®lft ^ortlanb (Observer Diversity Special Edition
August 14, 2013
Page 9
Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views o f the
Portland Observer. We welcome reader essays, photos and
story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com.
We Must
Look at the facts
on gun violence
by
M arian W right E delman
Nearly 2,000
people attended
Molly Conley’s
funeral this sum­
mer to mourn the
young humani­
tarian who was
the victim of a
random drive-by shooting the day
after her 15th birthday. She was
shot in the neck while walking with
friends to a sleepover in a residen­
tial neighborhood in Lake Stevens,
Wash. Molly was a 4.0 student best
known for her kindness which she
used to encourage her parents to
care for infants waiting for foster
families and to start a group called
“M o th e r’s H elp er” that raised
money to aid victims of domestic
abuse.
In Caldwell County, Mo., sheriff s
deputies went to the home of the
Curtis family after receiving an emer­
gency call on Jan. 11,2012. Their 12-
year-old son Steven had mishandled
a gun and accidentally shot himself
in the head,
Steven loved playing football
and being outside. He also spent a
great deal of time hunting and grew
up learning about gun safety and
had a hunter’s safety certification
from the Conservation Department.
In Breckenridge, Mo., a town of just
450 people, hunting safety is an
important part of the middle school ’ s
agricultural curriculum. Steven’s
father didn’t know how his son got
the gun from a locked cabinet that
was in their living room.
Eleven-year-old TayloniMazyck
was walking near her apartment
building in Brooklyn on May 31
with her mother and niece when she
was caught in gang-related crossfire.
A bullet crashed into innocent
Tayloni’s chin and lodged in her
spine.
According to Brooklyn prosecu­
tor Jordan Rossman, she will be
paralyzed for life. Instead of walking
in her fifth-grade graduation cer­
emony, Tayloni was transferred to
Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation
Medicine for the summer. Her mother
says some days Tayloni is in in­
tense pain and easily frustrated
because she can’t do simple things
such as scratch her nose; other days
she is convinced she will walk some
day in the future. Tayloni suffers
from post traumatic stress, says she
is too scared to go home, and wakes
up crying from flashbacks of that
terrible night.
These are three of the child and
y o u th sto rie s sh ared in the
Children’s Defense Fund’s new re­
port Protect Children, Not Guns,
three of the 18,270children and teens
killed or injured by guns in America
each year.
Like Molly, Steven, and Tayloni,
every one of these children de­
served to live their whole lives. We
can and must do better.
The defense fund report docu­
ments the truth about guns and the
facts about the preventable gun
violence epidemic in our nation in­
cluding the economic cost of gun
violence; a state-by-state break­
down on gun deaths among chil­
dren and teens; comparisons on
gun violence rates between the
United States and other high in­
come countries; positive and nega­
tive state actions on gun violence
prevention, and more.
It also documents the progress
made since the Newtown, Conn,
massacre and lists steps for con­
tinuing action with urgency and
persistence.
What can you do? Urge your
members of Congress to protect
children from gun violence by sup­
porting this year’s common sense
gun violence prevention measures
including universal background
checks and limits on assault weap­
ons and high-capacity ammunition
magazines.
We also need policies that sup­
port consumer product safety stan­
dards for all guns, public funding
for gun violence prevention re­
search, and resources and author­
ity for law enforcement agencies to
properly enforce gun safety laws.
Parents, consider removing guns
from your home and be vigilant about
where your children play. Boycott
products and places that glamorize
and normalize dangerous weapons
and violence.
H ave we been fig h tin g the
wrong wars to keep our children
safe? Nearly five tim es m ore ch il­
dren and teens were killed by guns
in 2010 than U.S. soldiers killed in
action that year in Iraq and A f­
ghanistan.
A m erica’s m ilitary and law en­
forcement agencies have four m il­
lion guns. Our citizens have 310
million. And we have no idea how
many o f those guns were p u r­
chased w ith o u t a b ack g ro u n d
check. The gun lobby has been
enriching gun m anufacturers at
the expense o f our c h ild re n ’s
safety for far too long.
For years the National Rifle As­
sociation has blocked the truth and
actively fought against the passage
and enforcement of gun safety laws.
