User talk:Tdw77

RE: Point regarding your comments on the Dec 2005 Cronulla Riots
The following comments were made by Tdw77 on my talk page -


 * In the discussion page of this article you make the following comment:


 * "Here is one example. At roughly the same time as the media was in uproar about gang rapes being committed by people of Middle Eastern origin (from memory, about 2-3 years ago), there was a particularly horrific rape that took place in Newington. However, this did not attract anywhere close to the same level of media attention, days of front-page headlines and inflammatory radio talkback as other similar crimes. I can only conclude that this was because the perpetrators happened to be white."


 * I have a few comments to make regarding this:


 * 1. 1 The ring leader of the Newington home-invasion / rape was Aboriginal.
 * 2. 2 Gang rapes involving white offenders have received media coverage proportional to the Skaf gang rapes; the rape-murders of Anita Cobby, Jenine Balding and Leigh Leigh are case in points.
 * 3. 3 I suspect (with good reason) that the reason the Newington crime did not receive the same level of media coverage was that the ring leader still had to face a number of trials for other crimes and therefore the media might have been subject to suppression orders.


 * Adopting a stance that a particular racial group receives special "treatment" by the media is no different to the redneck who generalises that all Muslims are terrorists. Generalisations based on race are always easy to defeat.

Reply
Thanks for your comments on my talk page. I appreciate what you're saying although I believe we have different perspectives on this issue. I made these arguments in response to people who were basically trying to blame the Cronulla race riots on public anger over rapes committed by Middle Eastern men.

I think (I hope anyway) that if you look at my words carefully, you'll see that I wasn't actually making a generalisation based on race. I was making a generalisation about the way the media deals with race.

This is not splitting hairs. It's a crucial distinction. The media is not a mirror that reflects the world back to us. The media contains a great deal of bias. For example, when people talk about a newspaper being right-wing or left-wing, they are acknowledging an inherent bias, based on their observations or studies of the way they frame issues, report on particular topics, use images and captions and so forth. So why is so difficult to believe that it's at least possible that the media could also be racially biased, just as it is sometimes politically biased?

I don't want to get really bogged down in arguments over the rapes in Newington. But I've got a few points in relation to the 3 points that you made -

1. Thanks for informing me that the ringleader was an indigenous Australian and correcting that inaccuracy. I wasn't aware of that and it is an interesting fact. However, in correcting me, you seem to missing my actual point - that the Newington case did not involve middle eastern men.

2. Now, I don't want to sound too critical but I'm really not sure why you're comparing the coverage of rape with the coverage of combined rape and murder. This only supports the point I was trying to make. If you're making the claim that my observations about the media are incorrect, you should find cases involving the same crime, not far more serious crimes.

3. I'm not so sure! And I'm not convinced the many others who made the same observations are wrong, as this quote shows,
 * "A couple of weeks ago there was a home rape in Newington but they [the media] didn't mention their religion and ethnicity but only bring it up when they were Lebanese or Muslim. In this case the race card wasn't used." -Comments from Consultations with NSW secondary students at three government schools, Sydney, August 2003 - See HREOC website

As I said, we probably don't agree about some of these things but I hope that clarifies my position for you.

--Alexxx1 (talk/contribs) 08:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

AfD nomination of 055 Brigade
I have nominated 055 Brigade, an article you created, for deletion. I do not feel that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Articles for deletion/055 Brigade. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. Guy (Help!) 09:08, 11 April 2008 (UTC)