Interesting news
manifesto
Lots of interesting news today and different things on my mind, but I have to keep this short. Most interesting to me is the exhumation of the body of Emmitt Till. For those who don't know (and spelled out in more detail in the linked story), in 1955, 14 year old Emmitt Till was abducted and slaughtered by at least two men for allegedly whistling at a white woman. 60 Minutes recently ran a fascinating story looking into potential co-conspirators. But what is really of interest to me today is the language used in the Associated Press article discussing Till's funeral:
Till's mother insisted that her son's body be displayed in an open casket at his funeral, forcing the nation to see the brutality directed at blacks in the South at the time. The slaying helped galvanize the civil rights movement.I'm probably overreacting but the first sentence here seems to imply that Till's mother did something wrong or improper by "insisting" and "forcing the nation to see the brutality." In reality, Till's murder displayed the brutality of segregation to the county that had simply ignored it for too long.
This is where language gets tricky. To me, the AP article adds an implied indictment of a woman who did the right thing, condemning her for displaying her son's brutalized body for "political" purposes. It seems similar to what Sergio has been tracking, those who point out the impropriety with which Deep Throat acted, while ignoring the far greater and more damaging lawlessness that Deep Throat exposed, or similarly, those who call the media traitors for reporting on human rights violations being committed by small segments of our troops and their leadership while ignoring the indescribable and intangible harm actually being created by these violations.
I might be overreacting, and probably am, but I find this troubling because all three of these situations seem to be perfect examples of people doing what needed to be done for the greater good.
posted by Chill at 6/01/2005 01:02:00 PM
3 Comments:
My take on the use of the word "insist" is a little different. To my ears it sounds more like the use of "insist" is emphasizing the degree of the mutilation Till's body suffered, not that his mother should have kept the casket closed. It is very subjective, though.
I, admittedly, tend to take a cynical view on these things. There is probably no ill intent involved here but with all the other stories surrounding the media, my cynicism is occassionally justified.
Have people seen the documentary about Emmett Till? I would tend to agree with Chill because I recall archival footage in the film where people (I think residents of the town where he was murdered) expressed outrage and disgust at his mother's decision to have an open casket. So, whether the AP article intended for "insist" to have the meaning that Chill suggests, certainly there were many people who disagreed with Ms. Till's decision.
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