So Why Do Some Compare
This to The Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin Case?
On July 16, Reader Supported News ran my piece "United States of Zimmerman" that was a critique of aspects of the trial of George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. That same day, a reader calling himself JackB posted this comment on my piece, reproduced here in full to make clear how political and ideological this rightwing clichà © is:
" You have to understand there are only white
racists. Even people like Sharpton & Jackson who are best described as
being professional racists since that is how they make their living - they are
not racists. They are liberals & it is an immutable law of nature that
liberals are never racists. At least that is how they describe themselves.
"Google Joshua Heath Chellew. He was a white man killed last month in Georgia
by four black teenagers. What do you think the chances are that:
"- Obama will think at least one thug could have been his son if he had one?
"- That Holder will start an investigation into the crime or call it a hate
crime?
"- That there will be a media circus over the crime (or even coverage)?
"- That Jackson & Sharpton will be marching for justice.
"- That there will be groups of white liberal demonstrators marching for
"justice"?
"- That RSN will have an article supporting those demanding
"justice"?
"- That the "Thumbs Down" folk on the board will go all righteous
& sanctimonious demanding "justice". The can recycle all these
posts - just change the names?
"I think the chances are a number between zero & none."
How Many Black Men
Does It Take For a White Racist to See a "Mob"?
While ignoring the sarcasm, spite, and inaccuracies of the first paragraph, it has in common with the rest of the post a parrot-like quality that started turning up on rightwing websites with no purpose more apparent than inciting hatred for dark-skinned people. As early as July 8, Examiner.Com was pitching the event as a "black-on-white hate crime attack" while making several other errors in the text, where four attackers became "a mob."
That sort of dishonest exaggeration is needed to justify the claim that people like JackB make: that the media are somehow at fault for not giving more coverage to what is, so far, a crime story in which the most unusual feature is a hit-and-run driver who's not charged with anything. Like JackB's opening, The Daily Caller of July 12 mockingly titles a piece "Warning: This Post is Racist" and begins: "Who's Joshua Chellew? The fact that you don't know his name is the whole point. But that's not your fault."
The fault, say Daily Caller, JackB, and their ilk, belongs to the national media. But rightwing parrots don't even attempt to offer context, much less understanding. There were 42 gun deaths in America on June 30, according to Slate, which names none of them. Death in America is too common to make national news. Who knows the names of any of those 42 who died by gunshot on the same day Joshua Chellew was beaten, run over, and died?
Will Black People Never Stop Lynching Whites?
The only reason the right has talking points about Chellew now is because he provides a handy opportunity to make racist political points. These people don't tell us about the man himself, the human being, that's left to the local paper. For the right, Chellew is a useful white cipher for beating black people. Top Conservative News says of the Chellew case, "If the races had been reversed, this would be the biggest news story in the United States"."
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