Most people have probably heard of James Byrd, a black man who was brutally murdered outside Jasper, Texas, by white supremacists in 1998. Most people have probably heard of Matthew Sheppard, a homosexual who was beaten to death in 1998. But how many people are familiar with the name John Hehman?
Hehman was a 20-year-old student at New York University. Known to his friends as “J.B.,” Hehman was a metropolitan studies major and peer educator for NYU residence halls. He loved both opera and The Lord of the Rings. He also happened to be white.
On Saturday April 1, 2006, Hehman made the mistake of stopping to help to a wheel-chair bound man near a street corner. While handing some pocket change to the handicapped man, he attracted the attention of a black gang that had been smoking pot inside a nearby fast-food restaurant.
The gang—which contained members as young as 11—began to chase after Hehman while screaming, “Get whitey!” The New York Post reported that Hehman eventually fled into traffic against the light, where he was struck by a vehicle and suffered severe skull and leg fractures. He passed away six days later at Harlem Hospital.
The New York Times ran a short, five-paragraph brief on the incident titled, “Chase Led Man Into Car’s Path.” The brief made vague references to a “20-year-old college student” who was fleeing “a group of young men.”
It “may have been a bias attack,” wrote the self-proclaimed “newspaper of record.”
It’s not necessary to discuss in detail the amount of media coverage the James Byrd and Matthew Sheppard deaths received. Suffice to say, the two incidents have become burned into the public’s mind as examples of horrible hate crimes, motivated by racism and homophobia.
But it’s easy to find other examples of white-on-black violence that have received exceptional amounts of coverage. Take, for example, a 2005 article in the New York Times about three black men who were attacked by a group of white men.
“White Men Attacked 3 Black Men in Howard Beach Hate Crime, the Police Say,” screamed the headline.
While the Hehman brief was only five paragraphs long, this article was a whopping 34 paragraphs long. In the Hehman brief, the Times carefully avoided dwelling on the black-on-white nature of the crime, and the possible racism involved. In this article, the Times gleefully revelled in the white-on-black nature of the crime—and naturally, every white-on-black crime is motivated by racism and bigotry!
Compare the two stories for yourself:
In a withering editorial titled “A Damning Silence,”, The New York Post—the only publication to provide any significant coverage of Hehman’s injury and death—pointed out the hypocrisy and double standards used when it comes to black-on-white and white-on-black crime.
If it were not for the Post, along with bloggers like Michelle Malkin, who picked up on the Hehnan story, no one would ever remember the name “John Hehman.” It would merely have been another news blip in a long line of stories the national news media has done its best to bury.
Surveys indicate that on average, blacks commit more violent crimes against whites than whites against blacks. A recent New Century Foundation report showed that “between 2001 and 2003, blacks were 39 times more likely to commit violent crimes against whites than the reverse, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.”
Don’t expect the Times or any other news media outlet to mention this fact, though. It’s become politically incorrect—even racist—to mention statistics like this. But who is truly being racist here? The person who believes violent crime is wrong, and treats violent criminals with disdain regardless of color, gender or creed? Or the person who uses selective reporting on the basis of race to advance a personal, political, or social agenda at the expense of others?
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Sources:
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/08/nyregion/08hit.html?_r=1&oref=login
2. http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/64110.htm
3. http://www.americandaily.com/article/9584
4. http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/64188.htm
5. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/nyregion/30beach.html?ex=1277784000&en=00539a795bf8b9ff&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
6. http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004949.htm
Indeed…isn’t it true there is a lot of black-on-black violence? It’s sad…perhaps the Times etc think they would be “racist” to talk about it? Whatever the reason, its wrong.
Sounds to me like a guy got killed in traffic. That’s very sad.
To compare this to the way James Byrd and Matthew Sheppard were tortured is unfair. It’s nothing alike. One is a sad accident, the others are intentional, horrific murder.
Andrew, have you ever heard of Jesse Dirkhising?
Yes, I have. But this article wasn’t about that at all, was it? If you’re ready to concede that the first argument is unfair, bring on the Dirkhising argument. (It’s still not the same, but for slightly different reasons.)
Actually, I was simply asking a question out of curiosity.
Your “Sounds to me like a guy got killed in traffic” comment isn’t really worthy of response. That’s like me saying, “Jews in Germany died of poor air quality.”
