Posted on 02/17/2006 1:34:30 PM PST by Graybeard58
The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby wrote an arresting column this week noting how reluctant so much of the news coverage has been to call the torching of 10 Baptist churches in Alabama an anti-Christian hate crime - or just a hate crime, period.
Imagine, Jacoby muses, that "unknown hoodlums had firebombed 10 gay bookstores and bars in San Francisco" or "10 Detroit-area mosques and halal restaurants." Not only would the burnings rocket to the front pages and remain there, politicians everywhere would be falling all over themselves to express solidarity with the victims.
The Alabama arsons haven't provoked anything like this level of public outrage, Jacoby notes. Indeed, "running through the coverage of the latest church burnings is an almost palpable yearning to cast the story in racial terms" - even though five of the churches were mostly white and five black.
As if to prove Jacoby's point, his own newspaper on the same day printed a lengthy article on the church burnings that was simply awash in racial angles. Readers learned, for example, that as "many white Alabamans cope with random attacks on their houses of worships, some in the most remote and segregated communities are experiencing an awakening (to racial sensitivity) that seems years overdue."
But give the Globe credit: About a third of the way into the 1,500-word article, the writer does manage to mention the words "hate crime." Once.
There was a groundswell in the media when they realized the first few churches burned were black churches, but after the badguys burned about 5 white churches in a row you didn't hear another word about it.
I wonder if the Boring Broadsheet would print cartoons of those responsible.
"some in the most remote and segregated communities are experiencing an awakening (to racial sensitivity) that seems years overdue."
As a Southern boy, that is just hilarious. New England yanks have no idea how far ahead of them in race relations us backwards-assed Southerners are.
"Hate crime", eh? As opposed to a "love crime", I suppose?
It is impossible to commit a hate crime against a straight white Christian.
You want to see some real bigotry, go to Massachusetts.
White Christians apparently are disposable...
We live it and we live it together very nicely.
If one gay guy got beat up leaving a gay bar, there would be hate crimes stories in every newspaper.
The blacks up there hate whites even more than they do down here?
And there'd be candlelight vigils in every major city, liberal columnists/pundits lambasting the "hate-filled right-wing," and congress drafting updated "hate crime" legislation.
As it is, news of the 10 burned churches is lucky to make it to page 25A.
Man, you've got that right on race here in the South!
Now, I think the reason that the press doesn't want to cover this is that they think there's a good chance that the arsonists will turn out to be "militant queers".
The fact that she grew up in a lily white neighborhood will somehow escape the otherwise rabid newshounds assigned to cover her campain.
As usual, Jacoby is right on. A few of the churches were black. If they all were, I'm sure you would see a different type of coverage.
Wow, when Jeff Jacoby and El Globo point out the irony that is really telling. If half as many mosques were burned there would be riots and politicians racing to the cameras.
"militant queers"?
No, I'm almost certain it was the "Flaming Homosexuals".
The lack of hystrionics in the MSM over these church burnings is notable.
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