As Cordell Jude trial is delayed, media weighs in with its own well established hypocrisy

Cordell Lamar Jude’s trial for the murder of Daniel Adkins, which was set for August 14, has been postponed until September 16. I found this out after I had contacted Jerry Cobb, the public information officer of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office concerning where I could find information about the progress of the trial. According to case documents on the Superior Court website, there was discussion concerning the state’s intention of bringing Jude’s extensive criminal history into the trial, but on August 19, there was a “request for travel expedited ruling requested.”

I “requested” a clarification from Mr. Cobb, and he informed me that “Counsel for the defendant filed a motion to delay a pre-trial evidentiary hearing and the trial date due to the defendant’s mother passing away.  The State did not object.  The Court granted the motion.”  Jude’s father lives in Arizona (we know this because he threatened to shoot a USA Today reporter if he or his son were bothered again), but if his mother still resided in his hometown of Detroit, this means he is headed out of the state, probably without “escort” services. We can recognize his loss, yet we must be cognizant of his attitude about the life of others. Jude has not been free on a million dollar bail—unlike say, George Zimmerman; he has since he was first charged with second degree murder out on his own “recognizance” despite reportedly testing positive for drug use and continuing to ”hang out” with known “gangstas” who like to shoot people. If the trial does occur as rescheduled, it will be almost 18 months since the shooting of Adkins occurred. 

As noted before, the “mainstream” media (and local media) has been not only extremely reticent about this case, it has allowed it to be almost exclusively driven by the blogosphere. The Arizona Republic has ignored the case, and the  Phoenix New-Times—a left-wing “alternative” weekly, has gone out of its way to downplay the significance of the case in relation to how the media has reacted to the Zimmerman case. “Race” isn’t an “issue”—but that is because the media and outside agitators of the Al Sharpton stripe haven’t made it one; certainly toothless “Hispanic” advocates have not sought to rough-up the political seas.

Ignored, of course, is that it was not prosecutors in the Zimmerman case that brought race into the equation; it was the media and those with agendas who did. On the other hand, the same media has been quite content to allow the Jude case to be handled as the powers-that-be see fit. While the media gleefully gave “voice” to black grievances against the Latino community for its own cynical, self-serving purposes, there was no comprehension of how the reporting only heightened common-held stereotypes and prejudices against Latinos. As Shelby Steele pointed out, Zimmerman is hardly KKK material, and no thought was given to whether because Zimmerman was clearly Latino in Trayvon Martin’s eyes (as Adkins was in Jude’s) that this fact “colored” the latter's attitude in how he could “handle” the situation.  

  

Along with the New-Times, The Daily Beast has also chimed in with its opinion concerning suggestions the Adkins murder is the “reverse” of the Martin case. According to the Beast, “The thought is that national media outlets are ignoring the Phoenix case because the shooter, Cordell Jude, is black -- and that doesn't fit some sort of media plot. In reality, there's hardly anything the two cases have in common…That gives way too much credit to Jude. No bloody photographs of Jude after the confrontation are going to pop up, and we don't remember George Zimmerman claiming he was being attacked with a deadly weapon that never actually existed (Note: There was Martin's fists, and that concrete the media chooses to overlook). There was no conversation with police dispatchers before the shooting. Jude wasn't following Adkins around. The cases are hardly anything alike, except for the fact that an unarmed person was shot and killed. The theory that this is a "reverse Trayvon Martin case" is pathetic, really.”

Like others in the “mainstream” media, the Beast has been demonizing and dehumanizing Zimmerman while portraying Martin as a “innocent child” from the start; naturally the writer of this article seems blinded to the fact that the not only do the details not match up, they suggest an entirely different set of moral questions. I detect that the author of the piece is so desperate to separate the two that he doesn’t realize that he has just described a case that is more obviously cold-blooded murder than the Zimmerman case. Who is really the “pathetic” one here?

