The Daily Mail has published an editorial today that says the following about the six people arrested for the crimes against Megan Williams:
Racists? Possibly.
I’m not sure what it would take for The Daily Mail to be certain that these people are racists. Apparently shouting racist epithets while beating, torturing, and raping a black woman whom you have locked up in a shed next to your home isn’t enough for them — maybe if they’d been wearing white robes during the commission of their crimes, or maybe if they’d just come back from burning a cross on someone’s lawn, then that would be enough. Unbelievable. They’re possibly racists? This is what the editorial staff at The Daily Mail came up with in its first editorial about this crime? Way to stick your heads in the sand.
The Charleston Gazette wrote three editorials about this case today, including one entitled, simply, “Racism.” In it they discuss the situation in Louisiana regarding Jena High School, where six black students were charged with attempted murder for beating up a white student. I mentioned this in a post yesterday, but if you don’ t know anything about that case, there’s a much longer back story that starts with three white students getting in-school suspension for hanging nooses on a tree at the school.
“Possibly” is the kinda descriptor that’s used by people or groups that are not of a minority, nor impoverished.
Look at the source. This is the Daily Mail, who’s pretty reactionary to start with. As if they’ve ever had a clue.
I know, but I thought this was pretty bad even for them. Possibly racist? I still can’t stop shaking my head in amazement.
Daily Mail Editors ignorant? Possibly.
;>
The new Create WV blog also has a good post, Can Hope Spring from a Holler of Horror?, that touches on the media coverage too. Apparently, the Jack Nuts on WCHS 580 think any discussion about whether this is racist is an attempt to “politicize” the situation.
I can’t imagine that talk radio hosts would ever politicize an issue, right? This is just their way of trying to sweep the incident under the rug and pretend that everything is fine.
Argh. I’m glad I don’t listen to that crap. I don’t think I could take it. (I’d have to stop reading Don Surber to balance it out.) Hippie Killer has been listening to 580 and telling me a little about their coverage of this case though. Maybe he’ll blog about it.
See, that “right now, it’s about Megan and helping her” is exactly how the Daily Mail editorial ended. It rang hugely false to me.
Give me a break. Hey, here’s a clue you ignorant fools: Do ya think it might help Megan — a black woman who was brutalized for a week straight by six whiteys who were calling her a n*gger the whole time — to talk about the racism that minorities face in this state? That’s awful that they just dismissed that guy like that.
Argh, this is getting my blogging juices flowing. I sense more posts about this.
I am almost ashamed to admit I get where the prosecutor is coming from. Although I am not a lawyer (but am mistaken for one by strangers in bars) I understand the difficulty in prosecuting this as a hate crime if the victim had a relationship with the perp. I’ll leave it to the lawyers out there to correct me if I am wrong, but don’t you have to have a relationship of a certain nature for those specific charges to be filed?
I think it’s a hateful, despicable crime and that those brought straight to you from a Rob Zombie film freaks should pay dearly for their crimes.
I just don’t believe they picked her because she was black. They picked her because she was there. It could have been anyone naive enough to trust them. The thing that frightens me the most about this crime is that this is the one we heard of. How many times are women tortured like this and no one ever knows.
I think that focusing on the use of one hateful word uttered during the commission of such heinous crimes ignores the fact that these monsters picked an accessible victim with a diminished mental capacity. Societry failed this woman before she became a victim. She went through the school system, presumably with an IEP and no one followed up to make sure she had the life skills or supervision necessary to live successfully and safely as well as independently.
How we treat and care for our most vulnerable members of society says a lot about what we value. Nobody much valued this woman until she was debased and dehumanized by psychos. I think that is a more salient discussion than the possible racist tendencies of people I am having a hard time thinking of as human.
If they try an insanity defense I will probably have an aneurism.
And Red, let us know if you know of any need this woman has…her recovery is going to take a lot and this family’s needs appear to be great. We all know a lot of people and a lot of organizations who would be happy to do something constructive and loving for this woman and her family.
These days, I read the Daily Mail with the same amusement as I once read the Weekly World News. Probably wrong as so many take that paper for gospel truth, but if I don’t laugh at the ridiculous things they publish, I’d probably go nuts. I try to correct the misinformation however I can, but there is only so much one person can do.
SRF, there’s no reason to feel ashamed of realizing that prosecutors have practicalities that they have to consider when deciding whether to bring charges and/or which charges to bring. There’s no requirement that the victim didn’t know the perpetrator — the statute is silent on that. There’s also no requirement that the perpetrator was motivated solely or even primarily because of the victim’s race, religion, gender, etc. — at minimum, the crime has to have been at least partly motivated by that type of bias.
I think I’ll just write a post describing West Virgina’s hate crime law and all of its requirements, instead of putting it in the comments.