TV's Law & Order Cracks Down on White Men

My previous column detailed a number of network TV series' campaign to demonize white men and romanticize black men, in the depiction of crime. But without a doubt, TV's champion white-baiter is persistent felony offender Dick Wolf, the producer of Law & Order, two Law & Order Lite spin-offs, and a pseudo-documentary crime show. This column has previously detailed a fraction of Wolf's offenses against decency and verisimilitude, and will no doubt return to him; criminals are creatures of habit, and Wolf has a long-term contract with NBC through the 2004-2005 season.

In one episode this season, Wolf re-created the May 10, 2001, execution-style, Carnegie Deli Murders ("Tragedy on Rye"). In the real case, Sean Salley and Andre Smith robbed genteel drug dealer Jennifer Stahl, who lived in an apartment above Midtown Manhattan's Carnegie Deli, and murdered Stahl, Stephen King, and Charles Helliwell. Salley and Smith also shot Rosemond Dane and Anthony Veader, both of whom survived. In June, Salley and Smith were convicted on multiple counts of murder, robbery, and weapons charges; in July, they were both sentenced to 120 years to life.

In the L & O version, the black suspects who were slated to be up for the death penalty for the killings, turned out to be innocent. The killer was white. This episode, written by William N. Fordes, was set up to be an object lesson on the dangers of racial profiling, via the "conscience" of the character of black NYPD "Lt. Joyce Van Buren" (S. Epatha Merkerson), but was actually a shameless exercise in propaganda: The real Carnegie Deli killers WERE black men!

Taking real crimes committed by blacks, and giving them the "ripped from the headlines" treatment, but with the killers' races changed to white, is a Dick Wolf trademark.

In the recent episode, "Open Season," a William Kunstler-like criminal defense attorney gets a black man acquitted, who was guilty as hell of shooting a white police officer, and is murdered — the lawyer, that is — as he is celebrating the acquittal. The killer is a white supremacist, who conspires with other supremacists to murder defense attorneys notorious for handling such cases.

This episode's story line resided entirely in the fantasy world of Dick Wolf and writer Richard Sweren.

One secondary aspect of this episode was, however, based on a true case. At one point, the jailed white supremacist, who has been forbidden from all contact with the outside world, except for his defense attorney (Tovah Feldshuh), uses her as an unwitting conduit to pass along the address of someone he has targeted for murder to an associate, who carries out the killing. However, Dick Wolf's creative team made a slight adjustment in the story. The subplot was based not on a white supremacist, but on the case of radical attorney, Lynne Stewart. Stewart has been arrested and charged with deliberately passing along instructions from one of her clients, Islamic terrorist Sheik Abdul Rahman, who was convicted of masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, to his confederates. Stewart was taped laughing about what she was doing.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should note that on occasion, Wolf crosses over, and abuses white women, too.

In an episode created last season by writers Terri Kopp, Aaron Zelman, and Eric Overmyer, and re-run on December 4, Myth of Fingerprints, the forensics chief from hell (Diana Scarwid), is caught after having spent years falsely testifying against innocent men (even white men!), all of whom were convicted based on her perjured testimony. Eventually, she is convicted of manslaughter, based on the prison murder of one of the men whom she'd framed.

That episode was based on the very real case of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma forensics chemist, Joyce Gilchrist, who was caught having falsified evidence for years. Based on Gilchrist's testimony, 23 men have been sentenced to death, and eleven have been executed. Unlike the fictional forensics boss on Law & Order, however, Joyce Gilchrist is black.

Dick Wolf and his creative team apparently see TV drama as an opportunity to create non-stop propaganda, and get paid handsomely for it.

I'm pretty sure Goren isn't pro-life.

The fact that he didn't want to talk about it and that when forced he spoke about options sounded to me that he himself is pro-life but understands that legally it gets more complicated. That's pro-life in my opinion.

The thing that got alot of african americans riled up on criminal intent was 2 episodes, one Goren basically insults Carver when Carver forced him to use force to get somone (it was ripped from the headlines episode about pardons)

In that one, Goren was mad that Carver was the one forcing his hand by making him go back on his word instead of vice versa. Not only is Goren used to pulling the strings of everyone around him, but his word is his bond.

and another episode where Goren lies to Carver and makes him look bad (don't know which episode that was).

In that episode, a laywer employee of Carver's was trying to frame his wife for his murder. Goren found that out and had to lie to Carver about it so Carver wouldn't spill the beans to his employee. He didn't purposely make Carver look bad. Neither of those episodes were racist, just full of conflict between the different aims of cops and lawyers. McCoy and Brisco don't get along any better over on the original series, and they're both old white guys.

On another note, you ever notice how when its a political thing involving real life dems, they change it to republicans? Example would be the pardons, were done by Clinton, in the episode it was changed to the NYS governor.

Honestly, I'm not sure if the mayor is Republican in the fictional New York that the Law and Order shows exist in. In that pardons episode, Carver voted for the mayor, while Goren and the captain didn't. Seeing as how Carver is a black guy, Goren and the captain are white males, and Goren is ex-army, you could infer that the mayor was a Democrat based on typical voting trends.

They also had one where the politician kills somone (they made him a conservative) and gets off.

Didn't see that one.

Thanks for the link to the other article. Interesting reading.

Sure thing.

Law & Order's forays into PC Land annoy me so much because it is such a good show otherwise. When they concentrate solely on telling a good crime story, they create top-drawer entertainment. Story should come first and foremost, and to hell with political grandstanding.

Agreed. Nobody writes tighter, more suspenseful scripts than L&O's people -- when they're not propagandizing.

It wasn't the mayor with the pardons, it was the governor. In other law and order shows, they actually make it clear its a republican. (An episode where McCoy wants the death penalty for somone, and the wife of the criminal tells him "we actually voted for Pataki"). The one with the conservative politican kills somone was Chris Noth's last episode. He slugged the guy outside on the steps of the court house. It involved a conservative pol who kills a gay politican but did it, because that guy wiped out his council seat.

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