What’s your sense of a big TV news story? Might this qualify?: Two teen boys lure a 12-year-old girl to their home under the guise that they want to trade bicycle parts. When the girl arrives, she’s strangled to death, her body thrown in a Dumpster, her new bicycle stolen. That would qualify, no? Even if it happened in Arkansas or Michigan, we’d know about it. And if it had happened around here? Yow! Both local and national news media would be all over it, yes? Well, it did happen around here, in October, in Gloucester County, NJ, a 90-minute ride from Manhattan. The victim was Autumn Pasquale. This month in court, 16-year-old Justin Robinson confessed to the murder while his year-older brother and accused accomplice, Dante, still faces murder charges. Quite a story, eh? But I’ll bet you didn’t even know, until now, about the murder of 12-year-old Autumn Pasquale. I watch lots of TV news, listen to lots of radio news, national and local. Not once did I see or hear anything about her murder, allegedly by two teen boys, for, good grief, her bicycle. You see, in the media’s once noble, right-headed, fair-minded quest to condemn racial inequality, that quest has become corrupted by race; it has become twisted, hideously unbalanced. There is no question in my gut, heart and head that Autumn Pasquale’s murder became a make-it-go-away, non-story because she was white and her alleged killers are black. Autumn’s was both a politically incorrect murder and story, as are those that include black teens shooting to death black teens every day and night, in 20, 30 cities and towns across America. But if a white kid shoots a black kid . . . And there’s no question in my gut, heart and head that if Autumn had been black and her alleged teen assailants been white that her death and the ensuing murder trial would have been up there, a la Trayvon Martin, at the top of the newscasts, every day and night. Al Sharpton would summon the TV cameras, and all networks would comply. Jay Z would make a special guest appearance at a rally, where he could demand that people he calls “N- - - as” be treated with respect. New York City mayoral candidates Christine Quinn and Bill de Blasio would tweet their outrage. And President Obama would lament that being black in America is to be a victim of America. Mr. President, our prisons are stuffed with minorities, a huge percentage for having committed crimes against minorities. Yet, you claim that racism is why people lock their car doors when they see blacks approaching. Don’t blacks also lock their car doors, Mr. President? In an African-American president we had the opportunity for our leader to demand that the cycle of black self-enslavement — starting with poor children, who’ve been fathered by poor children, giving birth to poor children — come to an end, that values point up, not backward. Here we had a leader who didn’t have to pander, who didn’t have to fear being called a racist for telling obvious and significant truths. Instead, he asks black America to play the same losing hand. And no media, for fear of being branded a racist — for fear of being fired — dare ask him why he has passed on such a unique opportunity. No one asked him if locking car doors in the presence of blacks is a white problem or a practical response to a persistent black problem, one the president has ignored. Meanwhile, the fair-minded, the right-headed, those with strong regard for genuine equality become further disenfranchised, unable to abide by rules that would allow the death of 12-year-old Autumn Pasquale — tossed in a Dumpster after she was murdered for her bicycle — to become a story that doesn’t qualify as news.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:35:11 +0000