An 18-year-old Donald Trump supporter is facing a felony charge after police say he threatened two Kamala Harris supporters with a machete as they campaigned outside a Florida early voting site.
It’s not switched willy-nilly though, it’s strongly correlated with race. The “better headline” is “dangerous black perpetrator prone to crime” and “foolish white boy that looks like you and just made a mistake of youth”. Appealing to the racism is what makes the headline “better” (i.e., more affirming to the majority readership).
Yes, teen is literally in the word, but you know that the implication is not “an adult legally responsible for their actions” and the choice of how to describe an alleged criminal is not applied similarly to white and black subjects. A 15 year old black boy will be described as a “black male” while a legally adult white man will be a “teen” until the day of their 20th birthday.
Yes, assumptions they imagine were made. If they can point to stats in a study of headline wordings that would be great, but as it is they might as well assert that “teen” implies Martian. The terminology probably came right off the police report, we don’t know - all this does is express an attitude that this is a sign of unspecified entities being racist.
It’s not a journalism specific thing, it’s a broad bias to view black children as older than their white peers called “adultification”. But the way you approached this seemingly new concept doesn’t come across as someone looking to learn more about a phenomenon someone referenced but didn’t cite but as someone who thinks most references to prejudices are just made up.
I don’t know the name for the kind of bias you’re expressing there - maybe you do - where you assume that anything that isn’t overtly supportive of your POV must be opposition, because it’s a binary world where everybody who eosn’t actively agree with you probably disagrees. That’s the mentality of cults like MAGA and is super common on reddit. I really wish we could avoid it here.
Regarding adultification - it’s definitely not just a racism issue. For example, trying minors as adults in court is something I’ve always been adamantly against. To me it’s like saying what the hell let’s try shoplifters as arsonists, because fuck reality. But my real issue here is threadjacking - we’re talking about some crazy 18-yo with a machete, and somebody postulates that hypothetically if he were black there would be racism happening. Well fine, how about posting an instance of that and we’ll discuss it. You could say if the kid were gay maybe the headline would say “Gay teen” because maybe headlines are like that I dunno - and that would be annoying because his sexual orientation shouldn’t matter, but why should we turn the discussion to that?
Anyway, on the black adultification - here’s the first result I get googling “teen arrested”: a shooting in Orlando - spoiler, the suspect is black, and he’s a “teen” not a “black male”. Oh well. Gotta be cherry picking right? No, like I said, first thing that came up. It’s just one data point so it means nothing - but it’s more data than anybody has given for the theory that if the kid this thread is about were black, the headline would be different.
The irony is, my real irritation was with the threadjacking. Some white kid goes apeshit with a machete and somehow we’re discussing racism. I feel like a European complaining about irrelevant mentions of Trump (which I think is a valid complaint, I’m sick of the motherfucker). If somebody wants to discuss black adultification, which might be a great subject, they can post a study or an article or something and I’ll look at it like everybody else, because actual information would be interesting. I’m just not interested in somebody saying “Hypothetically if this situation were different, something I want to complain about would happen.”
If I told you, “Gary’s fucking a teenager,” I’m guessing you wouldn’t assume that teenager was over 18 and would be thinking maybe the authorities should be contacted.
Sorry… you would “absolutely” assume that if I told you that “Gary [i.e. someone we both know on a first-name basis] is fucking a teenager” that the person was of legal age because of a porn category?
Because I’m pretty sure we don’t mutually know a porn star named Gary.
This also makes me worried about your feelings on incest.
Wow wtf is that kind of strawman? Do you not see the basic correlation between “fucking a teenager” and “fucking a teenager in porn”? porn has normalized that fucking a teenager is 18
We all get it, the type of porn you watch is still legal even though it has teen in the name.
This is regarding a legal matter where the man’s sentence will likely be decided by the fact that the court sees him as an adult. In most cases and as the other user pointed out 18 year olds are referred to as men in a legal context. This disturbingly seems to be the standard practice when describing black males of 18.
Generally speaking, describing alleged criminals as teens implies a lack of legal agency and thus biases the reader toward compassion. The point is that sometimes language can induce bias and consistency is needed. If that consistency falls towards the technicality of having the word teen in their name so be it, but that is not the case with our current media landscape.
LOL you’re delving into the typical sorts of pedantics that people turn to when they don’t have an argument. “OOH OOH but Merriam Webster says that ‘teenager’ means blah blah blah” while completely sidestepping the fact that this person is a legal adult and is fully responsible for their actions, which is what the adults in the room are talking about now.
Describing an 18 year old as a “teen” certainly is a choice. And not one commonly made when the person accused of a crime is black.
wat? Last time I checked, a number that ends in “teen” is a “teen”.
Their point is that standard is only applied to white people.
Yeah I can read, but all I see is the claim.
The media seems to have no standard on using terms and switches them willy-nilly to net the better headline.
It’s not switched willy-nilly though, it’s strongly correlated with race. The “better headline” is “dangerous black perpetrator prone to crime” and “foolish white boy that looks like you and just made a mistake of youth”. Appealing to the racism is what makes the headline “better” (i.e., more affirming to the majority readership).
An 18-year-old is a teenager. Your brain doesn’t stop developing until mid 20s.