And then there is CNN’s Tom Foreman, who wrote a bizarre commentary that started off with like this:

To start with, Cordell Jude was hungry. He was 22, the spring days were growing longer and the temperature in Phoenix had climbed to 80 degrees that Tuesday in April 2012. It was not much cooler as the sun slipped behind the Sierra Estrella mountains, so shortly before 8 pm, Jude drove with his pregnant fianceé toward a suburban intersection crowded with fast-food restaurants, a Home Depot, a Starbucks, drug stores and gas stations.

Note that outside of one Reuters story, the mainstream media never tried to “humanize” Zimmerman—the neighborhood watch captain in a community rocked by home invasions and robberies by “transient” arrivals—like this, despite Jude’s history of criminal activity. Interestingly, Foreman inadvertently brought “context” into the discussion by comparing the cases with that of a 76-year-old Milwaukee man who is white, recently convicted of shooting to death a 13-year-old boy who was black he had accused of robbing his home; video surveillance tapes seemed to show that the boy had not put up any resistance, after he had been placing garbage cans at the curb.

On the other hand there was clear evidence that Zimmerman was physically attacked by Martin; this is not often the case in instances where people who are more obviously Caucasian shoot a minority due to assumptions based on race rather than anything that was actually done to them. Yet Zimmerman—who by all the evidence that media ignored was not prejudiced against anything save crime in his neighborhood—was demonized out of all recognizably human qualities.

Thus Foreman couldn’t help but to bring hypocrisy into the proceedings: “The key questions being asked by many: If Zimmerman was acquitted because he felt threatened, shouldn't Jude also walk? And if he doesn't, will his race and that of the victim have played a role?”  Incredible; Foreman either seems to think that Latinos are a “privileged” group in this country, or this is an example of how the media is completely blind to its own prejudices in regard to the Latino community. 

As noted before, there is little relation to these two cases; I once viewed the Adkins case as the “reverse,” but I see now that such a viewpoint has allowed the media to make twisted interpretations and cause propaganda confusion. Jude had far less excuse to do what he did than Zimmerman did. Jude was never in “danger”—he simply acted on his “gangsta” impulses—and his actions can only be explained as seeing Adkins as an “expendable” person no one would care about, particularly given the virulent anti-Latino immigrant propaganda in Arizona.

But that doesn’t explain the lack of righteous (or self-righteous) anger from white Americans (as opposed to so-called “white Hispanics”) when someone who is clearly Caucasian kills a black youth out of racial animus, as in the Milwaukee incident. Although many blacks have trouble recognizing the negative effect of “gangsta” culture on its community, whites on the other hand tell themselves “Everyone I know isn’t like that. It’s just one crazy”—which sums-up the attitude of most whites to the not infrequent massacres conducted by one of their own; they also maintain their lingering stereotypes that helps them quietly rationalize the actions of others of their “own kind.” Yet someone like Zimmerman, being Latino, easily fits into the stereotypes that whites (and many blacks) have of all Latinos. 

While I’m on the subject of the lack of a Latino perspective in the media, it might be useful to discuss what the media is saying about Latinos, the Zimmerman example notwithstanding. Of course we know that the news media presents a largely negative picture, but in the entertainment media there isn’t much improvement. Perhaps it is not as bad as Spanish language programming seen on Univision, where soap operas show Mexican society as more clearly defined in racial and class terms; almost all of the characters are of European stock, and the rare mestizo is either a maid, a gardener, a social troublemaker, or a criminal.

But not much better. A 2012 survey conducted by the National Hispanic Media Coalition found that overall, the American media as done an excessively poor job of representing the Latino community, and this failure explains the following:

First-hand knowledge of Latinos is positively related to evaluations. Those with more direct interaction with—or knowledge of—Hispanics hold more positive views of the group and its members. Those holding very negative views are often those with little direct exposure to Hispanic Americans.

