# Why does the media portray mass shooters as mostly white men?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 13, 2019, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043 "2019-07-13T23:24:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/41 "2019-07-14T12:38:18Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> So what you are trying to claim is sooo obvious is actually diametrically opposed to the narrative these three New York Times writers are presenting, with the assistance of an Ivy league criminologist. :dubious:
> [@](#):
>
> But the police and prosecutors say many of those were not directly linked to criminal activity, such as a dispute over a drug deal. More often, a minor dust-up — a boast, an insult, a decision to play basketball on another gang’s favorite court — was taken as a sign of disrespect and answered with a bullet, said Andrew V. Papachristos, a Yale University professor who studies gang behavior.
“Not directly linked to criminal activity” doesn’t mean “unrelated to criminal activity”. It is uncommon, if not unheard of, for non-gang members to shoot people for using the wrong basketball court.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/42 "2019-07-14T12:40:23Z")
Not only does TNC talk about how difficult, desperate conditions can lead to an honor culture that’s really violent, **Steven Pinker** talks about it (either in **The Blank Slate** or **Better Angels** ). C’mon, man, you LOVE Pinker!
When you lack a strong police force, Pinker argues, a police force that effectively monopolizes violence, people end up having to protect themselves from violence; and a very effective way to do so is to overreact to slights, so that people don’t look on you as easy pickings. He argues that the same dynamic you saw in 19th century backwoods Appalachia, or 18th century Scottish Highlands, shows up in 21st century urban America.
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### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/43 "2019-07-14T12:41:41Z")
Did you read the article and all of the detailed, reported accounts they used to flesh out the data? I can’t quote everything here, but they are illuminating.
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### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/44 "2019-07-14T12:47:57Z")
As Pinker noted recently for a special Harvard project, an important underreported fact is that black people are no more likely to be killed by police without reasonable justification than white people are. You will often hear this from the right. But what the right fails to grapple with is that too many police are fucked up about how easily they shoot people regardless of race.
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### Author:  [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/45 "2019-07-14T12:50:01Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> TNC has talked extensively about the inner-city culture he grew up in, which developed as a way to survive in extremely difficult and even desperate conditions, in which things like “respect” and having a tough image were vital to survival.
Maybe I’m just having a senior moment, but who is TNC?
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/46 "2019-07-14T12:52:02Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> As Pinker noted recently for a special Harvard project, an important underreported fact is that black people are no more likely to be killed by police without reasonable justification than white people are.
Thread drift, not following.
> [@doreen](#):
>
> Maybe I’m just having a senior moment, but who is TNC?
[Ta-Nehisi Coates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta-Nehisi_Coates)
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/47 "2019-07-14T12:52:28Z")
> [@doreen](#):
>
> Maybe I’m just having a senior moment, but who is TNC?
Ta-Nehisi Coates.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/48 "2019-07-14T13:56:53Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> Andy, Dibble, pay attention. I am going to remind you of a couple excerpts I already posted and add one I left out earlier:
> So what you are trying to claim is sooo obvious is actually diametrically opposed to the narrative these three New York Times writers are presenting, with the assistance of an Ivy league criminologist. :dubious:
“Not directly related to criminal activity” is not the same as “not connected with any kind of underlying crime” because of that weasel-word “directly”.
Please, tell me how a turf dispute is \*not \*related to criminal activity. Do you believe gangs control turf just for shits and giggles?
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### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/49 "2019-07-14T15:26:48Z")
So if you were NYT editor, you would have sent the story back for a rewrite?
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### Author:  [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/50 "2019-07-14T15:55:39Z")
If the OP is so concerned I hear there is an online publication which focuses a lot on BLACK CRIME. Perhaps they can help answer this riddle.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/51 "2019-07-14T16:16:12Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> So if you were NYT editor, you would have sent the story back for a rewrite?
You are misrepresenting the story, and then, when people point it out, acting like the reporter got it wrong.
I wouldn’t send the story back for a rewrite, but would send your OP back for a rewrite. Try again.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/52 "2019-07-14T19:51:47Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> So if you were NYT editor, you would have sent the story back for a rewrite?
My problem isn’t with the story. It’s with your gloss of it.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2019, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/53 "2019-07-14T23:35:24Z")
> [@road\_lobo](#):
>
> Media is plural: “Why do the media…”
>
> Mass shooter is a vague concept. See the wikipedia entry for “spree killer” for examples of definitional plurality.
>
> From the wikipedia entry on serial killers:
>
> ‘In a 2005 article Anthony Walsh, professor of criminal justice at Boise State University, argued a review of post-WWII serial killings in America finds that the prevalence of minority serial killers has typically been drastically underestimated in both professional research literature and the mass media. As a paradigmatic case of this media double standard, Walsh cites news reporting on white killer Gary Heidnik and African-American killer Harrison Graham. Both men were residents of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; both imprisoned, tortured, and killed several women; and both were arrested only months apart in 1987. “Heidnik received widespread national attention, became the subject of books and television shows, and served as a model for the fictitious Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs”, writes Walsh, while “Graham received virtually no media attention outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, despite having been convicted of four more murders than Heidnik”.’
