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Abstract
| On August 9, 2014, White police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot unarmed, Black teenager Michael Brown in the St. Louis, MO suburb of Ferguson. The shooting sparked a national debate regarding the role of law enforcement and the dependability of the justice system in the United States. Throughout history, narratives have placed Whiteness at the center of society has portrayed our justice system as fair and unbiased whilst criticizing and demeaning those who call it into question. This narrative seeks to maintain a social order that perpetuates stereotypes and oppresses people of color in the United States. I argue that CBS news coverage repeats this narrative in order to make sense of the shooting, the grand jury decision not to indict Wilson on August 24, 2014, and the protests which ensued following each of those events. Despite sparking national protests calling for justice for Brown, law enforcement reform, and a discussion which legitimizes institutional and aversive racism, news stories constructed a narrative which did the exact opposite. |
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