Who is to blame?

"Who is the victim here? The psychological effects of overrepresenting white victims and black perpetrators on television news" by Travis L. Dixon (2008), reveals different statistics including that Blacks are overrepresented as criminals in television news. 

More specifically, there is an overrepresentation of black perpetrators and white victims.  “Whites victimized by Blacks represent 42 percent of the victims presented on television news, but only 10 percent of the victims contained in crime reports," (pg. 583).

These statistics are not only shocking, but represent the sad fact that Blacks are being labeled as criminals because that is the way the media is portraying them to be, and the viewers are drinking the Kool-aid.

This overrepresentation of Blacks and Latinos being perpetrators then leads to what is referred to a cultivation theory.  This theory suggests that the more frequent television viewers are more susceptible to the belief that media messages—in this case violence in the news portraying Blacks and Latinos as more likely to be perpetrators—are real. 

Heavy violence viewers are exposed are therefore affected by the Mean World Syndrome, the belief that the world is a far worse and dangerous place then it actually is.

In his essay, “Black Men and Public Space,” Staples (1992) described the realization that he was perceived as frightening, particularly to Caucasians, merely because he was African American. 

It is no wonder that Blacks and Latinos are often seen as dangerous and up to no good—and wearing even a hoodie is a label for a criminal.  

Last year Geraldo Rivera claimed that Trayvon Martin would still be alive if he didn't have a hoodie on the night he was shot and killed.  "If he didn't have that hoodie on, that nutty neighborhood watch guy wouldn't have responded in that violent and aggressive way," he said.  

The Hoodie is not the issue:  it does not play as big of a role as the color of Martin's skin.  Rivera claimed that people of color should be careful when wearing hoodies, but if a piece of clothing was the real issue, don't you think that he should have been warning the people of American in general when wearing a hoodie and not just simply pointing out minorities, in particular people of dark skin?  

If the hoodie was to blame, then anybody—black or white, rich or poor, young or old, male or female—should be just as careful when walking down a street on a rainy night. 

Blacks are over represented in violent TV news as being perpetrators, and therefore Martin was a threat to Zimmerman—not the hoodie.  

Rivera called it common sense for minorities to avoid wearing hoodies.  I call it sad.  


Who was to blame in Trayvon Martin's murder?  If it was white boy--under the same scenario--wearing a hoodie, would Rivera's response have been the same? 

Cultivation Theory.  Picture Source:  Community Sparknotes.com 

Dixon, T. L. (2008). Who is the victim here? The psychological effects of overrepresenting

         white victims and black perpetrators on television news. Journalism, 9: 582–605.

Oliver, M. B. (1999). Caucasian viewers' memory of Black and White criminal suspects in

        the news. Journal of Communication, 49(3), 46-60.