Sort of. If you do not recall (or are too young for the incident to have been a part of your personal past readings of contemporary Americana), here’s the story of Kitty Genovese.
There are many differences between the death of Kitty Genovese and the death of LaShonda Calloway, but one similarity stands out above all the differences: the callous disregard for human life displayed by onlookers.
In Kitty Genovese’s case, it was no less than 38 people who witnessed the attack who refused to “get involved” or render any aid whatsoever. In LaShanda Calloway’s death, no fewer than five people stepped over her as she lay bleeding to death in a convenience store in Wichita Kansas on June 23 of this year. One woman, shown on the store’s security tape, stepped over LaShanda Calloway four times, pausing only once… to take pictures on her cell phone.
That anyone could show such disregard for the pain, suffering, threat to the very life of a fellow human being is appalling. That five people could step over a person in such distress (no one even called the incident in for a little over two minutes!) and simply continue shopping, apparently never even mentioning the incident to a store worker, is even worse.
But what is missing in Mass Media Podpeople “reports” of the incident? What is so politically incorrect that it merits not one single solitary word of mention?
The ethnicity of those involved.
[Notice: I lived in Wichita Kansas lo these many, many moons ago. The neighborhood mentioned hasn’t changed all that much, apparently. Later, I lived in “the good part of the ghetto”–as labeled by its residents–in KCMO. I’ve personally witnessed such callousness of behavior and the particular lack of reporting by Mass Media Podpeople in such instances.]
Think about it.
Not just the neighborhood but LaShanda Calloway’s name and the behavior of the onlookers all rang bells with me. I turned to my Wonder Woman, related the incident and said, “What ethnicity was LaShanda, her attacker and the callous onlookers?” We both knew from past experience what fitted the names and behaviors best.
They were likely all black.
Now, before you accuse me of a racist bent, think about it.
Later, I confirmed from another (much later) report by viewing a picture of Calloway’s family that indeed she was black. Since Mass Media Podpeople would have been all over a white-on-black crime like, urm, white on rice, and you can bet your sweet patootie would have done their best to inflame a Reginald Denny moment (with attendant black rioting and looting and burning) had the animals who ignored Calloway’s plight been white, we can be relatively confident that this is another case of black-on-black crime all around.
And that, my friends, will NOT get any airplay or column inches in Mass Media Podpeople World.
That’s not racism on my part, but it is racism on the part of Mass Media Podpeople.
h.t. Shadowscope.
Trackposted to Perri Nelson’s Website, Big Dog’s Weblog, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, Leaning Straight Up, CommonSenseAmerica, The Pet Haven, Conservative Cat, High Desert Wanderer, Conservative Thoughts, Gone Hollywood, and Public Eye, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.