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I didn't say they should sit back, absolutely not - I was saying that in general, the sex drive of a teen boy vastly exceeds those of the females.
The girls are in the driver's seat, they just often don't know it or have that message reinforced.
Let me give you a more concrete example - what on earth were the women and girls thinking who turned out in support of R. Kelly at his trials, even after it was clear he was a creepy pervert who lusted after young girls?
If I'm a young black guy, what kind of message do you think that is sending me?
It's a two-way street. Yes, you need more positive black male role models. But females have the power as far as who they choose to idolize.
R. Kelly and his ilk have very little to do with this issue. Why can't more black boys/men simply be fathers to their children? Again, if you don't want to be a dad, but you still want to have sex, simply wear a free condom that you can pick up from any community health center.
Last edited by MaryMary2012; 07-06-2012 at 02:54 PM..
They do, sure, but what percentage of them actually go and get care? It's not like everybody is sick in impoverished areas all the time. I grew up with people who broke fingers sometimes, and refused to go to the doctor even though they had health insurance. Some people just don't go. I haven't been to the doctor in probably 2 years because when I get sick, I know my body will make it better in a day or two, and it always does. I get free checkups, as I have extremely good health insurance, but I feel like it's a waste of time to go sometimes when I know I'm healthy.
The van thing is interesting. How many vans are there? how often are they out, and in which neighborhoods? How much coverage do they have? Do they make multiple stops per day for multiple hours or are they only stationary in one or two places throughout their time out?
It varies by city, but much of the federal funding for community health centers/programs and mobile health vans are contingent upon the % of the population in a given locality below the poverty line, infant mortality rates/low birth weight rates, and substance abuse prevalence.
R. Kelly and his ilk have very little to do with this issue. Why can't black boys/men simply be fathers to their children?
Again, if you don't want to be a dad, but you still want to have sex, simply wear a free condom that you can pick up from any community health center.
Because a large majority of black boys/men don't have fathers themselves teaching them right from wrong.
It's a vicious cycle that just repeats itself and to be honest, not many people care until a group of wilding black teens beats up whitey.
It varies by city, but much of the federal funding for community health centers/programs and mobile health vans is contingent upon the % of the population in a given locality below the poverty line, infant mortality rates/low birth weight rates, and substance abuse prevalence.
Yeah. I'm asking because mobilizing a vehicle to just one place doesn't mean the entire population or even a large percentage of the population will see it or use it. You could put it once a week on a corner of some neighborhood with 5000 people, but what if that's only 1% of the population? 5000 people is a lot, but you've barely reached a large percentage.
Forgive me. I know it isn't newsworthy. Nor does it fall in the category of "if it bleeds, it leads", how many of you....inside the Chicago area and outside of it......ever consider and realize that vast, vast, ever-so-vast portions of the Chicago and Chicagoland's populations don't give a rat's a*s about the issue of race, don't judge people by the color of their skins, mix freely without giving it a second thought of the beautiful blend of white, black, hispanic, asian (and anybody else I didn't include) being a means of separation...or in fact celebrating the diversity of the community and drawing endlessly from the mix of cultures we have and who flourish in our area.
Yes, Chicago was once a very segregated place and much of its African American community was crammed into black belt communities. Then again, Atlanta once has its black community living on plantations surrounding it who belonged to others. That Chicago and that Atlanta are long gone.
Isn't it about time we live in the present. Yes, race is an issue in America today (to our utter shame as nation), but Chicago is no poster child in that tale of woe....the guilt is pretty evenly spread from coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico.
R. Kelly and his ilk have very little to do with this issue.
I disagree with you there. People vote with their dollars, and kids are highly suggestible. This isn't unique to black folks of course, there are idiotic bad-boy types in every culture - but the stakes are higher in more impoverished areas.
I commend you for what you're doing, but it is very simple - guys will use condoms when girls won't have sex with them otherwise. The number of teen mothers suggests this is currently not the case.
