The Culture of Fear (45 page)

37
See Lee Daniels, “The American Way: Blame a Black Man,”
Emerge,
February 1995, pp. 60-66; Joe Feagin and Hernan Vera,
White Racism
(New York: Routledge, 1995), ch. 4; Caryl Rivers,
Slick Spins and Fractured Facts
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), ch. 12; Regina Brett, “Urban Myth of Race Attacks Lives on After Stories Die,”
Houston Chronicle,
28 November 1995, p. 2.

38
John McCormick, “Why Parents Kill,”
Newsweek,
14 November 1994, pp. 27-34; Rick Bragg, “Smith Defense Portrays a Life of ‘Chaos’,”
New York Times,
27 July 1995, p. A14. See also David Smith, with Carol Calef,
Beyond All Reason
(New York: Kensington, 1995).

39
Jennifer Gonnerman, “Omissions of Guilt,”
In These Times,
21 August 1995, pp. 9-10; Robert Scheer, “The River of Hypocrisy Runs Wide and Deep,”
Los Angeles
Times,
1 August 1995, p. B9. See also George Rekers,
Susan Smith: Victim or Murderer?
(Lakewood, CO: Glenbridge, 1995).

40
Margaret Kearney, Sheigla Murphy, and Marsha Rosenbaum, “Mothering on Crack Cocaine,”
Social Science and Medicine
38 (1994): 351-61; Marsha Rosenbaum, Sheigla Murphy et al., “Women and Crack,” in A. Treback and K. Zeese, eds.,
Drug Prohibition and the Conscience of Nations
(Washington, DC: Drug Policy Foundation, 1990), pp. 69-72. See also Loren Siegel, “The Pregnancy Police Fight the War on Drugs,” in C. Reinarman and H. Levine, eds.,
Crack in America
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 229—48; Margaret Kearney, Sheigla Murphy, and Marsha Rosenbaum, “Learning by Losing,”
Qualitative Health Research
4 (1994): 142-62; Stephen Kandall,
Substance and Shadow
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996); Drew Humphries, “Crack Mothers at 6,”
Violence Against Women
4 (1998): 45-61.

41
For an alternate but compatible interpretation of contemporary stories about homicidal mothers see Annalee Newitz, “Murdering Mothers,” in M. Ladd-Taylor and L. Umansky, eds.,
“Bad” Mothers
(New York: New York University Press, 1998), pp. 334-55.

42
Michael Shapiro, “The Lives We Would Like to Set Right,”
Columbia Journalism Review
(November 1996): 45-48.

43
Unsigned editorial, “Courting Fairness for Voters,”
New York Daily News,
15 June 1996, p. 16; Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, “Ex-Foster Mom’s Tears at Death Photos” and “Mom Blames Hubby in Girl’s Slay,”
New York Daily News,
3 May and 4 May 1996, pp. 11 and 5, respectively; Douglas Martin, “Children Testify in Murder Trial of Mother,”
New York Times,
30 April 1996, p. B5. The other murders: Chuck Sudetic, “Mother Charged in Assault of Girl Found with Burns,”
New York Times,
3 January 1996, p. B2; Randy Kennedy, “Mother Kills Children and Herself After Family Dispute,”
New York Times,
21 January, 1996, p. A26.

44
Kennedy, “Mother Kills Children.”

45
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services news release, 18 September 1996.

46
Steve Calvin, “First Came Legal Abortions, Then Rise in Child Abuse,”
Minneapolis Star-Tribune,
2 October 1996, p. A15.

47
NCPCA figures from Douglas Besharov, with Jacob Dembosky, “Child Abuse: Threat or Menace?”
Slate,
3 October 1996 (online).

48
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services news release, 18 September 1996; Barbara Vobejda, “HHS Study Finds Sharp Rise in Child Abuse,”
Washington Post,
19 September 1996, p. A8; “Child Abuse Has Become a Human Rights Dilemma in U.S.,”
Dallas Morning News,
20 September 1996, p. A24. Critique of Shalala study: Besharov, “Child Abuse: Threat or Menace?” and see a follow-up exchange, “Fact Abuse,” posted in
Slate,
23 October 1996.

49
Armin Brott, “When Women Abuse Men: It’s Far More Widespread Than People Think,”
Washington Post,
28 December 1993, p. C5; “Husbands Are Battered as Often as Wives,”
USA Today,
23 June 1994, p. D8; Wendy McElroy, “The Unfair Sex?”
National Review,
1 May 1995, p. 74; John Leo, “Things That Go Bump in the Home,”
U.S. News & World Report,
13 May 1996, p. 25; Dennis Byrne, “Men Taking Their Lumps,”
Chicago Sun—Times,
21 May 1998, p. 33.

