{"id":57245,"date":"2015-05-04T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2015-05-04T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=57245"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:24:42","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:24:42","slug":"how-western-media-would-cover-baltimore-if-it-happened-elsewhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/05\/how-western-media-would-cover-baltimore-if-it-happened-elsewhere\/","title":{"rendered":"How Western Media Would Cover Baltimore if It Happened Elsewhere"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A woman faces down a line of Baltimore police officers in riot gear on Monday during protests after the funeral of Freddie Gray. (Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Apr 30, 2015 \u2013 If what is happening in Baltimore happened in a foreign country, here is how Western media\u00a0would cover it:<\/em><\/p>\n

International leaders expressed concern over the rising tide of racism and state violence in America, especially concerning the treatment of ethnic minorities in the country and the corruption in state security forces around the country when handling cases of police brutality. The latest crisis is taking place in Baltimore, Maryland, a once-bustling city\u00a0on the country\u2019s Eastern Seaboard, where an unarmed man named Freddie Gray died from\u00a0a severed\u00a0spine while in police custody.<\/p>\n

Black Americans, a minority ethnic group, are killed\u00a0by state security forces\u00a0at a rate higher than the white majority population. Young, black American males are 21 times more likely to be shot by police<\/a> than white American males.<\/p>\n

The United Kingdom\u00a0expressed concern over the troubling turn of events in America in the last several months. The country\u2019s foreign ministry released a statement: \u201cWe call on the American regime to rein in the state security agents who have been brutalizing members of America\u2019s ethnic minority groups. The equal application of the rule of law, as well as the respect for human rights of all citizens, black or white, is essential for a healthy democracy.\u201d Britain has always maintained a keen interest in America, a former colony.<\/p>\n

Palestine has offered continued assistance <\/a>to American pro-democracy activists, sending\u00a0anti-tear-gas kits to those protesting police brutality in various American cities. Egyptian pro-democracy groups\u00a0have also said they will be\u00a0sharing\u00a0their past experience with U.S.-made counter-protest weapons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A statement from the United Nations said, \u201cWe condemn the militarization and police brutality that we have seen in recent months in America, and we strongly urge American state security forces to launch a full investigation into the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. There is no excuse for excessive police violence.\u201d The U.N. called on the United States to make a concerted effort to make databases of police violence public to improve transparency and cut down on corruption in the justice system.<\/p>\n

International analysts predict the seeds of a so-called \u201cAmerican Spring,\u201d fomented by technology. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing what social media is doing for the cause of justice in America,\u201d said a political rights analyst based in Geneva. \u201cThe black youth of America are showing what 21st-century civil rights activism looks like, using technology, social media and a decentralized organizing strategy to hold authorities accountable and agitate for change. These kids represent what modern-day freedom fighting looks like. The revolution will be tweeted, Periscope-d and Snapchatted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local leaders in the American township of Baltimore imposed a state of martial law this week after peaceful protests turned violent. In response, countries around the world\u00a0have advised darker-skinned nationals against non-essential travel to areas noted for state violence against unarmed people of color, especially in recent hot spots such as New York<\/a>, Missouri,<\/a>\u00a0Oklahoma<\/a>, South Carolina<\/a>, Ohio<\/a>, California<\/a>, Michigan<\/a>, Virginia<\/a> and now Maryland.<\/p>\n

International human rights groups have appealed to the global community to facilitate asylum for America\u2019s ethnic black minorities. When asked whether the European Union was willing to take on more black refugees risking their lives in fleeing American state violence, an E.U. human rights spokesman said: \u201cMore black refugees? We are dealing with our own Mediterranean crisis, so now is not really a good time for that for us. Furthermore, we believe in American solutions to American problems.\u201d The African Union has not responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

American government officials took to state media, characterizing the protesters as \u201cthugs,\u201d<\/a> a racially coded word increasingly used to describe black males in America. Commentators\u00a0in national\u00a0media have frequently\u00a0compared the protesters and riots to various characters and events from the popular television series \u201cThe Wire,\u201d set in early-2000s Baltimore.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s ethnic blacks have been displaced <\/a>from many of their communities due to a phenomenon experts on the region call \u201cgentrification,\u201d when wealthier residents move into a lower-income area. Baltimore is no exception to this trend, with some areas seeing home values rise as much as 137 percent after corporate dollars<\/a> move in on opportunities in poverty-stricken areas.<\/p>\n

Resident Joe Smith, a member of the white majority ethnic group, said outside of a brand-new Starbucks near Baltimore\u2019s Inner Harbor, \u201cI don\u2019t know why these blacks are destroying their own communities. Why don\u2019t these people follow Martin Luther King\u2019s example? Those guys got it good from the police back then too, but they didn\u2019t try to rise up and fight back and make everyone uncomfortable, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/p>\n

Karen Attiah is the <\/em>Washington Post‘s Opinions Deputy Digital Editor. She previously reported for <\/em>Associated Press while based in Cura\u00e7ao.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 washingtonpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apr 30, 2015 \u2013 If what is happening in Baltimore happened in a foreign country, here is how Western media would cover it:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}