Forgive me. I know it isn't newsworthy. Nor does it fall in the category of "if it bleeds, it leads", how many of you....inside the Chicago area and outside of it......ever consider and realize that vast, vast, ever-so-vast portions of the Chicago and Chicagoland's populations don't give a rat's a*s about the issue of race, don't judge people by the color of their skins, mix freely without giving it a second thought of the beautiful blend of white, black, hispanic, asian (and anybody else I didn't include) being a means of separation...or in fact celebrating the diversity of the community and drawing endlessly from the mix of cultures we have and who flourish in our area.
Yep, I realize this. I honestly believe that in many areas most people could care less about race, gender, and to an extent sexual preference. If you came on here, you'd think there was a giant race war going on or something in Chicago which there isn't except amongst some people. I have honestly not yet once in my 3+ years here run into any racism, or seen it. No, I'm not 100% white and a group I belong to is not always held in high regard by Americans. Nobody has seemed to care in the least bit.
I disagree with you there. People vote with their dollars, and kids are highly suggestible. This isn't unique to black folks of course, there are idiotic bad-boy types in every culture - but the stakes are higher in more impoverished areas.
I commend you for what you're doing, but it is very simple - guys will use condoms when girls won't have sex with them otherwise. The number of teen mothers suggests this is currently not the case.
If you are interested, I can email you a list of young black boys on the Southside who need a black male mentor. What's that I hear.. crickets.. crickets..
That would be an example on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, in my opinion. Giving too much coverage to "cute, feel good, happy-go-lucky" stories. You see these types of stories and demand to see hard hitting coverage of real problems facing your immediate area. People also demand that the fourth estate gives hell to the federal government and their dealings with other countries instead of devoting 3 minutes of precious and valuable airtime to a rodent on a toy.
Fair enough.
So let's say the local news starts covering local and state government affairs and going through all the evidence with a fine tooth comb. Great. But it is boring. It is time consuming. It is laborious. It does not capture the attention of today's America, and therefore does not bring eyeballs to the advertisements that companies pay to put on television. There are way too many other options in the marketplace of "news" for television news to be C-Span Lite.
To keep eyes on the tube/screen, the news has to be:
1. Pleasing to the eyes.
2. Relevant to the scope of area said news focuses on.
3. On pace with with their online counterparts and competitors are offering.
Number 3 is steadily making its way to number 1 in terms of what "traditional" media needs to do to stay profitable (and employed).
And from my observations the internet works on the weird, absurd, inflammatory, and most importantly, the interactive fronts. I think those four traits give the interwebs that *something* that makes it incredibly unique, and consequentially, profitable.
Television just can't duplicate what the internet does. But it tries really hard. If TheLegalJag blog reports, only 1 minute after the fact, that the Supreme Court overrules the health care bill and is right... The major news networks got "scooped" and lose some credibility when it comes to places to find up to the minute news with so much readily available on the internet.
CNN goes onto live television with as much zeal as the blogger, armed with an equal amount of information (which is to say "none" or "limited"), and says the bill is killed, which is (factually) false. CNN is mocked and laughed at, while that unknown blogger, hell, even known blogger, can do the same thing and just take the (any?) criticism/backlash in stride. Television was not designed, nor intended, to work the way the internet does.
I don't think anyone would say that violence in a city is something that is of no concern to the citizens. I also don't think anyone would say there are unlimited hours in a day either. So television news is at a fork in the road. They can't report on *every single bad thing* that happens but they also can't report about *every single good thing* that happens, either. If they show nothing but good things on the news, it just makes people complacent with their overall situation. If it is nothing but bad being shown then people can become angry, disillusioned, apathetic even.
Television has to decide what is going on the air with their limited amount of time. Do they focus on quality or quantity? Positive or negative? Mundane or dramatic? Problems or Solutions? Warm and fuzzy or cold and heartless? Public sector and it's failings/accomplishments? Private sector and it's failings/accomplishments?