50
Other examples of misuse of Gelles’s research: Katherine Dunn, “Truth Abuse,”
New Republic,
1 August 1994, pp. 16-18; Judith Sherven and James Sniechowsky, “Women Are Responsible, Too,”
Los Angeles Times,
21 June 1994, p. B7; Warren Farrell, “Spouse Abuse: A Two-Way Street,”
USA Today,
29 June 1994, p. A15; John Leo, “Monday Night Political Football,”
U.S.
News
& World Report,
8 January 1996, p. 21.

51
Richard Gelles, “Violence Toward Men: Fact or Fiction?” paper prepared for the American Medical Association Council on Scientific Affairs, September 1994; James Ledbetter, “Press Clips,”
Village Voice,
21 May 1996, p. 25. Quotes from Richard Gelles, “Domestic Battering,”
TheTennessean,
1 November 1994. For further evidence see Russell Dobash et al., “The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Marital Violence,”
Social Problems
39 (1992): 71—91; Jack Straton, “The Myth of the ’Battered Husband Syndrome‘,”
Masculinities
2 (1994): 79-82; Pam Belluck, “A Woman’s Killer Is Likely to Be Her Partner, a Study Finds,”
New York Times,
31 March 1997, p. A12; Karen Peterson, “Partners Unequal in Abuse,”
USA Today,
8 November 1997, p. D1.

52
Larry Elder at KABC radio in Los Angeles was among the talk show hosts who reiterated the claims late in the 1990s.

1
Glenn Loury, “Unequalized,”
New Republic,
6 April 1998, pp. 10—11; Janet Hook, “Clinton Offers Plan to Close Health Gap,”
Los Angeles Times,
22 February 1998, p.A20; Pam Belluck, “Black Youths’ Rate of Suicide Rising Sharply,”
New York Times,
20 March 1998, p. A1. See also David Shaffer et al., “Worsening Suicide Rate in Black Teenagers,”
American Journal ofPsychiatry
151 (1994): 1810-12. On my selection and use of statistics see note 2 in the Introduction.

2
Caryl Rivers,
Slick Spins and Fractured Facts
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), p. 161; David Krajicek,
Scooped
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1998); Robert Elias, “Official Stories,”
Humanist
54 (1994): 3-8; Bill Kovach, “Opportunity in the Racial Divide,”
Nieman Reports
49 (1995): 2; Franklin Gilliam, Shanto Iyengar et al., “Crime in Black and White,” Working Paper, Center for American Politics and Public Policy, UCLA, September 1995; Mark Fitzgerald, “Covering Crime in Black and White,”
Editor and Publisher,
10 September 1994, pp. 12-13; Carey Quan Gelernter, “A Victim’s Worth,”
Seattle Times,
28 June 1994, p. El; Suzan Revah, “Paying More Attention to White Crime Victims,”
American Journalism Review
(1995): 10-11; Bruce Shapiro, “One Violent Crime,”
Nation,
3 April 1995, pp. 437, 445-52; Bruce Shapiro, “Unkindest Cut,”
New Statesman
8 (14 April 1995): 23; Gregory Freeman, “Media Bias?”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
14 November 1993, p. B4; Debra Saunders, “Heeding the Ghost of Ophelia,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
4 September, 1995, p. A19.

3
Arnold Barnett, “How Numbers Can Trick You,”
Technology Review
97 (1994): 38-44; Karen Smith, “Tourism Industry Tries to Reduce Visitors’ Fears,”
Ann Arbor News,
16 January 1994, p. D5. See also Kim Cobb, “Media May Be Fanning a New
Deadly Crime,”
Houston Chronicle,
18 September 1993, p. A1; Bill Kaczor, “Crimes Against Tourists Worry Florida Officials,”
Ann Arbor News,
24 February 1993, p. A7; James Bernstein, “Violence Threatens to Kill Florida’s Winter Vacation Business,” 2 November 1993, p. A1.

4
Henry Brownstein, “The Media and the Construction of Random Drug Violence,”
SocialJustice
18 (1993): 85-103; and my own analysis of Dennis Hevesi, “Drug Wars Don’t Pause to Spare the Innocent,”
New York Times,
22 January 1989, p. A1.

5
Brownstein, “The Media and the Construction.” See also Maggie Mulvihill and Joseph Mallia, “Boston Police ‘Sorry’ for Fatal Mistake,”
Boston Herald,
27 March 1994, p. 1 ;Joe Hallinan, “Misfires in War on Drugs,”
ThePlain Dealer,
26 September 1993, p. A17; Andrew Schneider, “Botched Drug Raid Leaves Deep Distrust,”
Arizona Republic,
14 September 1995, p. A1.

6
Robert Davis and Sam Meddis, “Random Killings Hit a High,”
USA Today,
5 December 1994, p. A1; Richard Moran, “Morning Edition,” 18 April 1996. The FBI report was the Uniform Crime Report for 1993.

