Black Lives Matter” argued that white people are “recessive genetic defects” and purportedly mused about how the race could be “wiped out,”
Yusra Khogali, leader of the “anti-racist” Black Lives Matter movement, does not hide her hatred of white people in her comments on social media.
And these are the people that the Democrat Party is supporting and embracing. 🙁 🙁 🙁
ITS been their go too calling card for decades…
“Apparently, the violence there is too routine to be network “news.” And, right you are.
“This distortion is what happens when “news judgment” is overwhelmed by progressive conspiracy theories of race and systemic racism in America. The coverage of offenses depends not on their gravity but on how it serves a malignant master narrative of oppressive white privilege, patriarchy and policing.”
George Floyd and his family sure as hell got the attention though, didn’t they? The second quote I referenced explains it well.
“Apparently, the violence there is too routine to be network “news.”
Absolutely. You don’t see headlines reading “Today The Sun Rose in the East.”
It’s similar to the old saying “Man Bites Dog”, meaning if something is unusual, it is news. If it happens all the time, why comment on it?
If Chitcago had a week with no shootings, now THAT would be news.
That would be a miracle!
And not one of the media reported that the kid who got the tortillas was a Mexican player and that the custom is COMMON in Mexico. Ever been to a soccer game in central America? I have. You can fly a tortilla an awful long way and they don’t hurt when you get hit. Much better than mangos or melons, which, they toss too. Gratuitously racist reporters. That is what NBC is all about. The only thing that is consistent with them is their incompetence, inarticulation, and incompleteness. The event was no more racist than Smokey the Bear..
I remember seeing video footage from one soccer game way back in 94, between a US ship’s team and a Brazillian ship’s team.. LOCALS THREW tortillas at that game… SO were THEY racist?!