The internet doesn't care one iota about that.
It is so massive, and input comes from so many places, that it doesn't matter what is put out there, right or wrong, because the internet doesn't run on the same time constraints or production limitations that television does. If television news devotes time to shootings, no matter the race, that is time not being devoted to a mugging or arson, theft, drowning, law/code implementation, consumer report, investigative report, water skiing squirrel, etc. The internet is just there for potentially anyone at anytime to read or add anything to it.
Could you imagine what the outcry would be if the local media didn't make murders and shootings nightly/morning news???
Quote:
Originally Posted by citylove101
Its a legacy of the long-standing racism of Chicago and the entire U.S. ( this sort of reporting plays out in NYC, DC, ATL, etc as well) that to many editors and tv news producers, a white life is more newsworthy than a black life.
Repeat: To many editors and tv news producers, a white life is more newsworthy than a black life.
One young white girl goes missing at college and it can be fodder for months of stories on Nancy Grace, Fox NEws, and the local papers. But a string of serial murders in black neighborhoods in Atlanta or Milwaukee or Cleveland and it can take the cops months to even figure out whats happening, and years to generate any signfiicant media coverage. Coverage to a large extent is not determined by how 'unusual' the crime is, or even where it takes place. Coveragre is still largely determined by the race of the vcitim.
Yes, anyone can point our some exceptions. The most notable being those crimes involving kids as victims, which tear at everyone's heart. But as far as grown folks? In general, the media cares little as whether black folks live or die. Until that changes we will continue to see every random crime against a white guy make the front page and lead the evening news.
Really? ...really?
I assume this is coming from years of experience in a broadcast news room, correct? Or at least an internship one summer, right? A visit on a school field trip? Something?
I can't say I ever saw posted rules that had a placard with a bold, underlined and italicized unbreakable rule that said, "REMEMBER: DON'T CARE ABOUT BLACK FOLKS... AND IF YOU DO, MAKE IT VERY LITTLE." Maybe I just missed it on the tour, I don't know...
Put any kid of any race on the screen and say he/she is missing and people will either sympathize or respond with, "What about the (insert race) kids that are missing? Why aren't those kids on the news!" The news will never please everyone. The parent with the kid who got a perfect SAT score for the first time in the school's existence is peeved that their son/daughter isn't on the news, but that burned out hippy with the coffee shop that uses grass and mulch for flavor gets to show off his mind-numbingly dumb "business venture". A guy gets beaten and wallet stolen, but a story about a guy jumping in front of a Metra train gets the airtime instead.
There are too many bad things in this world to just ignore on the television broadcast level. So do they show the slightly bad things? Kinda bad things? Bad things? Terrible things?
In Chicago, sadly, there is not a lack of incidents that are in the upper tiers of "terrible". Shooting someone would be up there, but a death by shooting, stabbing, beating, etc. is much more terrible. If the news doesn't put these objectively terrible things on the tube packaged as "news" and opt to show things that aren't as terrible, they lose credibility. "How can they drone on and on about graffiti, and dog registration, and license plate fees when people are literally being shot and killed in my city??? Isn't that news? Are they trying to sedate us? Placate us? Why won't the media tell us the truth, and just give us the facts???"
Back where I once lived there was a local newspaper. It had a section that listed all the calls the police received for the day. I remember one time reading about someone reporting clothes stolen from a clothes line. That made the news. You know what I didn't read in that day's paper? Someone being killed. But I guarantee if someone was killed (that actually happened a few years later) it would have been front page news (and it was), regardless of race, nationality, or class. Someone being murdered, or surviving a violent attack like a shooting/stabbing, is something a smaller city makes news for a while. And people talk about it. Stolen clothes and DUIs head to the back burner while this really terrible thing is fresh in people's minds.
If something bad happened the media can report on it. If something unusual and bad happened, the media has to report on it.
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