There are mitigating factors with these two cases. Most of them are media-related, but I shall elaborate.
1. Heidnik’s ‘story’ was more morbidly interesting. His delusion was that he was going to foster a master race by imprisoning women in his basement and impregnating them. By comparison Graham just killed woman in a drug craze. The only thing of morbid interest with Graham’s story was his attempt to explain that the bodies in his apartment were there when he moved in (oddly, Heidnik tried the same claim).
2. Heidnik was caught when one of his would-be victims used a clever ruse to escape and contact the police, who found the victim’s story credible enough to go and arrest Heidnik. By comparison, Graham turned himself in after they discovered the bodies in his apartment.
3. Heidnik had a longer history leading up to his killings. Including his attempt to imprison and rape his girlfriend’s sister. Graham’s most evidently morbid thing was digging graves ‘for dogs’. But otherwise had no red flags that would indicate his murderous activities.
4. Heidnik was caught first, and by the time Graham was caught the city, and more importantly, the world was a bit ‘serial-killered’ out. So not much attention was paid.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2019, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/54 "2019-08-04T10:44:39Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> Turf wars are always related to criminal activity. Are you really unaware of this? Do you think the “turf” being fought over is not about selling drugs or other criminal money-making activity?
If the people living in gang neighborhoods I heard on NPR a year or so ago are to be believed, then not always. Since the decline in influence of the large organized gangs in the 90s, they’ve been replaced to a large extent by local gangs who do not always peddle drugs. They do, however, always defend their territory with guns.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2019, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/55 "2019-08-04T11:02:39Z")
> [@Ludovic](#):
>
> If the people living in gang neighborhoods I heard on NPR a year or so ago are to be believed, then not always. Since the decline in influence of the large organized gangs in the 90s, they’ve been replaced to a large extent by local gangs who do not always peddle drugs. They do, however, always defend their territory with guns.
If accurate, then I would expect it’s about burglary, carjacking, and theft rings, or protection, or gambling, or prostitution, or organized fraud, or some other criminal enterprise. If it has nothing to do with making money, then that’s a phenomenon I’m unfamiliar with.
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### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2019, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/56 "2019-08-04T11:39:48Z")
That flies in the face of the NYT reporting. They describe it as being mostly about petty macho bullshit. Toxic masculinity, basically, of the type many of us denounced in that Pit thread recently, except backed by guns and a flagrant and alarming disregard for collateral damage.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2019, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/57 "2019-08-04T11:49:15Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> That flies in the face of the NYT reporting. They describe it as being mostly about petty macho bullshit. Toxic masculinity, basically, of the type many of us denounced in that Pit thread recently, except backed by guns and a flagrant and alarming disregard for collateral damage.
That article does not go in depth into the motives and circumstances of gang and street crime related mass shootings. I think you’re mischaracterizing the article. AFAICT it doesn’t conflict with anything I’ve said.
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### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2019, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/58 "2019-08-04T11:54:40Z")
I will let curious readers decide for themselves, but your take strikes me as reading against the grain, perhaps inserting your own motivated reasoning.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2019, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/59 "2019-08-04T12:17:11Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> I will let curious readers decide for themselves, but your take strikes me as reading against the grain, perhaps inserting your own motivated reasoning.
The article isn’t about the motives and circumstances of gang shootings – it doesn’t go into investigative detail into that topic. It barely addresses it, and only on a surface level. And that’s not a criticism – it’s not the topic of the article.
I think the question in the OP has been answered. “Mass shootings” (i.e. mass rage and ideological shootings directed at mostly strangers) are treated separately because they are a separate phenomena with separate motivations and circumstances. They’re no more tragic than other sorts of shootings, but they are harder to explain and understand on an intuitive level, therefore they are commonly thought of as scarier. Scarier and harder-to-explain things get more media coverage than things that are less scary and easier to explain and understand.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2019, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-media-portray-mass-shooters-as-mostly-white-men/837043/60 "2019-08-04T12:19:51Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> You seem to be cherrypicking criteria to keep the mass shooter profile white. If a mass shooter belonged to the KKK, would you also not count it? :dubious:
>
> And only a third of these shootings were associated with gangs anyway.
I read your article and it seems to support what everyone else is saying.
If you look at the motivations for black mass shooters, they would tend to take place in communities with a large amount of crime and tend to be either gang related or minor arguments between people or groups of people who knew each other that spun out of control.
When you look at motivations for white mass shooters, the would tend to take place in random communities, be either racial or politically motivated or have no discernable motivation at all, tend to involve complete strangers and are often meticulously planned by loners.
So what it sound to me is that the author of the NYT article is trying to make a commentary on how there is this large amount of black on black crime that goes largely ignored because it is overshadowed by the more rare white mass shooter incidents.
Given your posting history, I suspect that you are just trying to twist the article into a claim that the overly PC fake media is misrepresenting the white man as a violent psychopath.
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