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=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: HoyaSaxa03 on June 10, 2005, 09:53:00 am
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(White) Women We Love (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/09/AR2005060901729_pf.html)
By Eugene Robinson
Post
Friday, June 10, 2005; A23
Someday historians will look back at America in the decade bracketing the turn of the 21st century and identify the era's major themes: Religious fundamentalism. Terrorism. War in Iraq. Economic dislocation. Bioengineering. Information technology. Nuclear proliferation. Globalization. The rise of superpower China.
And, of course, Damsels in Distress.
Every few weeks, this stressed-out nation with more problems to worry about than hours in the day finds time to become obsessed with the saga -- it's always a "saga," never just a story -- of a damsel in distress. Natalee Holloway, the student who disappeared while on a class trip to the Caribbean island of Aruba, is the latest in what seems an endless series.
Holloway assumed the mantle from her predecessor, the Runaway Bride, who turned out not to have been in distress at all -- not physical distress, at least, though it's obvious that the prospect of her impending 600-guest wedding caused Jennifer Wilbanks an understandable measure of mental trauma.
Before the Runaway Bride, there were too many damsels to provide a full list, but surely you remember the damsel elite: Laci Peterson. Elizabeth Smart. Lori Hacking. Chandra Levy. JonBenet Ramsey. We even found, or created, a damsel amid the chaos of war in Iraq: Jessica Lynch.
The specifics of the story line vary from damsel to damsel. In some cases, the saga begins with the discovery of a corpse. In other cases, the damsel simply vanishes into thin air. Often, there is a suspect from the beginning -- an intruder, a husband, a father, a congressman, a stranger glimpsed lurking nearby.
Sometimes the tale ends well, or well enough, as in the cases of Smart and Lynch. Let's hope it ends well for Holloway. But more often, it ends badly. Once in a great while, a case like Runaway Bride comes along to provide comic relief.
But of course the damsels have much in common besides being female. You probably have some idea of where I'm headed here.
A damsel must be white. This requirement is nonnegotiable. It helps if her frame is of dimensions that breathless cable television reporters can credibly describe as "petite," and it also helps if she's the kind of woman who wouldn't really mind being called "petite," a woman with a good deal of princess in her personality. She must be attractive -- also nonnegotiable. Her economic status should be middle class or higher, but an exception can be made in the case of wartime (see: Lynch).
Put all this together, and you get 24-7 coverage. The disappearance of a man, or of a woman of color, can generate a brief flurry, but never the full damsel treatment. Since the Holloway story broke we've had more news reports from Aruba this past week, I'd wager, than in the preceding 10 years.
I have no idea whether the late French philosopher Jacques Derrida hung on every twist and turn of the Chandra Levy case; somehow, I doubt he did. But I suspect the apostle of "deconstructionism" would have analyzed the damsel-in-distress phenomenon by explaining that our society is imposing its own subconsciously chosen narrative on all these cases.
It's the meta-narrative of something seen as precious and delicate being snatched away, defiled, destroyed by evil forces that lurk in the shadows, just outside the bedroom window. It's whiteness under siege. It's innocence and optimism crushed by cruel reality. It's a flower smashed by a rock.
Or maybe (since Derrida believed in multiple readings of a single text) the damsel thing is just a guaranteed cure for a slow news day. The cable news channels, after all, have lots of airtime to fill.
This is not to mock any one of these cases (except Runaway Bride) or to diminish the genuine tragedy experienced by family and friends. I can imagine the helplessness I'd feel if a child of mine disappeared from a remote beach in the Caribbean. But I can also be fairly confident that neither of my sons would provoke so many headlines.
Whatever our ultimate reason for singling out these few unfortunate victims, among the thousands of Americans who are murdered or who vanish each year, the pattern of choosing only young, white, middle-class women for the full damsel treatment says a lot about a nation that likes to believe it has consigned race and class to irrelevance.
What it says is that we haven't. What it says is that those stubborn issues are still very much alive and that they remain at the heart of the nation's deepest fears.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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one of the best columns i've read in a while, i actually emailed the writer to thank him ...
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Anyone following the Schapelle Corby case in Bali?
