Final Project Prroposal

Gerald Allen

My project will be an article published in the Rutgers Observer and will discuss how important race is when creating media narratives. As the unfortunate amount of deaths of black Americans at the hands of the police in the country has risen, the number of headlines that brutalized the victims became so widespread that the trend of treating minority suspects or, and more often than not, victims as “thugs” or “terrorists” while Caucasian suspects are typically labeled as “troubled” or some other phase that humanizes them more.

This project/article is important because although most Americans like to think that we live in post-racial society and racism isn’t really a thing anymore, the effects of racism still exist and they manifest themselves in subtle ways. Just shedding light on this constant slight by the media just to make the story more intriguing is a harmful practice and needs to be addressed.

To actually write my article I will get input from Rutgers students on their opinion on the matter and I will also do general research to get an idea why this narrative is always present and how long has it been a practice of the media. The results will be an analytically based, half factual, half opinionated article that will seek to bring awareness to the problem.

Update: After my proposal presentation, I realized that my project needs to focus on stories where the suspects weren't obviously mentally ill--like cases in which, the suspects commits suicide after the incident. 

Articles that will help me with my research: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/14/media-black-victims_n_5673291.html 

http://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/7/71/565387/media-narrative-on-white-cops-and-black-suspects-goes-awryagain