It Has To Be Said

Two horrific events rocked the American Jewish community this week: the indiscriminate shootings by a psycho at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and the very public anti-Semetic remarks by Obama's former preacher Jeremiah Wright. Hate crimes of every variety have been ticking upwards lately so I'm not exactly shocked that despite the post-WWII decades of singing Kumbaya, that anti-Semetism is still alive and well in this country. I am, however, a bit surprised (though not totally shocked) at the way the media has been handling the entire matter.

Racist websites that preach intolerance are all over the Internet. Fine. If someone wants to do some initial legwork (and probably have their IP address tracked) to find this type of shit then all the power to them. However, for mainstream websites to report on the events in DC and Wright's speech and then publish excerpts of their hateful rants online is ridiculous. People who might never feel compelled to visit a neo-Nazi site can now nod along with the anti-Semetic rhetoric on CNN, MSNBC, etc without fear of being labeled a bigot.

Everyone knows that Jeremiah Wright is an anti-Semite so there is absolutely no need to give his remarks the type of bully pulpit they've received this week. Ditto for the very tragic shooting at the Holocaust Museum. My heart goes out to the family of Officer Johns, who's life was taken from him unmercilessly by a convicted racist criminal. One can assume that anyone who would walk into a Holocaust museum with a weapon and murder an African-American security guard is both a racist and an anti-Semite. To report that James von Brunn was a member of several hate groups without publishing his quotes, thoughts, and opinions simply would've been enough.