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Originally posted by econo:
Anyone following the Schapelle Corby case in Bali?
not American, why should we care :p
actually I have read a few articles about it, but dont know where it stands now
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Originally posted by econo:
Anyone following the Schapelle Corby case in Bali?
It's too bad she's not American. It would make a great made-for-TV movie. "Busted in Bali: The Schapelle Corby Story"
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I brought her case up because it seems like the Sydney Morning Herald has been giving equal treatment to both Corby's case and others (read: males) as well. However, it seems the national outcry is over her.
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care to post an overview story about corby?
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Originally posted by HoyaParanoia:
care to post an overview story about corby?
they dont take possession of drugs lightly in Bali
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Originally posted by general grievous:
Originally posted by HoyaParanoia:
care to post an overview story about corby?
they dont take posession of drugs lightly in Bali [/b]
aha, i see where this is going ... before i went to europe my parents sat me down and made me watch 'midnight express', although it didn't exactly keep me from making plenty of FedEx shipments from amsterdam ...
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Natalee Holloway was probably kidnapped by Al Qaeda. She's likely being held as a sex slave, retribution for the Koran flushing at Guantanamo.
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Here's a wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schapelle_Corby) article on Corby.
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Originally posted by econo:
Here's a wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schapelle_Corby) article on Corby.
thanks, i love wikipedia...
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Holiday in Indonesia? Anyone? Anyone (http://www.celebritygirlfight.com/)..?
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Originally posted by HoyaParanoia:
Since the Holloway story broke we've had more news reports from Aruba this past week, I'd wager, than in the preceding 10 years.
I don't know about this...weren't there a lot of reports about the rotund (sp?) Sydney Ponson of the Orioles, when he went punching a judge or something? Wasn't that in Aruba during Spring Training a couple of months ago?
All in all, like others, I have to agree with this article. But since Dudley Doright normally saves the damsel in distress, what about that?
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<img src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2005/06/09/PH2005060900395.jpg" alt=" - " /> <img src="http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/US/06/03/missing.student.ap/story.student.jpg" alt=" - " /> <img src="http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/WORLD/americas/06/05/missing.teen/vert.natalee.ap.jpg" alt=" - " />
<img src="http://www.forumspile.com/Hit-It-Clinton.jpg" alt=" - " />
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...this was a racist piece of crap. The color of missing women and kids is irrelevant. Look to the press if you wonder why Laci 's murder got coverage, but the dead black prostitute who's body was recovered on the GW Parkway got no follow-up. It's not an issue that no one is looking for missing black women/kids; its an issue of coverage in the media. BTW: I'm as disgusted with black racists as much as I am with white racists.
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Originally posted by BadSushi:
...this was a racist piece of crap.
what? has it been that long since you studied reading comprehension?
Originally posted by BadSushi:
The color of missing women and kids is irrelevant. Look to the press if you wonder why Laci 's murder got coverage, but the dead black prostitute who's body was recovered on the GW Parkway got no follow-up. It's not an issue that no one is looking for missing black women/kids; its an issue of coverage in the media.
that's the whole point of the article!!!
there is this strange phenomenon he's labeled "damsel in distress" where the disappearance of an upper-middle class white women or girl becomes a national obsession ... it's an outgrowth of the 24-hour news cycle and the dimwits who lap all the coverage up
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Make you want to say Enough Is Enough! (http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/05/con05155.html)
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Originally posted by BadSushi:
...this was a racist piece of crap. The color of missing women and kids is irrelevant. Look to the press if you wonder why Laci 's murder got coverage, but the dead black prostitute who's body was recovered on the GW Parkway got no follow-up. It's not an issue that no one is looking for missing black women/kids; its an issue of coverage in the media. BTW: I'm as disgusted with black racists as much as I am with white racists.
Another reason a dead hooker gets less press is because of her chosen profession...death by misadventure.
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Robinson's article came on the heels of a series of tough pieces in the Village Voice on the same issue. Jarrett Murphy wrote the first story, in response to the Nicole DuFresne murder (young, beautiful white woman shot to death in trendy LES Manhattan by black teenager--it was huge news in NY this past winter).
Voice piece (http://villagevoice.com/news/0506,murphy,60897,6.html)