Shaun King Is Terrible for America

Ditto Social Justice Narratives Endorsed by the Mainstream Media that Reflexively Censor Key Statistical Context

#MAGAkids was a leading Twitter story of MLK weekend, appearing on the their moments front page for consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday.
NY TIMES CORRECTIONS GALORE: The original headline for the New York Times story is found on their Twitter post: “Boys in ‘Make America Great Again’ Hats Mob Native Elder at Indigenous Peoples March.” The updated Times story now reads “Surrounding Native Elder” with a contextual header leading readers to a “fuller picture” story. Caitlin Flanagan wrote for The Atlantic on January 23 one of the more insightful and incinerating pieces of who was to blame for this controversy (mostly the “elite media” and their rush to judgment). She stated, “By Tuesday, The New York Times was busy absorbing the fact that Phillips was not, apparently, a Vietnam veteran, as it had originally reported, and it issued a correction saying that it had contacted the Pentagon for his military record, suggesting that it no longer trusts him as a source of reliable information.”
Shaun King.
Jazmine Barnes and the two people arrested for her murder.
SOURCE: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf
IMAGE SOURCE: Tuskegee University, Lynching, Whites & Negroes, 1882 -1968) (PDF)
SOURCE: CDC Data shown on liberal and conservative websites.
2016 Hate Crime data on offenders show that blacks are clearly overrepresented, as they are at least 26 percent of “known” offenders and 13 percent of the population. Of the known ethnicity category, Hispanic/Latinos make up 22 percent of the total, despite being 17 percent of the population. Thus, it’s clear that non-Hispanic whites are not overrepresented as offenders. If they were, is there much doubt that would be reported? SOURCE: https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2016/topic-pages/offenders
Outlets like NPR might call articles like this “concern trolling.” Unfortunately, few make the statistical based argument that context and patience is necessary for an informed public in responding to tragedies such as Jazmine Barnes.
A man who is innocent of killing Jazmine Barnes, but Shaun King accused of shooting her with no evidence. His family has received “rape, torture and murder” threats and is asking the social media mob to to back off.

“I’ll say it a thousand times. I don’t give a fuck who you are. If you shoot a little girl in the face and kill her, I’m coming for you. I don’t care if you are a white supremacist or the local neighborhood thug. On God. Every time.”

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzales at the time of publishing this article still has erroneous Tweets up on his page he posted January 5 (pictured above). This is two days after being informed by Shaun King the suspects are not white, but black. BuzzFeed even quoted Gonzales as saying the suspect they arrested and solicited a confession on Saturday, January 6, was law enforcement’s focus: “He became a target in our investigation after a tip to Shaun King. “ The fact the mainstream press has neglected to ask King or Gonzales why they continued publicizing the search for a white suspect indicates an unwillingness to critique what many say Shaun King does: Play the race card.
When Trump was critiqued about being wrong about the “Central Park Five,” he arrogantly doubled down and didn’t apologize. Neither does Shaun King.
Conservatives (and worse) love to tease Shaun King with his moniker “Talcum X,” due to reports he is white. In fairness, King fully denies it with a rational explanation that his mother had an affair. He still grew up with white parents.

There were 511 officers killed in felonious incidents and 540 offenders from 2004 to 2013, according to FBI reports. Among the total offenders, 52 percent were white, and 43 percent were black. … From 1980 to 2013, there were 2,269 officers killed in felonious incidents, and 2,896 offenders. The racial breakdown of offenders over the 33-year period was on par with the 10-year period: 52 percent were white, and 41 percent were black.

“A white man in Florence, South Carolina just shot 5 police officers. One just died. Police then peacefully negotiated his surrender. 2 points:
1. White men continue to be the deadliest threat to American police.
2. Police almost always skillfully bring them in alive.”

“This is Officer Terrence Carraway — a 30 year veteran of the Florence, South Carolina Police Department, who was shot and killed yesterday. In fact, nearly 50% of cops who are killed in the United States are Black & Latino. And the majority of cops are killed by white men.”

A TALE OF TWO DATA SETS TO FIT A NARRATIVE: Non-partisan and reliable New America Foundation data was widely used by media three years ago to play up far right threats when they could spotlight them as the #1 terrorism killers with just more than 50 percent of the total. The implicit assumption is that “far right wing” killings are “white,” which fit a narrative of a bigoted America. Today, they’re just less than 50 percent of total terrorism killings, the #2 leader after Jihadist/Islamic threats, and now New America data is largely forgotten. Time used New America as a source June 24, 2015: “Study Says White Extremists Have Killed More Americans in the U.S. Than Jihadists Since 9/11.” New York Times mirroring the New America data June 24, 2015: “Homegrown Extremists Tied to Deadlier Toll Than Jihadists in U.S. Since 9/11.” Newsweek also boldly stated this February 14, 2016, referencing New America: “RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS ARE A BIGGER THREAT TO AMERICA THAN ISIS.” What you didn’t see after the ISIS-inspired Orlando nightclub shooting was The New York Times write a follow-up story with the updated New America sourcing saying, “Study Says Jihadists Have Killed More Americans in the U.S. Than Homegrown Extremists Since 9/11.” There were no such stories. Now in the Trump era, the media omits New America data and largely follows flawed and counterproductive Anti-Defamation League data to play up the threat of right wing (re: “white”) terrorism threats now that this past source of information highlights inconvenient narratives. This is despite the fact New America’s website of Deadly Attacks by Ideology and Year is regularly updated with strict methodological standards. Nothing has changed but the totals, yet multiple searches for New America related to terrorism or extremism come up empty. Currently, there’s a new statistic in town with quadruple the “far right wing” death totals. Thus, esteemed outlets like The Atlantic follows The New York Times in falling for this dubious ADL data that pushes far right totals to nearly 400 deaths and a share above 70 percent. Bizarrely, only the 2017 news release about the report mentioned those high numbers, but the report itself does not. The trail to their source data comes up cold. Forgotten also in these stories is the 300 mostly homegrown jihadist cases documented since 9/11 that could have killed hundreds, if not thousands. Never mentioned is the fact Muslims are only 1% of the population while non-Hispanic whites are 61% of the population. MORE ON THE TOPIC OF TERRORISM THREATS I WROTE ABOUT POST-CHARLOTTESVILLE HERE.
Could lack of viewpoint diversity in media affect the news narratives we see? SOURCE: The Washington Post
A graphic I designed in my attempts to alert Chicago media and politicians to take a fresh look at the data. They didn’t. EXHAUSTIVE LIST OF SOURCE DATA AVAILABLE FOR JOURNALISTS AND RESEARCHERS: https://link.medium.com/3EMH9ODAKT

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Writer. Researcher. Designer. Human seeking better outcomes for all. Empiricism, relevant facts, and logical arguments > simple narratives.

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David Shuey

Writer. Researcher. Designer. Human seeking better outcomes for all. Empiricism, relevant facts, and logical arguments > simple narratives.