Chunk 3 'A Crack in the All-American Dream'

The Culture of Fear continues to touch upon important issues like the fact that black men are not to fear but rather the prejudice we as a nation inadvertently, and sometimes purposely, instill in ourselves against them. People like journalism instructor Caryl Rivers have made racist accusations saying "night after night, black men rob, rape, loot, and pillage in the living room," failing to realize that like black men, white men and men of every other race do the same things and often worse. Editor John Bogart said "When a dog bites a man that is not news, when a man bites a dog, that is news," and still the media seems to indefinitely paint a portrait of an innocent white victim, murdered by the hands of a black monster. So why is not the white victim story considered a cliche? Maybe this country has a "if you can't beat, 'em jail 'em" attitude towards black men, because various organizations like the anti-rap campaigns worked to pass laws that put rappers, who mind you are majority black, in jail for suggestive lyrics. Why work hard to end one genre of music for bad lyrics when every genre has a few risky songs, especially that old southern loved country? Black men and crack have been the explanations for distress in this country every since they've been here. Crack has been put on a pedestal by the media as the sole blame for all inner city trouble, when truly it was just a cover up for the poor socioeconomic state of the ghetto. Why crackdown on less common street drugs like crack, when the real issue is that people are getting their drugs legally through doctors? Glassner suggests that maybe it has something to do with, again, jailing who people feel unfit for their "perfect" society.

• Why has little emphasis been put on the issue of legal drugs as opposed to crack or heroine?
  

Chunk 2 "IT'S THE GUNS STUPID."

As of now, most of what Barry Glassner's novel, The Culture of Fear, speaks of is how the media is a master manipulator that tends to turn small concerns to major anxieties, all for the purpose of avoiding the real issues. The novel notes that one of the real issues is not "scary kids" per se but the guns they use to successfully commit violent acts; "as we have seen the ready availability of guns also accounts for most teen homicides and many fatal accidents." Another problem the book addresses is the incredibility of the people who promote certain fears just to get their 15 minutes, like Marty Rimm and his inaccurate pornography research; "Rimm's exclusivity agreement with Time ensured that the true experts on computer networks could neither see nor comment on his study until the magazine hit the stands." Further in the reading Glassner's novel gives accounts of the fear of bad mothers in particular, who beat and murder their children and spouses. The real issue however is that most women lash out as a reaction to what they experience within their lifetime, and in fact "the most brutal, terrorizing, and continuing pattern of harmful intimate violence is carried out primarily by men," although many fail to realize this. Whatever the reason, people tend to go along with what the media feeds them. And, even after it has been proven wrong time and time again, "fear mongers do not have to stop performing their hocus-pocus just because their secrets have been revealed."

• Why does the media avoid the most problematic issues, if it doesn't have to fix them?