From Crack House to Cocaine Apartment: The Privilege of Dying While White

The Root ^ | Oct. 8 2015 | DEMETRIA LUCAS D’OYLEY

[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.

[GnuThere]

“Demetria” wrote a book, according to the bottom of that article. The title is ripped off from a white author’s quote, “ Don’t waste the pretty.”
So SHE named her book “Don’t Waste Your Pretty.”
Sure hope Whitey got credit in the acknowledgments, otherwise she would be a racist journalist, wouldn’t she?

[SaveFerris]

[EDINVA]

Young white men/women (boys/girls) die regularly from drug overdoes without any media coverage. This is particularly the case in suburbs across the fruited plain. The fact that this woman was a doctor, a bit beyond her teens, and with children of her own is what makes it newsworthy.

[ronnie raygun]

So she’s complaining the black folks dont get enough media

[mrsmel]

Exactly. And anyway, there's something about this which reminds me of the "can't win" position blacks try place whites in, in getting indignant when black crime is reported (disproportionately reported, they say, in spite of the fact that blacks disproportionately commit the crimes), but then get indignant when black crimes aren't reported, as ignoring their self-inflicted plight. The only thing they are consistent about is that black-on-white crimes should never be reported, especially with a racial angle (though the relatively few white-on-black crimes never fail to be reported with the racial angle played for all it's worth, even when it wasn't a crime, but self-defense). (And God forbid that the black-on-white violent crime statistics, especially the rapes, or the many black mobs beating an elderly, disabled, or otherwise weak-and lone-white victim to at least a vegetable, if not to death).

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

This just goes to show you that well-to-done white women/men/people are just as stupid as those who aren’t as well off.

They both end up dead in some shit-hole. That is the tragedy and the waste.

[livius]

Actually, I haven’t seen much compassion in th coverage. I’ve seen a lot of shock and a lot of anger, that somebody with all these good things and a good family should throw it all away like this.

[Impy]

” DEMETRIA LUCAS D’OYLEY “

DemeNtria