If ISIL had burned down 4 Churches, it would have been Headline News

[KamaAina]

http://www.juancole.com/2015/07/burned-churches-headline.html

Seven African-American churches have burned down in the past week and at least four of these southern Black churches were victims of deliberate arson, and possibly six were.

This news is being reported tentatively and in the passive mood. The churches burned or were burned. But that arson directed at an African-American church in the South after the Roof murders is likely the work of white supremacists is only hinted at. The ambiguity of thunderstorms is typically brought in, quoting local authorities. But there are lots of thunderstorms all the time in the South and churches have lightning rods. Why would a church that had stood for decades suddenly succumb to a single storm?

Shouldn’t the headline be “Suspected White supremacists burn down at least four African-American churches” ? Shouldn’t there be an agent, a doer, involved?

Compare how the press handled Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) attacks on Christians and churches. It was front page news! And the active voice was used, even though these events happened thousands of miles away amidst a fog of war and there were no Western eyewitnesses.

[B2G]

1. But it IS news

Google it.

[KamaAina]

3. But not 24/7

as it would be if them Mooslims were involved.

[B2G]

6. We don't know WHO was involved at this point

or if some of them are even arson. What do you want to see reported? Because I have seen a ton of coverage, just no details on who started them, if there is a who at all in some of the cases.

What exactly do you want them to report?

[Rex]

4. The WWW is not corporate news, I believe the OP is talking about the M$M on the TVEE.

The internet is neutral, which makes plenty mad at all the liberties we have in the ability to post whatever we want to.

[B2G]

8. I've seen it nightly on my teevee

But maybe that's because I live down here and the local networks are better at reporting because they're closer to the stories.

If it's discovered that these are arson and hate crimes, I can assure you it will get 24/7 coverage at the national level.

Edited: And I just turned to FOX from MSNBC. Fox is covering it as we speak. MSNBC had nothing.

[Rex]

12. I live in South Texas so you are closer perhaps then I am.

I really don't see how it could be anything but arson at this point, but time will tell.

[Rex]

2. Corporate Media is owned by older white 'conservative' men that are a hair away from

belonging to hate groups and one DOES run a hate group called Foxnews!

If we had real investigative journalism (like we did decades ago) as mainstream and not alternative news...this would be all over the place in the news.

Sadly we have bought and paid for mouthpeices.

[Fred Sanders]

5. Sure is a lot of lightening raining down just on Churches...and just mainly in the old Confederation.

Does God have some kind of anti-anti-lightening rod technology? The Media should take up that question.

No doubting His aim.

[B2G]

7. The south has had severe storms moving through daily over the past 2 weeks

I'm not saying that's the cause of all of them, but it's not just churches...there have been a lot of house fires as well.

Maybe they should rethink the whole steeple concept.

[maryellen99]

9. If that happened

This would've caused a major panic,everything would've shut down and we would be sitting scared in our homes.

[AZ Progressive]

10. The racism is obvious, white supremacists are not a threat to whites so are not seen as terrorists

The terrorism that matters to white people is terrorism done to them. The Media is white run, so its obvious where their biases are.

[Mnemosyne]

11. K&R! nt

[TeddyR]

13. Based on what I've read

It isn't even clear these were arson.

[KamaAina]

14. Three or four are believed to be.

[asturias31]

15. Can we quit all this "ISIL" comparing? Please?

When ISIL took one city - Mosul - they gave 30,000 churchgoers the choice between slaughter, slavery, or grabbing their babies and their old folks and leaving their ancestral homes, and walking out of town with nothing. Their homes were confiscated. Those who tried to bring money or take their cars were robbed by laughing ISIL soldiers on their way out of town. Many were slaughtered for saying a word or standing up for a neighbor. Those 30000 and countless more churchgoers and mosque-goers are huddled up tonight, tending their dying relatives and hungry kids in refugee camps. Meanwhile, young women and girls are being passed around ISIL camps tonight and gang raped, or sold to ISIL warriors. Slavery: it's not fun, even for foreigners.

Arson and racism are, by American standards, horrible. But - are you really gonna make me say this? - if you are trying to draw a comparison between the problems of black churchgoers facing racism, and the problems of hundreds of thousands of real people just like you, facing rape, death, torture, or worse in the path of ISIL, you've got some thinking to do.

I respect you wanting justice for the thing that's close at hand and close to your heart. But this hyperbole - which seems popular on DU all of a sudden, like citing ISIL is now a fad among safe Americans? - just strikes me as callous and in really poor taste.