Last week, on May 27th, Portland (OR) witnessed a tragedy on a train that made headlines in popular media nation-and-worldwide – the stabbing of two people to death. Also the way the story was presented in mainstream propaganda sources points to another ongoing tragedy – that of yellow journalism.
In the incident in question, a man on a Max train reportedly acted angry and verbally abusive toward others on the train, including a couple of female passengers at whom he is said to have shouted some slurs. I read a number of media stories about the incident and marked the common feature they shared – a biased and politically charged narrative that tried to make the incident an act of hate speech specifically targeted at Muslims when it apparently was not.
Of the dozens of stories out there in leftist media, I will link to one in Washington Post, which is a well-known leftist propaganda publication. I’ll analyze the specific instances of where and how the story slaughtered professionalism and twisted the information to fit in with their political agenda.
The Culprit’s Ethnicity
The attacker’s race is pointed out early in the story as “a white male passenger riding an eastbound MAX train early Friday afternoon began yelling … “ So we are specifically told the villain is white. At other places in the story, the man’s “white” feature is repeated with words “white supremacist” twice along with “right wing extremist.” Apparently it’s a very clear and thorough description of the culprit, and of course his photo is included.
The Targets’ Ethnicity
The story has confusing and contradictory information on the ethnicities of the teen girls (or young women, if you would call them) who were reportedly harassed. At the beginning of the story, it implies that one of the girls was apparently a Muslim because of wearing a hijab:
“Some of the slurs were directed at two female passengers, one of whom was wearing a hijab, according to police.”
Later, in the caption of the embedded video, apparently uploaded to Facebook first by one named Larry Blackwood, it says the two women were Muslim:
“Jeremy Joseph Christian has been charged in the fatal stabbing of two men who intervened to defend two Muslim women.”
And the caption has mention of an Editor’s Note. So the story doesn’t bother to get precise information on the ethnicities of both girls. A more recent related KGW story about one of the girls conveys that Destinee Mangum is 16 and apparently not Muslim as she mentions her friend on the train is a Muslim girl. So what is Mangum’s religion? No info on it is there in any of the stories.
The Heroes’ Ethnicity
Three men stand out as the heroes in this story as they defied the culprit while he was yelling expletives at everyone (not solely at the girls) and directing some of them at the girls. 53-year-old Ricky John Best and 23-year-old Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche stood up to the culprit and asked him to stop and leave the train. They were both stabbed fatally by the culprit.
A third victim, Micah David-Cole Fletcher, was also injured by the attacker but he survived and was hospitalized. But is there any information on the ethnic background of any of these heroes? NONE! Somehow the media, knowingly or by coincidence, did not bother to mention the skin color or religion of these heroes – the most important characters in the story who put their lives at risk to keep others safe.
But soon the pictures of the heroes started making rounds on social media and everybody saw they were Caucasian/white men – all three of them. In fact the WP story in question here shows the picture of Namkai Meche and he is very clearly a white man. There is still no information on his political leaning or his faith just like the other victims.
The Media Propaganda Game
As the words “anti-Muslim” was used along with “slurs” and “white supremacist” in headlines, the now rooted leftist political game of race-baiting was fully employed in the media stories. The villain was repeatedly referred to by his ethnicity and political leaning. And most of the information in the story defines him – his Facebook postings, his participation in free speech rallies, and other specifics.
Only two of the targets of his harassment – the two teen girls – are described ethnically and only of them defined by religion (Muslim) as it helps set the political narrative. The rest of the information, specifically the information on the ethnicity and faith/political leaning of the heroes, is entirely omitted.
It is not difficult to see how the leftist media has capitalized on the use of selective information to further a political agenda instead of neutral, objective, and professional journalism that would include information all around on the main characters of the story.
If the media had taken into consideration these points and spotlighted the heroes instead of the villain, they would have created headlines like, “White Men Sacrifice Lives to Stop a White Supremacist from Hurting Minority Passengers” or “Christian American Men Die Saving Muslim and Christian Girl on Train” or other such titles honoring the heroes. These titles would also include the religion of the non-Muslim girl, whether Christianity or whatever and not the race of one girl and the religion of the other.
But that would surely have killed the agenda of these leftist so-called “media” while serving the true spirit of journalism. And that is certainly not desirable by these players in the game of political-corporate lamestream journalism.
