White Vigilantism and the "Homeowner": How U.S. Crime Reporting Fetishizes Private Property and Justifies Murder

        Up to this point, most of my blog posts have highlighted and explored the myriad of ways in which the mass media protects corporate and state power, while simultaneously reinforcing faith in the political system. This article will be no different. Nevertheless, I want to evaluate a particular media narrative that has been uncritically spread around this week, a narrative that is a hallmark of the grossly negligent reporting inherent in local "crime" stories: the "homeowner." Before we delve into this narrative, however, I want to provide some background information about the events that transpired earlier on Tuesday. According to Robert Mackey of The Intercept, on February 22nd, "Benjamin Smith, 43, killed a 60-year-old woman and wounded three other women, as well as a male protest medic who responded to their calls for help." Before the attack, the women were simply "directing traffic along the route of a protest march against police violence."  

      

      Smith, whose identity was initially reported by antifascist researchers, had, to quote Mackey, a long history "of violent rhetoric and a reputation for extremism among members of the furry community." During the tail end of the Obama administration, Smith became increasingly more radicalized into the far-right, following right-wing media pundits such as Andy Ngo and simultaneously expressing a desire, according to his roommate Kristine Christenson, "to go shoot commies and antifa all the friggin‘ time." Where this gets interesting (and very frustrating) is what the Portland Police Bureau reported about the incident in a press release, initially stating that the shooting had “started with a confrontation between an armed homeowner and armed protesters.” This is despite the fact that (a) the protestors in question were by themselves, separated from the crowd and (b) Smith was even a "homeowner" and was renting an apartment close to the march. This didn't stop the media from running with this narrative, however, with outlets such as CNN, the New York Times, and the Associated Press uncritically espousing the statements made by the Portland Police Bureau, who has had a very rich history of excessive violence, racism, white supremacy, and neo-Nazism. Of course, this isn't the first time media outlets have absolved far-right violence. Just this week the NYT published a tweet titled: A reading of “The Communist Manifesto” in Providence, Rhode Island, was interrupted on Monday when a group of people carrying a flag with a swastika banged on the windows and shouted slurs. Why not just say Nazis? Why does the media feel the need to "both sides" these issues in the name of "objectivity."

 

        However, back to my main point, the use of the term "homeowner" that was reported by the media is intentional. Besides the media's reliance on "official" sources for their daily news cycles, the use of the word "homeowner" here contains some nefarious implications. Adam Johnson puts it best, in my opinion, stating that "'homeowner' is up there with 'business man' and 'taxpayer' as racial and class signifiers indicating moral value requiring default trust and sympathy." Moreover, the "homeowner under siege" narrative implies that owning property is sufficient grounds to gun down and kill whoever you want. I can't help but notice that this sentiment echoes the conservative discourse around Kyle Rittenhouse in 2020, after he "fired on three men with a military-style semi-automatic rifle [in Kenosha], killing two and seriously injuring a third." Many right-wing political pundits unsurprisingly argued that Rittenhouse killed in self-defense as his "intention" was to protect private property from "violent" protestors. Besides the overall weirdness of a 17-year-old wanting to protect property that isn't even his own, there's a connection between Rittenhouse's case and the media narrative surrounding Benjamin Smith. Namely, the fetishization of white vigilantism by the media is inextricably tied with the idea of "defending private property" from domestic "terrorists" (a term that typically applies to Black and brown males). Given that policing has its roots in white supremacy (slaves patrols) and the defense of private property, it makes sense why the Portland Police Bureau touted the "homeowner" narrative without any substantial evidence. The media is complicit in this as well; however, it's unsurprising given that newsrooms are predominately dominated by white male perspectives. Ultimately, in true mass media fashion, the media's uncritical espousal of the Portland Police Bureau's statements serves to reinforce the concept of American "values," values rooted in white supremacy, violence, and the mystification of private property. Despite all the craziness going on at the moment, it is imperative that we challenge these defamatory/racist narratives and realize that "crime reporting" in this country often defaults to similar tropes, euphemisms, and cliches. Rather than buying into various racist stereotypes, we should oppose/challenge these narratives at all costs as they attempt to "justify" state violence against those seeking to emancipate themselves from social hierarchical domination.