Apr 2, 2018
Ron Hosko tells us that last week, the Washington Post committed half of an entire page of newsprint to a Wesley Lowery article entitled “Police are still killing black people. Why don’t we notice?” Lowery, as he tends to do, works hard to keep alive the notion that police wantonly hunt and gun down innocent blacks and now his frustration with the lack of attention on the subject is pointed, unsurprisingly, at President Trump. He’s right on some points, including that Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, played regularly into the Post’s preferred theme of abusive and racist policing in America. Yet Lowery gives more, salting his complaints with the wholly misleading dog whistles that presumably help him make his point. He buries three seemingly important names in his article – Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland and Freddie Gray – each working as triggers that will get his undiscriminating readers nodding in vapid agreement.