It's the right tool for the right job, stupid.

There was a mass shooting in Highland Park, IL on 4 July 2022.  

I recently heard an interview with Pastor T.J. Grooms.  The man seemed genuinely concerned about the violence affecting his community.  He is black and ministers to Chicago's South Side.  

Apparently, the South Side can be a pretty rough place. 

As I understood, his basic gripe was that no one (read: media, politicians) cared about the violence in his area because of its place on the economic totem pole.

Grooms said on "America's Newsroom" Friday that his community is struggling economically and is not politically engaged, which is why political leaders don't take an interest in local problems.

"There's just no need for them politically," Grooms told host Bill Hemmer, who noted the lack of mainstream media coverage of murders in the city.

He said "we almost expect these things to happen" in a low-income, predominantly Black community like his. "And when you expect these things to happen, it's as if you walk around and you don't have the same level of care and the same level of concern."  

By comparison, "you can get political brownie points just by showing up" in affluent communities like Highland Park, Grooms told Fox News.

His request:  

Grooms asked for "the same level of attention, the same level of concern, the same level of care that our politicians ... give to an event like what we've seen in Highland [Park]. The same amount of justice that we desire to have in a city like Uvalde or in a city like Highland Park, we want that same level of concern, that same level of justice, that same level of care for a community like this here in the South Side of Chicago."  

I am sure Grooms could not care less about me and my opinion.  Still, I will return to him later and provide him with a different perspective.  Maybe it will be helpful.  Maybe he will embrace it.  Maybe not.  

Pattern recognition is a domain where humans still shine more brightly than computers — even if the gap is narrowing.  Pattern recognition is what we do.  Whether it is catching a fly ball, reading a defense, greeting friends and acquaintances, etc., we presently tend to do better.  

So is there a pattern to media coverage of certain issues that makes the pastor's laments foolhardy, feckless, and impossible to fulfill, and, if so, what is it?  Further, if there is a recognizable pattern, what can the good clergyman (I assume he identifies as a male) do?  

I claim there is a recognizable pattern, and appreciating it provides insight into solving problems.

Neutral reportage is a relic.  News has purpose.  The telling of a news story is with purpose beyond newsworthiness.  That purpose is the advancement of a position.  Some people call this "the narrative."  The narrative is a step removed from the purpose.  The narrative is the story of the purpose.  It is but a single tactic.  What is of ultimate importance is the end — i.e., the purpose.  Narrative is a means.  

To accomplish a purpose, tools are used.  

Your purpose is to attach two pieces of wood with a nail?  Get a hammer.  Your purpose is to delegate scut work so you don't have to do it?  Get an intern.  Your purpose is to lift a heavy fallen branch?  Get a lever.  

Pastor Grooms thinks the intent of the media is to generate concern, justice, and care as he alleges was done in Highland Park and Uvalde.

Error.

The intent of the media is to use the dead and injured as tools to accomplish a purpose.  

The parade dead and injured of Highland Park are tools to be used for so-called gun control.  Review of the media stories about them weighs heavily to that conclusion.  (Of note, the parade dead and injured of Waukesha, killed and injured by a black man, have been memory-holed and are not tools to be used for either better SUV or traffic control or to highlight black nationalist perpetrated violence.)

Dead and injured schoolchildren are tools.  The dead and injured of Uvalde are a case in point.  As a group, mass school shootings are tools for gun control, despite their rarity.  That is their purpose.

Dead and injured black people are tools to attack cops and white people.  That is their purpose.  So much the better if there is a white cop involved.  Or the black person is unarmed (despite the uncommonness).  Then you can add the alleged purpose of fighting racism.  (Though blacks are racist whites, too, these days.)  

White men are the tools used to exonerate, validate, vindicate everybody: blacks, women, illegal aliens, homosexuals, transsexuals, transgenders, and more.  That is their purpose.

A dead white guy (?) wrote:  

All the world's a stage,  

And all the men and women merely players;  

They have their exits and their entrances ...

When it comes to the media, all men and women and whatevers have roles as tools.  

You need gun control?  Enter school shootings.  Enter parade shootings.  

You need to fight racism?  Enter white cop on black violence.  

You need an all-purpose perp?  Enter white men.  ("And one man in his time plays many parts ...")

Every group has a specific, bounded media role to play as the tool for a given purpose — e.g., illegal aliens (open borders), fetuses (abortion "rights"), transsexuals/transgenders/gays/drag queens/etc. (LGBTQWERTY "rights").  The list goes on.

This is the pattern to recognize.  The media use groups as tools to advance a particular purpose, and tool follows purpose as night follows day.  

If you fall outside the purpose for which you are the chosen tool, it is crickets, baby.  How often do you hear, when it comes to interracial violence, that the overwhelming proportion of cases are perpetrated by blacks on just about everyone else?  (See here, here, and here.)  Or that religious hate crimes are directed against Jews more than any other group?  Or that AOC is so dazzlingly stupid that she thinks Dobbs will prevent medical treatment for ectopic pregnancy (a statement accepted and unchallenged by the media)?  

Right tool, right job.  Wrong tool — it is as good as if you were nonexistent.  

Currently, if you are a dead or injured black not made dead or injured by a white person (preferably a cop), you are useless.  

Pastor Grooms's problem is that he is not based in this reality.  He waits for the media to provide concern, justice and care.  Good luck with that.  Better off waiting for Godot.  

But as he waits, he and his flock might be better served generating concern, justice, and care from the community, law enforcement, the Judiciary, families, and friends.  And if he wants to solve the problems of his community, waiting for the media will also not help.  Time and effort spent looking toward them might be better spent looking within to see what is discoverable.  Try bootstrapping.  Mediastrapping will not cut it.  

It works both ways, and the media are not the tools for your purpose.  

Face it, Pastor Grooms: your dead and injured are not tools for improving their situation.  Improving their situation is not a media purpose.  Possessing a tool for a nonexistent job is worthless.  Using the wrong tool for the job will not work.  You will not screw in a screw with a citrus squeezer.  

You will, however, screw yourself using the wrong tool.

Image via Pxhere.