The Brock Turner case of the convicted Stanford rapist went viral recently and introduced a lot of people to the power of privilege in America. If you aren’t familiar, Brock Turner raped an unconscious drunk woman behind a dumpster, was caught by two students and was arrested for his crimes. He was convicted of these crimes and out of the maximum 14 year sentence he could have had, the judge gave him six months in prison. If that wasn’t bad enough, the privilege train keeps going on because his parents wrote a letter telling the judge how great he is despite the fact he’s also a RAPIST. They said that he was too harsh and that Brock deserves less, his father even saying why should he be punished that long “for twenty minutes of action.” Even though these are completely unreasonable and insane, the judge agreed and gave Brock three months in prison instead. Now while that was a complete blatant flash of privilege, it went even further. Every news source didn’t put his mugshot while explaining the story, they put a picture of him smiling and looking like a functioning member of society (DESPITE BEING A RAPIST). If you aren’t familiar with the picture, here it is:

Now this raises the question, why was his mugshot not used? Why use this very nice and very unfitting photo of him? The answer is also privilege. If you look at many news articles, most of the time white people will have a smiley selfie or a professionally taken photo of them used in the article. But for a person of color, more often than not their mugshot would be used, even in cases where the person of color is a victim. Here’s an example: an 18 year old white cheerleader was an accessory to the MURDER of an innocent homeless man, and this is the picture that was used of her:

Here’s another story of a man who murdered his daughter, this is the photo that was used:

Now let’s look at the other side: Eric Harris was killed by a volunteer Sheriff’s Deputy in Oklahoma. The picture shown in the article by “The Roots” showed two pictured of the men side by side, but the picture they used of the victim, was his mugshot.

Here’s one more story: Genele Laird was body slammed and put under unnecessary violence by police, another victim, this news source used this photo (surprise its her mugshot):

There are a ton of other stories of people of color actually committing crimes and their mugshot was used too for obvious reasons. But why the radical change between races? Why do all white people have their selfies and pretty pictures used, meanwhile people of color will always deal with mugshots plastered on news articles. Well white people had the privilege to do something wrong in America and still be seen as the victim, which is what’s happening here. You’re meant to feel sympathy because these were just normal people. They are just people who made a mistake and you have to feel bad for them despite the fact they did something heinous. But when it’s a person of color they’re expected to be criminals so the media will paint them in that light. Society sets people of color up for failure so the media might as well just exploit that, right? Even though they were the victim you can’t feel bad for them because they were a criminal, and evil, and deserved the things they got. It’s a disgusting way to think and I’m appalled that this is happening unnoticed. In order to break the barriers of privilege we must put people on the same level. If someone is a victim, don’t use their mugshot. It’s inappropriate. If someone is a perpetrator, use their mugshot and show the world what they did. Paint people in the appropriate light and stop choosing this bias.