Over the past few weeks, Drudge and Limbaugh have been trying to turn a fight on a school bus between a group of African American students and a white student into a national story. Limbaugh even said that this was an example of what it is like to live in Obama's America. Being from Missouri, I first read this article on-line at the St. Louis Post Dispatch website. I shouldn't have been so surprised when it turned up later on Drudge. I'll provide some quotes from both the story and the comments below the fold.
This story is probably the worst example that I have ever seen at treating every point of view as equal, and if I were allowed to post the entire article to expose it, I would. The second sentence, for example, says this:
Messages flashed across neo-Nazi and white supremacist websites today promoting an 11 a.m. protest on the Belleville courthouse grounds on Saturday.
Really? Telling us exactly when and where it will be? Well, you might as well give their reasons without questioning them.
"People in this town are rightfully angry at the double standard that we know how this would be working if the races were reversed," wrote an announcement on the website for the National Socialist Movement, a white supremacist group. "We want to not only condemn these acts of violence, but also to try and persuade the state's attorney to file hate crime charges in this case."
Is it just me, or did they really just quote from a website of a white supremacist group? What scares the hell out of me is the fact that you could replace "white supremacist group" with just about any Republican talk-show host throughout the article and it would read exactly the same way. We are allowing "white power" organizations to become mainstream before our eyes. Can you imagine even a couple of years ago any major newspaper giving the time and place of a hate rally without urging citizens to either stay away or to show up to protest their presence? How must African Americans in the city feel to know that their newspaper is giving a voice to hate?
Here our some of the reader comments from the story (mostly driven by Drudge, I'm sure):
Not that I am a white supremacist or Neo-Nazi, but they make a strong point. There is a total double standard to the effects that it is racist to be proud to be white. You know that there would be an uproar if it was a black kid who got beat up.
i don't normally agree with racists...but....they have a point....if the roles had been reversed...would this have become the next Jenna,La.?
While I do not condone or support any White Supremacy at least they are willing to show their dissapointment on this. When the black population has something to say they go out into public and say it. It seems like the white population just posts comments and hides behind screen names
I may not agree with their views, but at least someone is willing to take a stand for us.
There are more there, most making my point about mainstreaming this hate group. Many posters feeling the need to state that they do not condone white supremacy, yet they still seem to express gratitude at the groups that are willing to protest. While the post dispatch does bury at the end that "prosecutors have said there is no evidence to warrant charges of a hate crime," it also feels the need to write provacative statements such as
Several students on the bus cheered the attacks and snapped cell phone pictures.
What is the Post Dispatch trying to do? Are they trying to make this protest a big news event to sell some papers? Mainstreaming white supremacists is not an ethical way to do this. I also don't think it's going too far to say that Drudge is actively trying to support these groups. Hell, if they show up with tea bags, every cable news channel will be there as well.
Have we really fallen so far so fast? White supremacists should be ignored like they have been since the 1970s, and people who disregard this fact should be called out for being the racists that they are.