Mass manipulation at its finest.
Sometimes the press tries to pull a fast one and we often don’t catch it. But all it takes is a little effort to expose what the media is doing in terms of race and public perception. Pictured right, in Sports Illustrated no less, we see two great American athletes who are representing the United States in Beijing: Pole vaulter Jenn Stuczynski and 400-meter specialist LaShawn Merritt. As far as we should be concerned this photo is a deliberately created portrait of what SI wants the rest of the world to see, that white females and black males together, an idea which is still forbidden in many parts of the world, are a desirable commodity in the USA and which ought to be emulated. You know, diversity is our strength and all that?
We think SI is intuitively if not overtly promoting biracial couplings to a homogenous Chinese population under the guise of introducing America’s best athletes. Placing LaShawn Merrit beside Ms. Stuczynski was clearly a contrived effort, since Mr. Merritt is not the best in his event — IF that’s what SI was trying to convey, of course. However, the best athlete in the 400 meter run is Jeremy Wariner, not LaShawn Merritt. Take a look here…
SI: How difficult could it possibly have been to place Mr Wariner next to Ms. Stuczynski?