I didn’t compare the Hehnan incident with the Byrd and Sheppard incidents (although I can see how my lead would give the impression the article is supposed to be a comparison of them). I do believe a comparison of the media coverage the three incidents received is an appropiate thing to do, but I did not really focus on that either. Instead, I made a point of ignoring Byrd and Shepphard and saying, “But it’s easy to find other examples of white-on-black violence that have received exceptional amounts of coverage.”
I would be interested in hearing how the murder of Dirkising is “not the same.”
Before we get into that conversation, please tell me what the point of your column was.
The purpose of the column was to tell the story of John Hehman, and to point out the latest example of how the national media selectively reports events on the basis of race and other factors.
(I have another comment awaiting moderation on the other thread.)
But that’s the point I was making. This story was just a sad, random tragedy. No real lessons to be gained from an in-depth examination of it, except the lesson that we all learn in kindergarten: Look both ways before crossing the street.
What evidence are you presenting to make the point that this story was buried on the basis of race?
If this man hadn’t been striped of his Constitutional Right to Bear Arms the outcome would have been much more preferable.
That’s ridiculous.
What evidence are you presenting to make the point that this story was buried on the basis of race?
The stories themselves. If you have another explanation for the difference in the way the national media treats these crimes, I would welcome hearing it. Incidentally, I am still interested in hearing how the murder of Dirkising is “not the same.”
I’ll have another response coming in the ‘snowball’ thread in a day or two. I apologize for the slow responses, but I’m a bit busy right now with finals and everything coming up. I hope you understand.
: )
The Hehman case just doesn’t register as important or enlightening news. As I said, it was a traffic accident. How many black men do you remember reading about being killed in traffic. It has nothing to do with race, it’s just not a terribly interesting story. THAT is why it didn’t get a lot of attention in the media.
You might argue that it is a racial story because a “black gang” was chasing him. But their race had little to do with it. According to the news reports, the rowdy bunch of kids were neighborhood thugs, harassing pedestrians, vandalizing businesses. They only noticed Hehman so that they could steal his iPod, and just because someone called him a white boy doesn’t mean this was a hate crime.
This was a crime, certainly. Thugs deserve to be punished. It’s very sad that Hehman was accidentally killed in the process. But thousands of people are mugged every day in this country, and it hardly counts as national news.
In contrast, James Byrd and Matthew Shepard were singled out entirely because of their race/orientation, because they were outsiders. Their treatment wasn’t ordinary or run-of-the-mill. They were tortured expressly to be made an example of, because of who they were and what they represented.
Which brings us to the awful death of Jesse Dirkhising. No question this was an unusually horrific death. But this murder was not motivated by who Jesse was or what he represented. In this case, he was simply a sexual object to the killers. They didn’t kill him to make a political point or to punish him for who he was. They were simply twisted sexual predators.
The fact that they were homosexual is barely relevant to the story. Sadly, children are raped and killed by sexual predators – both homosexual and heterosexual – daily.
I don’t think these stories were transcendant news events the way the Byrd and Sheppard murders were. Can you see the distinction I’m making?
(And good luck on your finals)
On April 4th, J.B. Hehman, 20, a prolific and articulate member of our Wired New York Community (posting as “TLOZ Link5”) and a Junior at NYU, died from injuries he received three days earlier when he was assaulted while walking on East 125th Street in Harlem. Read more at http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8889
The forum community has reacted to this tragedy by partnering with Bette Midler’s non-profit New York Restoration Project (NYRP) to execute a two-pronged plan of action:
1) On May 13th, volunteers will converge at Maggie’s Garden (located at 149th Street and Broadway in Harlem), an NYRP community garden in Manhattan for a community service project to be performed in J.B. Hehman’s memory. Volunteers
are needed. Read more at http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8967
2) Our members have also embarked on a fund drive to raise $10,000 to create the J.B. Hehman Endowment for Environmental Education. This endowment will fund earth science programs in community parks and gardens for under-served and
minority children in Upper Manhattan.
No contribution is too small and all are greatly appreciated. For further information on these efforts and how you can help or donate please visit:
http://www.wirednewyork.com/jb/memorial/ or
http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=95940
As JB Hehman posted in our forum: “If you love the place you live, love it with the same passion that so many New Yorkers do, then you’ll learn to tolerate its imperfections if it hasn’t been ingrained in you already. Be to its virtues very kind, but be to its faults a little blind.”
Help us remember and celebrate J.B. Hehman’s contributions to our community!
