The media’s perception of the Angry Black Woman stereotype affects how the public views the police chase, shooting and killing of Miriam Carey. At first, Carey was portrayed as a mentally unhinged black woman, suffering from depression. Some media outlets have depicted her as a woman allegedly upset with President Obama. According to CBS News confirmations, Carey “told police in December that she was a prophet, that President Obama would place the city of Stamford under a “lockdown” and that he had her and her residence under electronic surveillance.”
Often black women are viewed by the media in one of three ways, as an “angry black woman”, Mammy (a maid) or as Jezebel, a sexual object. The media is all too ready to put black women in one of these three boxes. Check box one if you’re the angry black woman. Check box number two if you’re the Mammy, which is considered by many in the mainstream media to be the preferred box. The Mammy is the docile maid. Think of the movie, The Help. Check box number three if you are Jezebel also known as the seductress. Miriam Carey was not a box to be checked. She was a 34 year old single mother of a one year old daughter. She was a dental hygienist with a supportive family and friends. And yet something went terribly wrong on October 3 for her to drive to Washington, DC from Stamford, Connecticut with her daughter, Erica, in her car. According to AP reports, a Social Security card, passport and driver’s license were found in her car, hardly the tools of a terrorist. She meant no one any harm. Yet, Miriam Carey has been implicitly viewed in the media as the Angry Black Woman with mental issues.
Most media outlets were slow to paint the details of Miriam Carey, as a 34 year old single mother of a one year old, a dental hygienist, with supportive family, including a sister who was a former NYPD Sergeant and supportive friends. One of her friends. Donald Knowles, who saw Carey just a few days earlier, said, “she was all smiles, like she didn’t have a care in the world.” The police and the media portrayed her in another fashion and then looked for clues to back up their assessment to find out what her anger and mental instability stemmed from.
Miriam Carey is not the first black woman to be characterized in this fashion. Fox News commentator, Cal Thomas, in 2008 spoke of “angry black women” saying, “And who are the black women you see on the local news at night in cities all over the country. They’re usually angry at something. They’ve had a son who had been shot in a drive-by shooting. So you don’t really have a profile of non-angry black women {{except}} Oprah Winfrey.”
Melissa Harris Perry wrote of the media’s portrayal of the Angry Black Woman in her book, Sister Citizen. Even if the police viewed Miriam Carey, in the same way that often black women are portrayed in the media, that still didn’t give them the right or justification to kill her. Others have come to the White House and the U.S. Capitol, unarmed and engaged in some form of illegal or bizarre behavior, yet, unarmed Miriam Carey was the one to get killed for her bizarre behavior. This begs the question of whether the Angry Black Woman stereotype is what caused Miriam Carey to meet her death by police shooting her. One has to wonder if Miriam Carey was a young, white woman with a baby in the car, if a different outcome would have occurred.
For whatever reason that Secret Service police chose to shoot and kill Miriam Carey, there must be a transparent investigation as to the circumstances surrounding this shooting. Her family and the public deserves to know the truth. A thorough investigation is necessary to explain the justification, if any, for her death. Joseph Gebhardt, attorney for the U.S. Black Capitol Police Association stated it best, “There must be an objective and transparent investigation of this shooting and chase, which ends in a public report – not some confidential Internal Affairs “investigation” with a predetermined outcome.”
Washington, DC based Debbie Hines is a trial lawyer, former prosecutor and founder of LegalSpeaks blog who addresses issues on race and gender in law and politics. She has appeared in national and local media including C-Span, the Michael Eric Dyson Show, NBC, ABC, Fox and CBS affiliates, RT America, CBC- Canadian TV and XM Sirius radio discussing headline legal news.
Brian_87! says
This is sad! Isn’t media suppose to be a watchdog for society? and what are they doing right now; are they trying to guide our perception? This is what you call controlling minds with a stereotypical projection. Media no longer holds the social responsibility of UNBIASED coverage..! This deeply saddens me :/