4 ms·

It does have to do with the story. Part of the article discusses Freddie Gray, who is inextricably linked with the recent stories of police shooting black men.

by kaitai 11y ago

It does have to do with the story. Part of the article discusses Freddie Gray, who is inextricably linked with the recent stories of police shooting black men. Baltimore is also quite famous for its racial problems. It's a surreal place to visit: you can go from the shiny Inner Harbor full of white hipsters and convention-goers shopping at the flagship Under Armour store to an area that looks like it suffered a recent civil war -- roofs collapsing, infrastructure crumbling, sudden change in what stores are open and whether they have bars on the windows -- in about 20 minutes. If you're me, someone will be kind enough to tell you that someone got shot at this bus stop last week (implication: maybe you'd better turn around). Poverty and lead paint in Baltimore are deeply entwined with (though not at all synonymous with) race.

Frozenlock 11y ago
Except that the article is about brain-damaged people selling their settlements. The whole grey area here is about the brain-damaged people not being able to correctly evaluate the value of the document they are signing. Even if 100% of the brain-damaged people were black, that still wouldn't make it OK to include their race in the title, because the article is not about that. It's about brain-damaged people. Now, it would be different if the article was directly about blacks, about how they were specifically selected, but it's not. Here's an example headline to show the difference: "An individual robbed a bank this afternoon" VS "A black man robbed a bank this afternoon" The important event here is the bank robbery, not the race of the person who did it. You could have a study that showed that 90% (or 10%...) of all bank robbery were caused by black men and THEN including the race in the title would be warranted, because that's what the study is about.
- emodendroket 11y ago
  Whether it's "about that" or not you can bet the residents will perceive it that way; one note in the article you didn't mention is that these companies are generally based in Bethesda and their customers are generally in the impoverished black neighborhoods of Baltimore. The symbolism is, frankly, too obvious not to notice, even if it wasn't in the headline.

by kaitai 11y ago

Frozenlock 11y ago

Except that the article is about brain-damaged people selling their settlements. The whole grey area here is about the brain-damaged people not being able to correctly evaluate the value of the document they are signing. Even if 100% of the brain-damaged people were black, that still wouldn't make it OK to include their race in the title, because the article is not about that. It's about brain-damaged people. Now, it would be different if the article was directly about blacks, about how they were specifically selected, but it's not. Here's an example headline to show the difference: "An individual robbed a bank this afternoon" VS "A black man robbed a bank this afternoon" The important event here is the bank robbery, not the race of the person who did it. You could have a study that showed that 90% (or 10%...) of all bank robbery were caused by black men and THEN including the race in the title would be warranted, because that's what the study is about.

emodendroket 11y ago
Whether it's "about that" or not you can bet the residents will perceive it that way; one note in the article you didn't mention is that these companies are generally based in Bethesda and their customers are generally in the impoverished black neighborhoods of Baltimore. The symbolism is, frankly, too obvious not to notice, even if it wasn't in the headline.