Posted on 10/08/2015 3:13:15 PM PDT by nickcarraway
She Matters: The coverage of the death of Kiersten Rickenbach Cerveny serves to highlight how differently women of color and the poor are treated by the media.
With a bit of trepidation, I'm addressing the story of Kiersten Rickenbach Cerveny, the married doctor and mother of three who was left unconscious in the lobby of an apartment building she did not live in and was pronounced dead by medics shortly after she was found. While the cause of death hasn't been determined, and an autopsy report is pending, reports say police believe the likely cause of death was a cocaine overdose.
Cerveny's story is a tragedy, just like the stories of all the other women and men who die as a result of drug use. The story of her death has been covered in an astounding number of news outlets, as if there is something unique about it. The articles are carefully crafted to emphasize the best of how Cerveny lived and clean up the worst of her ending.
I've had a couple of days to contemplate the coverage and I am conflicted. The news has been (overly) sensitive and compassionate, which should be applauded. But it's also been privileged, which is unfair, particularly to people of color and the less fortunate who aren't shown the same courtesy.
That her story has garnered so much ink and bandwidth is a privilege on its own. Cerveny was white, blond and affluent and because of this, her story is perceived as important and worth telling. We all know that when women of color, particularly black and brown women, suffer similarly tragic endings, their stories don't often make headlines. On the few occasions that theirs do, they certainly aren't afforded much sympathy or offered kind euphemisms to shine up their messy behavior.
(Excerpt) Read more at theroot.com ...
White Punks on Dope.
Govt money handouts are only supposed to be taken from working whites and given to blacks, you see.
Time to end all this kegal robbery from working folks.
It’s “Cocaine Condo”, you goof.
Oyley vey!
Someone never heard of Whitney Houston.
Dog bites man will always garner more coverage than the reverse. Just so, wealthy, successful white women who aren’t celebrities dying of drug overdoses in posh apartment lobbies are scarce and therefore newsworthy, while poor nonwhites of both sexes OD far more frequently, and thus rarely get mentioned anywhere other than the police blotter column.
Nothing to do with race. If she was a black “married doctor and mother of three” it would be covered the same way. If she were a poor white drug addict it wouldn’t be covered at all—plenty of them die all the time, and the papers don’t report it. Like they used to say in Journalism 101, “Dog Bites Man” is not a story, “Man Bites Dog” is.
I think you got that man/dog thing backwards.
Doh! Yes I did. Thanks.
The sole reason this stuff is newsworthy is because it is so rare and unlikely with the strata of society that has acted on the principle of ‘delayed gratification’ to study and work hard to get ahead. This is not the case, statistically, in the strata of society where drugs are so prevalent. Further, it is because whitey is standing on somebodies neck and holding them down. As this case clearly illustrates, stupid is as stupid does.
I believe the author makes some excellent points.
Person of no account dies and no account is taken. Not shocking.
Person of accomplishment falls from grace and dies, it’s got a hook.
It’s that simple. And please, look how much ink was spilt for St. Trayvon.
Two beautiful accomplished women with children who succumbed to their drug use. That was the story for both of them, for the most part.ob
Exactly. It is newsworthy when something like this happens to someone not usually involved in such matters, but it has nothing to do with her race. The victim mentality runs deep with the Amish.
She was also a doctor, that by itself makes it news worthy.
The authoress should stop whining.
I’m tired of being told I’m a bad person and “privileged” because I’m white.
Some “privilege.”
That’s right. At the end of “Boyz In The Hood” one character laments that his brother’s murder the previous day wasn’t covered in the news; who else would even care?
Too many have made themselves irrelevant (if not outright enemies) of those of us who get out of bed each morning and work our tails off...
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