The largest of the National Puerto Rican Day parades took place on June 11th in New York City. Over 2.5 million people attended the festival of culture and pride. The festivities honored Pedro Albizu Campos, Tito Puente and hoped to draw more attention to Vieques. Unfortunately, a band of criminals gave the media their usual fodder for sensational stories. Sex, violence, and Race. In most conversations, however, race is conspicuously absent from media coverage.
It could be that the media wanted to step away from the expectations they created. Various groups have released reports saying that Blacks and Latinos as a combined group are more likely to have their picture shown after breaking the law. The race of the person is more likely to be stated on the air if they are Brown. The press was quick to point out that Al Sharpton was joining in the verbal attacks against the NYPD, but they didn't give equal coverage to African-American groups like the New York Leadership Alliance who promised to launch a campaign to re-instill "a sense of respect and integrity to the way women are treated". It could be that the press didn't want to alienate Latinos. It could be that the people in the videos could not be identified as Latinos, because we range from Black to Asian to White. On the other hand, it could simply be that the crowd was ethnically diverse and the problem is with male brutality and not an ethnic group. The media would not say the crowd was made up of Puerto Ricans, nor would they say it wasn't. In a rare case, they left it up to the imagination of the public.
While race was secretly in everyone's mind and absent from anyone's lips, some members of the NYPD were quick to reverse the situation. While everyone on the police force seemed to say they didn't believe any cops failed to act, several bad apples then followed up with their usual Dorismond defense method. They blamed the public. The stories included concerns about causing a riot by arresting or interfering with criminals, concerns about being called racist for arresting criminals, and being told by managers not to interfere with anyone during ethnic parades (something managers deny and the record contradicts). I've been told of and have seen situations where it seemed Brown people were being unfairly targeted, and because I've experienced and know about specifically racist and abusive incidents, it's easy to call it racist. However, I also know that some situations simply involve criminals being arrested by cops. In addition, I've never seen a situation where the person was in the middle of a violent attack and the community protested when the criminal was arrested. The cops have a valid concern, but the one's who spread this story also display their prejudice. If they failed to act for the reasons they stated, they assumed the criminals were Latino. They also assumed that the arrest of someone caught in a violent act would be protested by the Puerto Rican community. The police who complained about ethnic backlash also equated their own lax enforcement of drugs and marijuana with sexual assault. Most people can tell the difference between a self-inflicted sin and an open assault on a second person.
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