Yes, teen is literally in the word, but you know that the implication is not “an adult legally responsible for their actions” and the choice of how to describe an alleged criminal is not applied similarly to white and black subjects. A 15 year old black boy will be described as a “black male” while a legally adult white man will be a “teen” until the day of their 20th birthday.
“My assumptions are universal assumptions” is one of the many things here I wish we could have left to fester on reddit.
I think they are pointing out the apparent assumptions of the headline.
Yes, assumptions they imagine were made. If they can point to stats in a study of headline wordings that would be great, but as it is they might as well assert that “teen” implies Martian. The terminology probably came right off the police report, we don’t know - all this does is express an attitude that this is a sign of unspecified entities being racist.
It’s not a journalism specific thing, it’s a broad bias to view black children as older than their white peers called “adultification”. But the way you approached this seemingly new concept doesn’t come across as someone looking to learn more about a phenomenon someone referenced but didn’t cite but as someone who thinks most references to prejudices are just made up.
I don’t know the name for the kind of bias you’re expressing there - maybe you do - where you assume that anything that isn’t overtly supportive of your POV must be opposition, because it’s a binary world where everybody who eosn’t actively agree with you probably disagrees. That’s the mentality of cults like MAGA and is super common on reddit. I really wish we could avoid it here.
Regarding adultification - it’s definitely not just a racism issue. For example, trying minors as adults in court is something I’ve always been adamantly against. To me it’s like saying what the hell let’s try shoplifters as arsonists, because fuck reality. But my real issue here is threadjacking - we’re talking about some crazy 18-yo with a machete, and somebody postulates that hypothetically if he were black there would be racism happening. Well fine, how about posting an instance of that and we’ll discuss it. You could say if the kid were gay maybe the headline would say “Gay teen” because maybe headlines are like that I dunno - and that would be annoying because his sexual orientation shouldn’t matter, but why should we turn the discussion to that?
Anyway, on the black adultification - here’s the first result I get googling “teen arrested”: a shooting in Orlando - spoiler, the suspect is black, and he’s a “teen” not a “black male”. Oh well. Gotta be cherry picking right? No, like I said, first thing that came up. It’s just one data point so it means nothing - but it’s more data than anybody has given for the theory that if the kid this thread is about were black, the headline would be different.
The irony is, my real irritation was with the threadjacking. Some white kid goes apeshit with a machete and somehow we’re discussing racism. I feel like a European complaining about irrelevant mentions of Trump (which I think is a valid complaint, I’m sick of the motherfucker). If somebody wants to discuss black adultification, which might be a great subject, they can post a study or an article or something and I’ll look at it like everybody else, because actual information would be interesting. I’m just not interested in somebody saying “Hypothetically if this situation were different, something I want to complain about would happen.”
That does not matter, by law, he is an adult. The term “teen” is used when under 18 in the news. This is clear bias because of his race.
EighTEEN. He’s a fucking teenager get over it you fucking weirdo
If I told you, “Gary’s fucking a teenager,” I’m guessing you wouldn’t assume that teenager was over 18 and would be thinking maybe the authorities should be contacted.
I absolutely would. Do you watch porn? There’s a whole “teen” category
Sorry… you would “absolutely” assume that if I told you that “Gary [i.e. someone we both know on a first-name basis] is fucking a teenager” that the person was of legal age because of a porn category?
Because I’m pretty sure we don’t mutually know a porn star named Gary.
This also makes me worried about your feelings on incest.
Wow wtf is that kind of strawman? Do you not see the basic correlation between “fucking a teenager” and “fucking a teenager in porn”? porn has normalized that fucking a teenager is 18
Yes, the same correlation between “fucking his daughter” and “fucking his daughter in porn.” When you hear Gary’s doing it, you call the fucking cops.
Most people are able to distinguish what they see on a screen from reality.
And quite a few of those ‘teens’ are well over twenty.
Or so I was told.
My favorite is when they’re “just turned 18” in one video and “MILF” in the next.
They are, of course, not technically mutually exclusive, but one doesn’t normally imagine much overlap between those genres.
We all get it, the type of porn you watch is still legal even though it has teen in the name.
This is regarding a legal matter where the man’s sentence will likely be decided by the fact that the court sees him as an adult. In most cases and as the other user pointed out 18 year olds are referred to as men in a legal context. This disturbingly seems to be the standard practice when describing black males of 18.
Generally speaking, describing alleged criminals as teens implies a lack of legal agency and thus biases the reader toward compassion. The point is that sometimes language can induce bias and consistency is needed. If that consistency falls towards the technicality of having the word teen in their name so be it, but that is not the case with our current media landscape.
Gee I wonder why you’re getting downvoted. Your ideas are perfectly neutral /s
It’s not their fault they were born with an understanding of nuance that was two sizes too small
Literally just repeating the originally argument instead of responding to the responses. Go fuck yourself.
LOL you’re delving into the typical sorts of pedantics that people turn to when they don’t have an argument. “OOH OOH but Merriam Webster says that ‘teenager’ means blah blah blah” while completely sidestepping the fact that this person is a legal adult and is fully responsible for their actions, which is what the adults in the room are talking about now.
if you go by news headlines this is only true if the teen is white