Journalism is failing America.<\/p>\n
At least mainstream media, newspapers and TV networks and such, the remnant still chugging away.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s our job? To report the news, to convey what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n
And what do we do? Describe fantasies, ghosts, processes that aren\u2019t occurring.<\/p>\n
Consider the recent murder of Loyola student Sheridan Gorman, out with a group of friends at a beach in Rogers Park when approached by a masked man, shot in the head and killed.<\/p>\n
That was all too real.<\/p>\n
But the moment the suspect was identified as a Venezuelan immigrant, the MAGA outrage machine started to whir. Led by President Donald Trump, who called him \u201can animal.\u201d The murder was waved about as confirmation. Because one member of a minority group always represents everybody in that group. While white folks, naturally, are individuals, each unique in his or her own way, hardly responsible for their own actions, never mind stand-ins for anybody else.<\/p>\n
And how did the media present this deceptive carnival? This acrobatic leap from one crime on the North Side of Chicago, one victim and one suspect, to the entire country and all immigrants everywhere?<\/p>\n
A conversation. An argument. The Sun-Times called it \u201ca national immigration debate.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is no conversation. No argument. Nobody is debating.<\/p>\n
What is going on is dehumanization. The officially designated pariah group \u2014 nowadays, immigrants \u2014 is being stained with false rationales to justify their abuse: they are violent; they are diseased, they don\u2019t belong. If these rationals are contradictory \u2014 they are lazy and take all the good jobs \u2014 that doesn\u2019t matter. In the 1930s, the Jews were both dirty vermin crouched in the shadows and jewel-encrusted millionaires secretly running the world. Few Germans seemed bothered by the contradiction.<\/p>\n
The nation is busily building … let\u2019s call them \u201cdetention camps\u201d … for this despised group. Billions are being spent ramping up a paramilitary force to snatch people off the street. Don\u2019t be fooled by the hesitation after Minneapolis. A temporary setback. The Democrats trying to get ICE under control is what the entire airport nightmare is about. Air travel in the United States is being throttled so we can deport more immigrants. A reminder that racism blows back on the racist. Trying to hurt others, they hurt themselves. Ask the Germans.<\/p>\n
Why doesn\u2019t the media hit this point harder? Our error comes from a seventh grade civics class, how-a-bill-becomes-a-law mindset. It\u2019s our job to list the excuses given, noting, eventually, how inaccurate they are.<\/p>\n
So we seek refuge recounting this Turning Point parody of debate. MAGA smugly states their premise: immigrants are violent murderers who add nothing to this country and must be forcibly expelled now. They grin condescendingly while some garble is offered in reply \u2014 in actuality, immigrants are 2 to 4 times more law-abiding, as a group, than native-born U.S. citizens. Then they twist that reply: \u201cSo now you\u2019re slandering American citizens…\u201d<\/p>\n
And away we go.<\/p>\n
Words don\u2019t mean anything because they\u2019re not listening. They don\u2019t care. As a Democrat, you\u2019re nearly subhuman already. Maybe you\u2019ll end up in those detention centers too. Gorman wasn\u2019t a person, in their eyes, she\u2019s a symbol, the latest in a list of sympathetic victims \u2014 always women \u2014 who can be performatively mourned while demanding faster deportations.<\/p>\n
To argue is naive. It\u2019s like the SAVE Act, the supposed election security bill. Talk all you like about the extreme rarity of voter fraud, they never reply, \u201cOh, right, point taken. Let\u2019s address actual problems.\u201d Because the bill isn\u2019t designed to stop the fraud that isn\u2019t there, it\u2019s designed to constrain voting \u2014 not to help voting, but hurt it. The war against immigrants isn\u2019t intended to stop crime; it\u2019s intended to commit crime, against people whose lack of legal status makes them easy targets. Hurting them is called patriotism.<\/p>\n
The ongoing horror is getting to seem so … ordinary. Business as usual.<\/p>\n
\u201cMan is a creature that can get used to anything,\u201d Dostoevsky writes in his semi-autobiographical novel, \u201cThe House of the Dead.\u201d <\/p>\n
That gets quoted often. Less noted is its context. The observation comes after a description of the low, stuffy room that was the narrator\u2019s home for 10 years, sleeping on boards, amid \u201cnoise, uproar, laughter, swearing, the sound of chains, soot and fumes, shaven heads, branded faces, ragged clothes, all that is accursed and dishonored … yes, man has great endurance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is this endurance a good thing? Maybe Americans allow themselves to endure far too much. Yes, a third No Kings protest was held Saturday. Important? Sure. Maybe. Or maybe protest, like the media observing its rituals, is part of making something normal that should never be considered normal. This isn\u2019t a debate. It\u2019s madness. And we know where madness leads, or should.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Journalism is failing America. At least mainstream media, newspapers and TV networks and such, the remnant still chugging…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":691800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-691799","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116316596539309217","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}