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Washington Post Doesn’t Reveal Attacker Was Black, In Contrast To How They Cover White Instigators

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The Washington Post waited five paragraphs to reveal that the person who attacked a 91-year-old Mexican man and yelled “go back to your country” was a black woman, in contrast to how The Post often reports on altercations involving white men.

“Mendoza told The Washington Post that Rodolfo Rodriguez, a permanent resident of the United States, had been attacked with a brick and taken to the hospital with a broken cheekbone and two broken ribs,” the article says in the second paragraph.

However, the article doesn’t say until the fifth paragraph that a resident “watched [a] child’s mother — a black woman — push the elderly man to the ground and repeatedly bash him in the face with a concrete brick while yelling, ‘Go back to your country.'”

In contrast, The Washington Post revealed the race of the victim in the headline.

In cases where a white person has an altercation with a minority, however, the publication is quick to point out the instigator’s race.

For example, WaPo ran a headline on Sunday pointing out that a “white man … called the police on a woman at their neighborhood pool.”

WaPo also ran a headlinein February 2018 about a “white man” who accused two black men of robbery, when the white man was in fact the robber.

CNN ignored the race of the 91-year-old’s attacker in their Tuesday report altogether. In contrast, CNN ran the headlinein June: “A white woman allegedly hit a black teen.”

The Root, a primarily black issues publication, also failed to mention that the attacker was black in their Monday article.

Black and Hispanic mutual animosity is a growing issue in California, where the attack against the Mexican man took place. Latino gang members in Los Angeles admitted to firebombing housing projects to target black families, according to an April Los Angeles Times article.

The LA Times in 2007 also described “a race war” in an article describing gang violence in California between black and Latino gangs.

Yet a Democratic congresswoman quickly blamed President Donald Trump for the attack against the Mexican man.

“These are the real and tragic consequences of Trump’s vile and racist rhetoric: A 91-year old man beaten and bloodied with a brick,” Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal tweeted with a link to the WaPo article on Tuesday.

These are the real and tragic consequences of Trump’s vile and racist rhetoric: A 91-year old man beaten and bloodied with a brick. https://t.co/1oMMh9Vqlx

— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) July 10, 2018

The suspect in the attack was caught on video, ABC 7 news reportedon July 6, before the WaPo or CNN pieces were published.

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