'NIGERIAN PRINCE' SCAMMER WAS A WHITE 67-YEAR-OLD

Police say a white 67-year-old Louisiana resident named Michael Neu managed to con people out of thousands of dollars by posing as the beneficiary of a Nigerian prince's will.

However, if you skim the headline, you almost might mistake Neu for the victim. Ah, the wonders of Western media! Once again, we see the art of sloppy (and sometimes misinforming) journalism at play, crafting headlines that obscure the role of white wrongdoers while painting people of colour as guilty before proven innocent.

Many times, the media have smeared our brothers and sisters in the US when they were victims of police brutality or other crimes against their humanity. We remember that the press dug up 17-year-old Trayvon Martin’s school suspension records after a vigilante shot him in 2012, kicking off the Black Lives Matter movement of protests against state violence. We also cannot forget how the media called Black teen Michael Brown ‘no angel’ after police k*lled him in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. 

For this reason, we rightfully raise our eyebrows when we skim headlines.

Video credit: @auntiebuffie (TikTok)

Sources

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-johnson-black-victim-20170330-story.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nigerian-prince-scammer-was-67-year-old-louisiana-police-say-n833801