You might remember the old movie "Twelve Angry Men," starring
Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb and E.G. Marshall. Most of the dramatic
film takes place inside a jury room as a dozen people deliberate at
the end of a murder trial. It's sweltering hot. At the outset, most
of the jurors are eager to render a guilty verdict and go home. As
the story unfolds, viewers learn that some are influenced by
prejudice against the dark-skinned defendant.
We'd like to think that such bias doesn't hold sway in jury
rooms these days. After all, "Twelve Angry Men" came out in 1957,
and a lot of progress has occurred since then. But stereotypes and
semi-conscious racism are still widespread factors in American
society.
An essay in the new anthology "Race and Resistance" notes that
"the power of the media is profound" -- and adds that "its most
powerful impact is on children, who frame definitions of and draw
conclusions about the world through the messages they receive."
Written by mass communications professor Alice Tait and
journalist Todd Burroughs, the essay refers to internalized racial
spin in the United States: "Studies conducted in the 1990s show
that children across all races associate positive characteristics
more with white characters they see on television, and negative
characteristics with the minority characters."
Several years ago, physician Michael LeNoir coined the apt
term "image distortion disorder" to describe a prevalent social
dynamic that blurs and obscures our common humanity. "Most of the
images that one ethnic group has of another are developed by the
media," LeNoir pointed out. With some minorities often depicted in
a bad light, especially on television, media-fed perceptions create
"a background of anxiety and fear in America that is dangerous."
Some repetitive media representations of African Americans,
Latinos and Asians "have a devastating effect on every person in
this country and undermine any attempt to bring us together as a
people," says LeNoir, who practices medicine in Oakland, Calif. He
advocates speaking out: "Those of us in America who are concerned
about race relations must react to obvious distortions in the media
by raising our voices in protest over the never-ending attempt to
portray people of color in these caricatured, fragmented and
distorted images."
Such images have profound consequences in many spheres of
American life -- including the nation's courts. News outlets
frequently exacerbate the illness of "image distortion disorder,"
but they're sometimes effective at calling attention to how various
forms of racism contribute to terrible injustices in the present
day.
One of the virtues of a recent special report on national
radio is that it did just that. In a documentary called "Deadly
Decisions," from American RadioWorks, correspondent Alan Berlow
found that "jurors may be influenced by their own fears and
prejudices when they sentence people to death."
The documentary, co-produced by Minnesota Public Radio and NPR
News, succeeded in ways that public radio shows like "Morning
Edition" and "All Things Considered" routinely fail. Meticulously
researched, the special report devoted a full hour to scrutinizing
what happens under the surface of official accounts, easy
narratives and quick soundbites.
The result was exemplary journalism that explained how people
can be put to death by a legal system that's theoretically
equitable but functionally skewed against defendants without white
skin or financial resources. Combining well-ordered factual
information and vivid interviews (see
www.AmericanRadioWorks.org),
the "Deadly Decisions" report built a logical case for some very
disturbing conclusions.
One of the documentary's illustrative stories involved the
experiences of a man named Michael Callahan, who was a juror in a
murder trial. Callahan described a jury atmosphere reminiscent of
"Twelve Angry Men." But instead of sitting in a make-believe
cinematic jury room in the 1950s, Callahan was sitting in a real
jury room in the 1980s.
Most of the jurors seemed inclined to convict even before the
trial began. And the prosecutor's case was so weak that Callahan
recalled feeling "aghast." Yet, convinced that "sooner or later the
truth is going to come out," he went along with voting to convict
the defendant, Rolando Cruz, of first-degree murder.
An entire decade passed before the truth came out. "Cruz had
nothing to do with the murder," the documentary reported. "He had
lost nearly 12 years of his life, most of it on death row."
Such stories -- exposing grim realities of injustice in our
midst -- are difficult to tell with the detailed care that they
deserve. When journalists find ways, there is more hope for the
future.
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Norman Solomon's latest book is "The Habits of Highly Deceptive
Media." His syndicated column focuses on media and politics.