The Hehman case just doesn’t register as important or enlightening news.
Don’t murders count as important news events?
As I said, it was a traffic accident. How many black men do you remember reading about being killed in traffic.
Actually, something similar to the John Hehman murder took place near the same vicinity in 1986, when a man who was being chased by a gang ran into a street and was killed by traffic. The only difference? The victim in that case was black—the gang that was chasing him was white. Here are the Google results for “1986 Howard Beach murder”. What kind of attention did that event receive? Thousands of protestors, national
news coverage, and eventually a tv movie based off the events.
But their race had little to do with it. According to the news reports, the rowdy bunch of kids were neighborhood thugs, harassing pedestrians, vandalizing businesses. They only noticed Hehman so that they could steal his iPod, and just because someone called him a white boy doesn’t mean this was a hate crime.
I never said this was a hate crime. I don’t believe in categorizing crimes as “hate crimes” or non hate crimes. That’s not the point of this article.
Do you deny my premise that the national media selectively reports crime-related events on the basis of race and other factors (i.e., sexual orientation)?
Re: Dirkhising. (For those who want to read about the murder, you can find out about it here. Just as a warning, the article contains very graphic descriptions.)
Which brings us to the awful death of Jesse Dirkhising. No question this was an unusually horrific death. But this murder was not motivated by who Jesse was or what he represented. In this case, he was simply a sexual object to the killers. They didn’t kill him to make a political point or to punish him for who he was. They were simply twisted sexual predators.
The fact that they were homosexual is barely relevant to the story. Sadly, children are raped and killed by sexual predators – both homosexual and heterosexual – daily.
Just out of curiosity then—if we use your standard of “this isn’t a big news event because it happens all the time”—does this mean that violence against gays is extremely rare? Because if it happened all the time, then surely Matthew Shepard would not have become a national news story, correct?
You earlier say that Shepard’s and Byrd’s “treatment wasn’t ordinary or run-of-the-mill.” I don’t doubt these incidents happen elsewhere, but neither was Jesse Dirkhising’s. I see the distinction you’re trying to make, but I strongly disagree with it. On what basis do you come to the conclusion that murders committed by those making a political point or punishing a person for who they are are worse than murders committed by those engaging in satisfying their own perverted sexual desires?
Incidentally, I just recently happened across the name of Ken Tillery.
I’ll quote from wikipedia here:
“Ken Tillery was a white man who was murdered in Jasper, Texas in April of 2002. On the night of his murder, Tillery was walking down a road in Jasper when three men in a truck offered him a ride. When Tillery refused, the three men kidnapped Tillery and took him to a remote location outside Jasper. Once the truck stopped, Tillery jumped out and tried to flee but before he could get away, the three men caught up to him, beat him up and started to run over him with their truck. Tillery finally died after being dragged to death under the truck’s undercarriage.”
Tillery was white, his murderers were black. His story ran in all of 22 newspapers.
Derek – I’m not claiming there are NO cases where the media misjudges a story, or fails to give it a fair balance against the way similar stories were handled in years past. Of course that happens, and of course the media has biases. The media has an apparent bias toward siding with those who are weaker, less powerful or less fortunate (seems like a good Christian attitude to me).
The original exmaples on which you hung the thesis of your article are not those kinds of stories. The Hehman case is NOT like the Sheppard case or the Byrd case.
The Howard Beach case is a better comparison, but still not perfect. The motive there was pure racism, and it was clear the intension was to beat the life out of those three men. The Hehman case was motivated by theft, from what I read.
I don’t know how prevalent violence against gays is, but I don’t know of any case of gay assault as drastic as Matthew Sheppard’s murder. That’s why it appropriately became a national news story.
I’m not making an argument that any one murder is more or less horrific or sad or important than any other murder. They are all awful. But the news media is more than a list of the events of the day. The news media has to find and focus on stories that have implications beyond that one event. They are looking for stories that propel a conversation about the kind of society we live in. THAT is why murders with a political point or a purely racial motive rise into larger news. The Hehman case is not that kind of story.
Surely the media breaks its own rules, and some stories become big news for no particular reason, other than the fact that some big news organization chose to focus on it. The runaway bride story was pointless, but CNN loved it. Natalee Holloway died in Aruba, and Fox News loves the story (apparently because she was a pretty blonde). If she were a black homeless girl would they have given her the same attention?