7
Jill Smolowe, “Danger in the Safety Zone,”
Time,
23 August 1993, pp. 28-33 (quote from issue’s cover).

8
Ray Surette, “Predator Criminals As Media Icons,” in G. Barak, ed.,
Media, Process, and the Social Construction of Crime
(New York: Garland, 1994), pp. 131-58; Philip Jenkins,
Using Murder
(New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1994), p. 156; Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Highlights from 20 Years of Surveying Crime Victims” (NCJ-144525), Washington, DC, 1993; National Center for Health Statistics,
Vital Statistics of the United States
(reports during early and mid-1990s), Washington, DC; Dave Shiflett, “Crime in the South,”
The Oxford American
(Spring 1996): 136-41.

9
Krajicek,
Scooped,
p. 102. On how the news media perpetuates negative images of African Americans see also Mikal Muharrar, “Media Blackface,”
Extra,
September 1998, pp. 6-8; Dennis Rome, “Stereotyping by the Media,” in C. R. Mann and M. Zatz, eds.,
Images of Color, Images of Crime
(Los Angeles: Roxbury, 1998), pp. 85-96.

10
Ted Rohrlich and Frederic Tulsky, “Not All L.A. Murders Are Equal,”
Los Angeles Times,
3 December 1996, pp. A1, 14-15; Gelernter, “Victim’s Worth”; Shapiro, “One Violent Crime”; Gilliam, et al., “Crime in Black and White”; Jerome Skolnick, “Police Accountability and the Media,”
American Bar Foundation Research Journal
(1984): 521-57; Renée Kasinsky, “Patrolling the Facts,” in Barak, ed.,
Media, Process, and the Social Construction of Crime,
pp. 203-34; Zhongdang Pan and Gerald Kosicki, “Assessing News Media Influences on Whites’ Race Policy Preferences,”
Communication Research
23 (1996): 147-79. See also Van Jones, “Lessons from a Killing,”
Extra,
May 1998, pp. 23-24.

11
Helen Benedict,
Virgin
or
Vamp:How the Press Covers Sex Crimes
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Esther Madriz,
Nothing Bad Happens to Good Girls
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 155.

12
Scott Harris, “The Color of News,”
Los Angeles Times,
31 December 1995, p. B1. See also David Pritchard, “Race, Homicide and Newspapers,”
Journalism
Quarterly 62 (1985): 500—507.

13
See Gilliam, et al., “Crime in Black and White.”

14
Shaw made the comments during conversations in 1998. See also his “Minorites and the Press,”
Los Angeles Times
, 11 December 1990.

15
Richard Goldstein, “What’s Race Got to Do With It?”
Village
Voice, 9 April 1996, pp. 18-19.

16
Ibid. My depiction of the reporting relies on Goldstein’s analysis of the
New
York
Post and
other outlets, coupled with my own review of articles on the shooting and trial published in the
New York Times
,
Newsday, and New YorkDailyNews.

17
See also Rebecca Alpert, “Coming Out of the Closet as Politically Correct,”
Tikkun
11 (March 1996): 61-63.

18
Joe Feagin and Hernán Vera,
White Racism
(New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 79.

19
Quoted in Christopher J. Farley, “Enforcing Correctness,”
Time,
7 February 1994, p. 37.

20
Ibid.; A. M. Rosenthal, “Bigots and Journalists,”
New York Times
, 4 February 1994, p. A23. See also James R. Gaines, “To Our Readers,”
Time,
28 February 1994, in which the magazine’s managing editor defends the original piece and argues against another set of critics: those who claim that the media devote too much space to black—Jewish conflicts. In Gaines’s view, “there could be no more significant conflict than the one between Jewish and black people” (p. 11).

21
Steven Holmes, “Howard University Is Stung by Portrayal as Anti-Semitic,”
New York Times,
21 April 1994, p. A1; Otesa Middleton and Larry Brown, “Howard University Is No Bastion of Anti-Semitism,”
Los Angeles Times,
29 May 1994, p. M3; Christopher Shea, “Howard University Condemns Bigotry and Attacks on Its Reputation,”
Chronicle of Higher Education,
27 April 1994, p. A32. For a description of Muhammad’s visit see also Michael Kelly, “Howard’s End,”
New Republic,
21 March 1994, pp. 11-12. On other of Howard’s woes at the time: Joye Mercer and Julie Nicklin, “Howard University Lays Off 400,”
Chronicle of Higher Education,
16 November 1994, p. A28.

22
Abby Goodnough, “Organizers Press on with Plan for Million Youth March,”
New York Times,
8 August 1998, p. A19; Bob Herbert, “The Hate Virus,”
New York Times,
10 August 1998, p. A19 (contains anti-Semitic quotes); Nat Hentoff, “The Return of Khalid Muhammad,”
Village
Voice, 26 November 1996, p. 10 (other quotes).

23
Hentoff, “Return of Khalid Muhammad” (contains Edwards quote); Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “Five Questions for My African-American Friends,”
Common Quest
1 (Spring 1996): 32-34; Jonathan Kaufman, “Not an Anti-Semitic March,”
Common Quest
1 (Spring 1996): 35-36.