The progressive email arrived while I was lamenting the press coverage of the shooting at the Holocaust Museum. The facts of the shooting don’t seem in much doubt. A bigot with a long history of expressing his racism finally tried to go out in a blaze of hateful glory. And, like the plans for glory of so many other hatemongers, including Hitler, his plans failed. Hitler and Pol Pot had to face the judgment of history. This killer, like Timothy McVeigh, will have to face the judgment of a jury of his peers. His actual peers, not those he might wish were his peers.

But while the nation fastened its attention on the shooting of a guard in Washington D.C., the Associated Press was trying to circulate a story about another murder by racists. The story was about a Latino father and his young daughter who were gunned down by right-wing, border “militiamen,”carrying badges and pretending to be enforcing U.S. sovereignty. The story got no traction.

Ever wonder why non-Anglo children who are kidnapped or heinously murdered never receive equal fanfare as little white girls do? Ever wonder why media coverage of racist murders gravitates toward interesting, sexy, famous places like the Holocaust Museum instead of, for example, private homes of hispanic border families? While Mr. Hall's article covered a wide range of topics, his discussion of race politics and the differences between the Arizona/Holocaust Museum shootings captured my attention-

The father was a legal resident. He was employed. He was doing what the right wing says it wants legal immigrants to do. But he and his daughter are now dead, shot in their home by self-proclaimed “patriots”. That’s right, shot in their home, not while working as guards in a public facility. But like the guard, shot because they were “racially inferior” in the eyes of their killers.

Are they also racially inferior in the eyes of all those who believe that a killing by a madman in a famous venue is more important than the killing of a Latino family, in their homes, by an organized group of right-wing zealots?

Similar questions get asked every time a little white girl is kidnapped and murdered. As the news trucks gather and pundits spew, a few minority voices cry out asking why we don’t give equal coverage to the regular killing of children of color. And we have to ask it as we see the intense coverage of an attractive Iranian woman, gunned down by the religious secret police for the crime of being where people were demonstrating for democracy.

"Empathy for the Common Man" also helped distinguish the different kinds of bigots, racists who commit crime against immigrants and foreigners. Not all are motivated by religious beliefs, and not all are political activists... However, they are all united by one common denominator: ignorant hate.

The murders in Arizona were different from these political murders. The killers were not religious fanatics trying to impose their viewpoint. They were members of “respectable” militia groups. “Respectable” bigots. The accused leader of the kill squad is a woman whose hate writings remained posted on a “respectable” militia website after the murders until the AP started asking about it. Now that she’s been arrested, the “respectable” bigots are trying to run from their association with the killers.

[...]Where did they learn to kill little girls in their own homes? Our own Pentagon has refused to punish soldiers who rape and kill Iraqi and Afghani little girls, as long as the rapes and murders are in “combat zones.” These militia killers pretend they are fighting a war against racially inferior Latinos in our country. “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” said Dr. Johnson in 1775. And so it remains today. This is neocon courage.

How many Latino families like the one gunned down in Arizona are working to improve themselves? Without press fanfare, they mow our lawns, tend our children, and clean our offices at night. And without press fanfare, they die from the violence of racist killers pretending to be “protecting the good people.” They suffer and die while “the liberal media” ignore them and wait for the next JonBenét.

The facts remain: a hispanic family 10 miles from the U.S./MX border is slain in their home during a home invasion by a team of white racist bigots posing as US Marshals. In the same month, an elderly white supremacist male walks into the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. and mercilessly shoots and kills an African-American security guard. Each story is indeed horrendous. Interestingly,  the Holocaust/D.C. event clearly receives more national media attention while the Immigrant/Arizona story (arguably more brutal) is slow to catch and barely circulated with the same furrosity. Thanks Tom Hall. 

Photos courtesy of Change.org