Ear Hustle

CNN Pulls Story Dipicting State Trooper Captain Rob Johnson Was Flashing Gang Signs

I have to say this does not surprise me at all.  With me being a member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Incorporated I have been told before that the Black Greek Lettered Organizations (BGLO) are nothing but “legalized” gangs.  It’s truly amazing how people criticize what they don’t understand and place judgement when there is no room for.  Kappa Alpha Psi is not the only greek lettered organization that had a hand sign.

Let’s look at Chi Omega who recently had one of their members post a racist message on Snapchat (mind you this organization is mostly White)

chi omega

Chi Omega has been around since 1895, long before all of the 9 of the BGLOs.  I don’t see  anyone writing or making judgment comments about them.  Granted it is quite possible that some organizations have not always had a hand signal since their founding so that’s not the issue.  The issue is how a major media organization can make such a public judgement without having done any research.  Then when they get “called out” about they just simply remove their blunder as if it never happened and have not made a public apology for their “mistake”. 

I surely hope CNN issues an apology because if they don’t, they surely are setting the “tone” for how they really feel about black people in authority. 

Check out the photos and the story as reported by the Washington Post:

 

Today in Ferguson, Mo., news, The Washington Post takes on the assertion that Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson has been photographed flashing gang signs with members of the community.

He has not.

To reiterate: Capt. Johnson is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi, a black fraternity that was formed in 1911 at Indiana University in Bloomington, and the hand sign you see in the pictures below is a Kappa greeting. The Kappas are part of the Divine Nine or the National Pan-Hellenic Council, the nine historically black fraternities and sororities that include Delta Sigma Theta, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Alpha Phi Alpha, Omega Psi Phi, Phi Beta Sigma, Zeta Phi Beta, Sigma Gamma Rho and Iota Phi Theta, none of which are gangs.

This particular piece of misinformation, asserting Johnson was aligning himself with the Bloods, appears to have originated in a post on CNN’s iReport site — since removed — and then circulated on Twitter by user @DixielandDiva, an account that no longer exists.

tweet tweet tweet

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake reported a new Pew poll revealed considerably more African-Americans than whites say the shooting of an unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer “raises important issues about race” (80 percent of blacks compared with 37 percent of whites).

Given such differences in the perception of a national news event, there’s some glaring cultural illiteracy when the top law enforcement officer installed by the governor of Missouri is being accused of throwing up gang signs. This actually makes Johnson not unlike Brown himself — the publication of a photo of Brown flashing the peace sign, which was also misinterpreted as a gang sign, is what sparked #IfTheyGunnedMeDown. Part of the conversation surrounding Brown’s killing centered on black Americans being treated as foreigners in their own country or, in sociology-speak, being “othered.” Some would say black folks must constantly prove their humanity or, at the very least, explain black American culture — sometimes a comically Sisyphean task. Case in point: having to state that Missouri highway patrol captain Ron Johnson is not a gang member.

Screen Shot 2014-08-20 at 9.26.01 PMScreen Shot 2014-08-20 at 9.24.59 PMScreen Shot 2014-08-20 at 9.25.40 PMSource: Washington Post

 

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