What the...? Reporter Charmayne Brown Attacked

I was clicking around the Internet this morning and found a link to this story.

Here is the video first:


What's funny is people are haggling back and forth about whether it was racially motivated or not. Some of the Huffington Post comments on this are just moronic. Honestly, I can't say. I can't really hear what's being said. I, however, will believe Charmayne Brown, the reporter, who said that her attackers had used racial epithets towards her and her cameraman. I'll also point out that there was another news crew there whose employees on the scene happened to be white and they weren't attacked. Was part of it the fact that the reporter was standing alone while her cameraman was putting the camera away? Probably.

Honestly, I just don't know if going back and forth about whether it was racially motivated or not really is the issue here. Shouldn't the issue be who the hell do these women think they are? You just don't rush out and attack someone like that. She was on public property and she was doing her job.

What's troubling to me is how stupid her attackers are. You've got reporters in front of your home because your 33 year old relative is under suspicion of killing another relative who was his 73 year old grandfather. Don't you want to put on the best face possible for the media? The answer that popped into my head to answer my own question was "this is the best face this family has, it seems." If that was the best face possible that they could manage, I've got to say I wouldn't be surprised if the guy under investigation did take his grandfather out.

What calculus, well, arithmetic 'cause they're not striking me as having taken calculus...goes through your head that you think it's okay to rush and assault someone? Also, how stupid must you be to do this when you KNOW there are cameras rolling? Reality TV has ruined us all.

Anyway, it made me sad to see this. In all seriousness, it does throw me into a mood where I seriously worry about my country, its culture, and the low education levels there. You can only ride on the nationalism for so long before it runs out on you. It's disarming to see your country struggling and right now the States is struggling from it's upper-class to it's lower-class. This is most definitely in the rungs of the lower-class.

It reminded me of a podcast I'd heard from Gloria Steinem when she was at Yale last September (don't click the link unless you have iTunes installed). She was talking about violence in society and basically said we normalize it over time if it's something we grew up with. Considering that one member is up the creek for killing grandpa and we see his mother and other family members rush out to attack a reporter who was doing her job, yeah, I think Steinem's theory about normalizing violence just might be right. That's just scary.
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Links (all of the links have video):
WLTX.com: Reporter Attacked Covering Murder Story
CNN.com: Police: Family attacks TV news crew, yells racial slurs
The Huffington Post: Charmayne Brown, Black Reporter, Attacked On Camera By White Family In SC

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