leonard pitts on 'oppressed' whites

'Oppressed' whites? Give me a break
By LEONARD PITTS JR.

Leonard Pitts Jr.'s column debuts today in Issues & Ideas, where it will be found each Sunday.

It always amazes me when white people put on the victim hat.

As in victim of racial oppression. By any measure -- health, education, economics, employment -- white Americans enjoy a superior standard of living. If that's racial oppression, sign me up.

But still, one occasionally hears mewling noises from that subset of my white countrymen who feel put upon by big, bad racial minorities. This is one of those times. And Knoxville, Tenn., has become the capital city of that lunatic fringe.

It seems that in January, a young white couple, Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, were victims of a brutal crime. They were carjacked, kidnapped and raped. Cleaning fluid was sprayed into Christian's mouth. She was stuffed in a trash can and apparently suffocated. Newsom was shot and set afire. His body was dumped. Five African Americans, one a woman, have been arrested.

The story made headlines around Knoxville. It was unnoticed nationally.

That has changed. A constellation of white supremacists and conservative bloggers has pushed the story into the national limelight as illustration of their argument that news media, constrained by political correctness, refuse to report black on white crime while pulling out all the stops when crime is white on black as in the Duke lacrosse debacle. Me, I would see their Duke case and raise them a Central Park jogger, but what do I know?

Anyway, bloggers like Michael Oliver have chastised the ''liberal, biased, Mainstream Media'' for missing the Knoxville story. He asked, ``Had the roles been reversed, would the media ignore such a horrific crime?''

Truth is, media ignore horrific crimes all the time. Space is limited and growing more so. Which means the story that catches fire usually has some element beyond gruesomeness to sell it. In the Duke case, it was class, privilege, sex and race that did it.

Not that I expect Oliver or any other ''oppressed'' white person to pay attention to something so trivial as fact. They're too busy demanding that this case be tried as a hate crime -- even though police say there's no evidence the couple was targeted for any other reason than that they were there. And last weekend in Knoxville, white supremacists held -- I kid you not -- a ``rally against genocide.''

Part of me thinks I should consider the source and let this slide. But the argument being advanced here is so utterly, abysmally, stupidly, self-servingly wrong that I cannot help but respond.

Black crime against whites is underreported? On what planet? Study after study and expert after expert tell a completely different story.

For instance, there's OffBalance: Youth, Race andCrime in the News, a 2001 report that concluded that:

• African Americans and Latinos are underrepresented in news media as victims of crime and significantly overrepresented as perpetrators, based on crime statistics.

• Newspaper articles about white homicide victims are longer and more frequent than those about black ones.

• Interracial violent crime is more likely to be reported even though it is just about the rarest kind of violent crime.

And here I'm obligated -- because I'm black -- to say that if the defendants in this case did what they are accused of doing, I'd be happy to see them rot under the jailhouse. Sadly, that needs saying because there are people who will not take it as a given.

But with that obligation fulfilled, let me add that I am likewise unkindly disposed toward the crackpots, incendiaries and flat-out racists who have chosen this tragedy upon which to take an obscene and ludicrous stand. I have four words for them and any other white Americans who feel themselves similarly victimized.

Cry me a river.

 

(Taps conductor's baton)

OK, everybody, together now:

THIS WILL NOT END WELL.

 

sounds to me like leonard is a tad bitter.

 

Sounds like he's talking about the wrong lunatic fringe

 

Using s specific horrific crime to bitch is pathetic, even if he is a great reporter.
Mr. Pitts is a bit old and still living in the past. Discrimination will never go away, but with Rice and Powell as Secretary of State and Obama as the presumptive Presidential nominee, the civil rights era is over, and Mr. Pitts side won. Let's get on with living for the future.

• Newspaper articles about white homicide victims are longer and more frequent than those about black ones. MAN BITES DOG, MR Pitts

 

The era will never be over until the majority of people of color aren't living in squaller.

 

Just helping out.

 

Yeah, I didn't proof it before posting but thanks for the assistance.

 

Can they not get out?

 

I think it was a really good column. And I'm white.

Pitts is an absolute must-read.

 

That's a pretty crazy question. I want you to ask that same question to a guy who busting his ass on a 9 to 5 trying to keep his family together on a meager salary or to his wife who is cleaning floors to support the effort. Not everyone is living the Amerikkkan dream.

 

every time