Exchange over Cannon Hinnan’s murder
August 18th, 2020A pro-government commentator condemns the US mainstream media for not mentioning that Cannon Hinnan was murdered by a black person. A left-wing columnist finds such suggestions manipulative.
In Magyar Nemzet, László Szőcs, commenting on the murder of five-year old Cannon Hinnan in North Carolina on 9 August, accuses the US mainstream media of racially biased double standards. The pro-government commentator acknowledges that ‘in a world dominated by colour-blind equal norms’ advocated by, among others, Martin Luther King, the skin colour of the perpetrator would not matter at all. But in today’s America, where public life is dominated by race, the media should have mentioned that Cannon Hinnan was killed by a black person. If the skin colour of George Floyd and the police officer accused of killing him matter, it should matter in other cases as well, Szőcs contends.
Népszava’s Róbert Friss thinks that accusations by the Hungarian right-wing media of racially biased reporting of Hinnan’s murder are part of the government’s culture war ideology. The left-wing columnist finds it manipulative to liken Cannon Hinnan’s murder to that of George Floyd. Friss notes that in the case of Cannon Hinnan’s death, systemic racism is irrelevant, and therefore there is no need to mention that the victim was white, and the killer black. Friss believes that the ‘totalitarian Hungarian government’ wants to keep the Hungarian public on its side by spreading such manipulated views.