Self-righteous kid-bashing.

• Author: Douglas, Susan
• Position: Pundit Watch - Media commentary on violence - Column

Of all the vacuous platitudes to spill forth from punditland, few are more hollow than the solemn announcement that a particular event is "a wake-up call for America." The Los Angeles "riots" were proclaimed such a wake-up call; so were the slayings of two Japanese exchange students in the past year; and so, most recently, have been the murders of tourists in Florida. But as soon as the pundits feel they have done their duty by mouthing this cliche and advancing a series of solutions Joseph Stalin might admire, they hit the snooze alarm and go back to their dreamland where white men in suits, safely sequestered in posh and well-guarded office buildings, are the ones who most deserve our attention.

Here's the typical pattern. An event occurs revealing, once again, the pathological strain of violence in America, made considerably more virulent by the insane proliferation of guns. Next, the media spotlight probes into the dysfunctional nature of the black family, the irremediable barbarism of black youth, and the utter hopelessness of reversing the trend, except for building more jails and hiring more police. Then it's on to asinine predictions about whether Yasser Arafat will or will not be killed by "his own people," or whether the passage of NAFTA will hurt Ross Perot's standing in the polls.

The dismissive--indeed, moronic and often vindictive--coverage of the terrifying rise of violence in America, especially in the lives of our nation's children, is itself nothing short of criminal. The pundits, most of whom are clueless about the status of children in America, spew a lot of superficial blather about "values" and two-parent families while failing to discuss even one concrete proposal that would help prevent kids beset by violence and poverty from turning into murderers.

In the wake of the latest murders in Florida, we see how such coverage urges white America to throw up its hands in despair and support completely reactionary, and often unconstitutional, politics. While emphasizing that black children need safer communities and a sense of hope about their futures, William Raspberry, on Meet the Press, also insisted that "White people cannot reach this group" and that there is nothing the Government can do about the current situation, except for imposing swifter and harsher punishments on youthful offenders.

This Week with David Brinkley devoted an entire show to "the barbarity" of murdering foreign tourists and the rise of "youth...