Please use the resources in Protect
Children, Not Guns to find the latest
research and actions you can take
to protect children, not guns, in
your home, in your community, and
as a citizen to help create a better,
safer America for all children. To­
gether we can— and must— do bet­
ter right now. So many child lives
depend on it.
Marian Wright Edelman is Presi­
dent o f the Children's Defense Fund.
Leaving Immigrants out of the Conversation
Media coverage
robs voice of
people impacted
by
P eter H art
Unless you’re
a politician or a
star athlete, the
news of the day is
rarely about your
life. But som e­
times, the media is buzzing quite
specifically about you. Are you part
of that conversation? Nope.
That kind of treatment is reserved
for people who lack political power,
yet are the subjects of media cover­
age.
Like immigrants. Congress has
been working for months to pass a
law that would, among other things,
provide a path to citizenship for
millions of undocumented immi­
grants currently living in this coun­
try. T hat’s millions of lives directly
impacted by this conversation. But
the media hardly give immigrants a
chance to speak.
Who are media talking to about
immigration? When the media watch
group FAIR, where I work, looked at
a month of TV coverage around the
president’s State of the Union ad­
dress, the voices of immigrants could
hardly be heard. We counted 157
sources in total addressing immi­
gration issues. The vast majority
were U.S.-bom white male politi­
cians.
Only three sources were identi­
fied as current or former undocu­
mented immigrants — the people
the conversation was about. That
means the voices of the immigrants
impacted by this political tussle, as
well as those of the activists who
made it a front-burner issue in the
first place, were mostly absent.
Instead, the conversation is
mostly among lawmakers. More
than half of the appearances by
Latinos in the study were by one
R epublican law m aker, Senator
Marco Rubio of Florida. The Cu­
ban-American politician was bom
in Miami.
O f course, it’s understandable
that the politicians debating the laws
will be in the news. But a media
system that’s almost entirely fo­
cused on inside-the-Beltway ma­
neuvering and policy squabbles
isn ’ t informing Americans about the
real lives that could be transformed
by Congress. That matters a lot more
than whatever John McCain thinks
about the issue.
And this doesn’t just happen
with immigration. FAIR looked at
three months of coverage of discus­
sions about raising the mipimum
w age— an issue that, like immigra­
tion, affects millions of people.
Out o f 32 stories that featured 87
sources, just three of those sources
were low-wage workers. Executives
and managers — many of whom
wildly popular with the general pub­
lic. It’s not, as some media accounts
put it, a “divisive” issue — unless
you think the most important de­
bate in the country is between poli­
ticians and business owners.
And it’s important to note that
while the political discussion fo­
cuses on a modest increase to $9 per
The voices o f immigrants could
hardly be heard. We counted 157
sources in total addressing
immigration issues. The vast majority
were U.S.-born white male
politicians.
aren’t keen on paying workers
higher wages— were heard from 17
times. In total, businesspeople and
their advocates outnumbered work­
ers and their advocates by more
than 5 to 1.
The tragic thing about the debate
over raising the minimum wage is
that by focusing so much attention
on political and business elites, the
media give us an absurdly skewed
version of reality.
Raising the minimum wage is
hour favored by the White House,
some economists point out that if
the minimum kept pace with worker
productivity, we’d be talking about
raising the base wage to somewhere
in the neighborhood of $ 16 an hour.
That’s not a point a business owner
is likely to make.
Can you imagine the media de­
ciding to cover war without talking
to the military? Or covering Wall
Street without talking to bankers or
chief executive officers? Me either.
But that’s exactly how the corpo­
rate media cover issues that affect
working people— by robbing them
of a voice in the debate over their
own lives.
Peter Hart is the activism direc­
tor o f Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting.
S u b s c rib e
$45.00 for 3 months • $80.00 for 6 mo. • $ 125.00
for 1 y ear (please include check with fo r m )
503-288-0033
Attn: Subscriptions, The
Portland Observer, PO Box
3137, Portland OR 97208.
N ame : ___
T elephone :
A ddress : _
or em ail subscriptions@portlandobserver.com