“Latino” or “Hispanic” on the one hand, and the issue of illegal immigration on the other, are highly associated.  On average, these non-Hispanic respondents believed that more than half of all Hispanics estimated that 35.6% of all Hispanics are “illegal.” Over 17% of respondents believed more than half of all Hispanics are illegal, while another 13.3% estimate exactly half are undocumented. Taken together, over 30% of respondents believed a majority of Hispanics (50% or greater) were undocumented. Taken together, over 30% of all respondents believed a majority of Hispanics (50% or greater) were undocumented.
 

People exposed to negative entertainment or news narratives about Latinos and/or immigrants hold the most unfavorable and hostile views about both groups. Negative portrayals of Latinos and immigrants are pervasive in news and entertainment media. Consequently, non-Latinos commonly believe many negative stereotypes about these groups are true. 

Yet curiously, we find that non-Latinos widely subscribe to positive stereotypes associated with Latinos. Figure 1 illustrates this trend, where over 75% of respondents think of Latinos as family oriented (90%), hard working (81%), religious (81%), and honest (76%). 

The irony, of course, is that the black community regards such sentiments as reflecting negatively on themselves, used to “rationalize” what they see as discrimination against them, such as in job hiring. However,

the same time, one-third to half of these very same respondents also attribute several negative stereotypes to Latinos. One out of two non-Latinos think the terms "welfare recipient" and less educated” describe Latinos somewhat or very well. Sizeable shares also believe Latinos can be characterized as having too many children, refusing to learn English and taking jobs from Americans. The most commonly held Latino stereotypes run parallel to those reflected in the media. Participants were asked to recall the kinds of roles they see Latinos play in television and film. 

The top three roles non-Latinos see Latinos play are criminal or gang member, gardener or landscaper, and maid or housekeeper. 71% see Latinos in criminal or gang member roles very often or sometimes. 64% frequently see Latinos as gardeners. 5% or less never see Latino actors play criminals, gardeners or housekeepers. 47% hardly ever see Latino attorneys or judges on TV or film.  Only 5% see Latinos in roles as doctors, nurses, lawyers or judges.

The report noted—not surprisingly—that much of the acceptance of stereotypes and prejudices can be explained by a failure to actually get to know someone of Latino heritage, instead simply making a judgment on appearance and the expectation of what that “implies.”

 For the most part, non-Latinos report they have regular interaction Latinos (44% on a daily basis), and being familiar with Latino culture (74% say they are somewhat or very familiar). Yet, only 30% say they personally know many Latinos, (27% know two or fewer) and more than a third (38%) interact with Latinos once a month or less. Because personal familiarity is so varied, the impact of media framing looms larger; without direct experiences, media takes on a larger role in establishing opinions and attitudes. Perhaps not surprisingly, age is correlated to familiarity with Latinos. The gap between the youngest age cohort and all others is evident.

Whether a person identifies themselves as “liberal” or “conservative” seems to matter little in the overall picture, and there is very little differentiation in attitudes between demographics:

38-40% agree Latinos have too many kids. 36-44% agree Latinos take jobs from Americans. 42-48% agree Latinos refuse to learn English (a stereotype strangely not applied to Asians). Nearly half (49%) think Latinos are welfare recipients.

MSNBC is regarded as a “liberal” news network. Yet the survey found that 55 percent of non-Latino respondents who are influenced by it had negative views of Latinos, while only 19 percent had a “positive” view of them. It is easy to see why, which the George Zimmerman case was only the most obvious example. It noted that viewers of Bill O’Reilly’s show believe 56 percent of Latinos are on welfare, 43 percent of Rachel Maddow’s audience believe this is the case.

All of this suggests a high degree of “confusion” in exactly how to “interpret” Latinos. They are either “stealing jobs” or they are on “welfare.” There are at least 40 million Latinos in this country who are U.S. citizens or are legal immigrants, yet few “real” Americans see them as such. They are simply an “alien race” that doesn’t belong. Thus it is no surprise that both white and black America found it so easy to demonize the Latino Zimmerman—and find the Latino Adkins, a developmentally-disabled man out walking his dog, less sympathetic than a young thug-in-the-making.