Richmond High School student is gang-raped outside of her Homecoming Dance. When I first learned about this, my immediate suggestion was that everyone who participated and watched should be locked up in the worst possible conditions, preferably castrated first.
But if only it could be so simple. The national media, smelling blood, is rolling in to the drumbeat of its condescending, caffeinated finger-pointing frenzy. Yea, they only come out in droves to communities like Richmond when something really, really bad (aka “headline material”) happens.
We all want to see justice for this poor girl and her family. There’s no excuse for beating and raping a 15 year old girl. The guys who partook and watched are some sick individuals. But I can’t help but feel increasingly uneasy with the discussion, which is sure to get more bloodthirsty as the days go on. Especially as the ages of the suspects start rolling in– 19, 15, 16, 17. The minors will be tried as adults and face potential life sentences. The media has begun pawing about, as they usually do, for people to blame– school officials? The parents? Hip hop? Stricter “policing” is already being instituted around the school–as if treating children like they are already in prison is the solution–and then the media will dust off their hands, scurry out of town and promptly forget about Richmond until something horribly “newsworthy” happens. Hit-and-run journalism, how I hate you so.
NBC Bay Area has triumphantly pointed out that on-campus cameras were not working and that security guards were told to leave early. The solution? “The school board is now replacing the security system with a $1 million digital security system.” Meanwhile, ABC and CNN are channeling the (legitimate) rage of students and staff toward school officials. But isn’t it a bit funny that the media is so quick to implicate the easiest targets and never themselves? Did they all zone out when students and staff lashed out against the press for being such vultures (which SJ Mercury News covered, ABC handily dismissed in one line and I’ve yet to see reported on anywhere else)? From SJMN, Richmond High senior Norma Bautista says: “We are not criminals…we are going to make a change. Everything they say about us — that we’re animals, that we’re not a community — we are a community. Why are they focusing on the negativity?”
She’s got a point. Where’s the coverage for the amazing work that people–youth programmers, students, teachers, gang interventionists, community organizers, parents and so on–are doing every day? How come the long-term solutions worked toward by people who know and care about Richmond don’t get the national coverage and support they deserve (but the catchy quick-fixes hysterically prescribed by the press do?) As James Meeks writes in the Chicago Tribune concerning Derrion Albert’s murder (which only happened 1 month ago but has been effectively wiped off of the national radar), “We like to point to irresponsible kids and uncaring parents. But what about a society that won’t lift a finger to do anything about the crumbling, disastrous school system that all of these kids, victims and violators, come from? …No one wants to be held accountable, but the blood of every child is on our hands.”
That includes the media, which has a lot of say in defining what the frameworks, problems and solutions will be. So can we please get a little more investigation into the context and not just the graphic aftermath of this horrible crime? This includes but is not limited to: the condemnation of rape but not of rape culture, the proliferation of California’s youth prisons at the expense of rehabilitation centers and public education, etc etc. The headlines aren’t as punchy, the solutions probably cannot be captured in soundbites or in less than 500 words, and the villains are not always so clear…but in the long term, this might be more conducive to ending the cycle of violence than installing higher fences and more security cameras ever could.
