Running head: RACE AND CRIME 1 RACE AND CRIME 8 Race and Crime Why Racialization of Crime in the United States News Media is Dangerous and should be stopped Introduction and Current Failings The United States news media plays a massive role in informing and educating the public not only on political issues but also on social issues like crime. Since the inauguration of President Donald Trump in 2016, he has succeeded in using fear as his political weapon (Evers, Fisher & Schaaf, 2019). One of the things that stand out in his presidency is the dishonest claim that the rates of crime have gone up, despite the national trends on violent crimes going down significantly. Trump’s fear-mongering, which seems to be working, has permitted the news media with the Center for American Progress and GBA Strategies reporting that 88 percent of Americans regard crime on the national level as a major issue and that of immediate crisis (Adamson, 2017). Whether through well-intended intentions or not, the news media are amplifying the national-level fear through constant reporting on Donald Trump, crime and how it has been racialized. Since the perception of national crime is an abstract concept to the ordinary citizens, the news media has likely been playing an out sized role in shaping the imagination of the public (Douai & Perry, 2018). Needless to say, the news media not only contributes towards the overestimation of crime statistics by members of the public through its reporting on the president’s fear-mongering and controversies but it also over reports on violent crimes, which feed destructive ethnic and racial biases about the people responsible. African American men are often over-represented as the major perpetrators of violent crimes in the United States media (Zack, 2015). For instance, one survey of late-night news outlets in the city of New York established in 2014 that the media reported on violent crimes like assault, theft and murder in which black men and women were suspects at a rate that was far higher than the actual arrest rates for the same mentioned crimes (Adamson, 2017). The study also found out that black people are vilified by the news media by presenting black crime suspects as more dangerous and threatening than those from other dominant races like the whites. The vilification is done by displaying the mug shots of African American suspects more frequently than those from the white community; depicting African American suspects in police cells more frequently; and paying deeper attention to criminal cases where the victims are strangers (Zack, 2015). Further, the news media has also played a part in worsening the racial differences and tensions between the white people and the blacks by particularly perpetuating and spread ...