On the surface, the cases appear nearly identical:
Michael Brown and
Dillon Taylor, two young, unarmed men with sketchy criminal pasts shot to death by police officers two days apart.
But while the world knows of the highly publicized situation involving 18-year-old
Mr. Brown, whose Aug. 9 death in
Ferguson, Missouri touched off violence, protests and an angry national debate, most people outside Utah have never heard of 20-year-old
Mr. Taylor.
Critics say there’s a reason for the discrepancy in media coverage: race.
Mr. Brown was black and the officer who shot him was white.
Mr. Taylor wasn’t black — he’s been described as white and Hispanic — and the officer who shot him Aug. 11 outside a 7-Eleven in South Salt Lake wasn’t white.
The perceived double standard is fueling resentment and talk of double standards on conservative talk radio and social media, where the website Twitchy has compiled a list of Twitter comments asking why
Mr. Brown’s death has been front-page news for weeks while
Mr. Taylor’s was a footnote at best.
“Black cop kills unarmed white male #DillonTaylor in Utah,” says a Thursday post on Twitter by radio talk-show host
Wayne Dupree, who is black. “#LiberalMedia can’t find [their] way to cover the story.”
A sarcastic Sunday tweet from Valerie said, “CNN Please! We need the name and home address of #DillonTaylor’s killer immediately. Why hasn’t he been arrested??!!!!!”
Originally Posted by Harry Beanbag
