News for the rich

I don’t like to cry wolf. \nI see absolutely no racism or discrimination involved in any of O.J. Simpson’s multiple arrests over the years. That goes for the charges against him for the murders of his estranged wife and her boyfriend, and his latest charges of burglary, kidnapping and assault in Las Vegas. \nI think the Duke lacrosse rape case, where three white members of Duke University’s lacrosse team were falsely accused of raping a black stripper, was handled appallingly. America wanted to believe that it had caught these rich white boys behaving like evil oppressors. The media had a field day. Jesse Jackson was pretty quick to hop on the radio to deem the drunken white boys guilty until proven innocent. \nWhat I don’t understand, however, is how both of these situations merited the attention that they got from civil rights activists and journalists, while the truly tragic case of Megan Williams has barely made a blip on the radar. \nWilliams, a 20-year-old black woman, was kidnapped and held for at least a week in a West Virginia mobile home where she was sexually assaulted, beaten and forced to eat rat droppings.\nShe had six captors, all white, who stabbed her in the leg while yelling racial slurs, slit her ankle while using the N-word, choked her with a cable cord and made her drink water from a toilet. One of her attackers told her she was being targeted because she was black. \nAn anonymous tip led authorities to the trailer where they found Williams; part of her hair had been pulled out, and she had stab wounds and black eyes. \nThe six accusers have had a whopping 108 criminal charges filed against them by police since 1991. In fact, the owner of the mobile home where Williams was held was accused of first-degree murder in 1994 but pled guilty to manslaughter charges instead. \nMy question is, why haven’t we heard more about this? The so-called injustice of Simpson’s never-ending plight is being rammed down my throat at all hours of the day, but somebody actually had to contact me and send me a link about the heinous acts committed against Williams. \nBlack or white, Williams’ brutal treatment warrants more attention than it is getting. We should be seeing outrage, but we’re not. \nThe Duke rape case garnered a far larger outcry before even half the facts were known to the public. It makes me sad to say it, but perhaps this case just isn’t interesting enough for the media. Perhaps it isn’t as great of a publicity opportunity for so-called activists.\nAfter all, nobody is surprised when a bunch of meth-head yokels brutally attack a young, black woman. That’s just what they do, right? Apparently it’s only newsworthy if there is a remote possibility that the crime was committed by a trust-fund baby.