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In Victoria 2, populations have the stats 'consciousness' (politically awareness and pursuit of political self-interest) and 'militancy' (how prepared they are to join rebel groups or perform civil unrest). The consciousness and militancy of black populations in Western countries is very high, supported by the media. The consciousness and militancy of white populations is very low, again due to the media.
For example, I'm confident few outside the US have heard of the Zebra murders, where four black men killed somewhere between 15 and 70 whites, wounding several more. They were motivated by some racial-religious angle, there were some connections to the Nation of Islam. There may have been many more involved in the killings who were never uncovered. Fascinatingly, about half the wikipedia page is about various civil rights groups trying to stop what they saw as racial profiling when the police tried to racially profile the all-black suspects.
Yet practically everyone in the entire Anglosphere has heard of Emmett Till, who was lynched. I'm not even American and yet they brought it up in class when I was at high school - we were studying 'To Kill a Mockingbird' as a compulsory text. There are Emmett Till poems and songs and films - Biden signed an Emmett Till anti-lynching act back in 2022. And in marked contrast to the forgotten Zebra Killings, Robert Raben has been lambasting the criminal justice system for not harassing the accuser enough:
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/emmett-accuser-carolyn-bryant-donham-last-chance-justice-rcna42415
On a purely objective basis where we ignore the race involved, you'd think the former would be much more widely known. Killing many random whites is surely worse than killing one black, who was thought to have sexually harassed someone. That's merely on the level of honor killings - which clearly isn't good. At least there's some kind of reasoning behind the killing other than racial hatred.
Yet Emmett Till is big news even today, Zebra murders are forgotten.
If a white police officer chokes a black criminal in Minneapolis, or is seen to choke him (I don't really want to go into the George Floyd drugs/breathing thing) there's a giant global media frenzy - there's massive rioting and corporations falling over eachother to support BLM. If a black police officer turns and inexplicably shoots a random white woman who was totally unconnected to his work in Minneapolis... It's so unmemorable I have to check it up online to find it at all.
PS. I really hate that people come here with extremely cringe names like gaygroyper100 or that pedofascist fellow we had earlier. Don't be egregiously obnoxious should apply to that. If someone did that on 4chan with a tripcode they'd be bullied and rightly so.
Your comparison of the Zebra murders with Emmitt Till doesn't work. The Emmitt Till case is well-known because it was historically important. It was an important factor in the success of the Civil Rights Movement, because it engendered white, middle class support therefor. The Civil Rights Movement in turn was nothing less than a social revolution. Moreover, the Emmitt Till case was representative of a much broader phenomenon, ie, Jim Crow. So, of course it is well known. Hell, it was even indirectly responsible for the development of The Twilight Zone.
In contrast, the Zebra killings and shootings had little effect on history or society, though I suppose it is possible that Art Agnos would never have become mayor had he not been a victim. Nor were they representative of a larger social issue. Had they given rise to a race war, or perhaps in the alternative some sort of police state, they would be better known.
And, btw, you answered your own question re the shooting by the Minneapolis police officer (a case that was the subject of about 20 articles in the NY Times, btw): You called it "inexplicable." That implies that it has no greater implication, does it not? Unlike, say, George Floyd, which was, at least arguably, an example ,albeit an extreme one, of the larger phenomenon of excessive force by police. And, btw, it doesn’t help you to misstate the facts of your ostensible examples; the victim in Minneapolis was not "totally unconnected" to the cop's work, because she is the one who called the cops in the first place.
The Minneapolis case is so bizarre that it is sui generis. It was a rookie cop panicking when someone approached the window of his car, and shooting that person -- and, in doing so, shooting across the body of his partner, who was sitting in the seat next to the window. It was not a cop using excessive force to arrest someone, or to punish someone for giving him lip, or for any of the usual reasons.
I don't understand why that matters. The point is not what they intended (unlike the Zebra killers, who might well have intended to create a race war, IIRC). The point is that one turned out to influence a major, major historical development, and the other did not. That is why everyone has heard of the former, and not the latter.
? Why does it matter whether they had more or less success than they deserved? My point is not about deserts, but about the extent of change that happened subsequently. As I mentioned, the Civil Rights Movement was quite literally a successful social revolution. Whatever success the radical left of the 1970s achieved, it was quite marginal compared to the Civil Rights Movement, which was one of the two or three most momentous developments in US history. Of course we are going to be familiar with people associated therewith.
Well, of course a story can't have impact unless people hear about. But the story of the Zebra killings also was widely told at the time. The reason that one is well known today is because it was part of a massively, massively, massively important historical development. You might as well ask why everyone in the world has heard of Hitler, but not Father Coughlin. After all, they were both anti-Semitic demogogues!
Is number of deaths the only metric? Gandhi didn't kill anyone, yet he is better known than Idi Amin. And probably better known than Pol Pot. And certainly better known than Ratko Mladic. My point was that the relevant distinction is their historical impact. Obviously, part of Hitler's impact was the number of deaths he was responsible for, but Hitler would be far better known than Coughlin even had Hitler stopped with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland, and had not engaged in genocide. Father Coughlin is a historical footnote, like the Zebra killings, because ultimately he/they and his/their efforts had little effect on history.
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