Carnal Reason

I had a few other things I wanted to post, but I’m going to hold off on them, and consider instead a grotesque murder and the national media’s refusal to report it.

The most visible instrument of media bias is the spotlight glare of national attention, as we saw in the Duke non-rape case. The [false] narrative of racism and class warfare fit perfectly into the media’s political agenda, and so triggered a national feeding frenzy.

The flip side of the coin is more subtle. The most powerful instrument of media bias is silence. The inconvenient story, the one that does not serve to advance politically desirable agendas, that story is no story at all. It is not told.

Until a few minutes ago, I had never heard of Hugh Christopher Newsom or Channon Gail Christian. They were two were students who were murdered while on a date. It was no typical murder; it was horrific, the stuff of nightmares. Charlie Manson and Jeff Dahmer were less cruel. Flopping Aces summarizes it:

On Saturday January 6, 2007 Hugh Christopher Newsom, age 23 and Channon Gail Christian, age 21, both students at the University of Tennessee went out on a date.

They were driving in Channon’s Toyota 4-Runner when they were carjacked at gunpoint. Suddenly the crime turned far more savage than an armed car theft. Chris and . Channon were kidnapped and driven to 2316 Chipman Street where they were forced into the home at gunpoint. While Channon was forced to watch, her boyfriend was raped prison style and then his penis was cut off. He was later driven to nearby railroad tracks where he was shot and set afire. But Channon’s hell was just beginning. She was beaten; gang raped repeatedly in many ways, had one of her breasts cut off and bleach poured down her throat to destroy DNA evidence—all while she was still alive. To add to Channon’s degradation the suspects took turns urinating on her. They too set her body afire, apparently inside the residence, but for some reason left her body there—in five separate trash bags.

A crime this brutal is normally meat to the national media. No, scratch that. A crime this brutal is essentially without precedent in America. Channon Christian was raped over a period of four days, tortured, and mutilated. Why are the feminists not outraged? Where are the pot-bangers and the professional grievance mongers so prominent in the Duke case? Where is the outrage? Why is the national media essentially silent? They should be swarming something this foul like the maggots they are. Why are they silent?

The crime is not a useful one. Reporting it would not advance desirable agendas. If you are not sure what I mean, perhaps these pictures will make it clear. Here are the victims.

Here are the suspects.

Glen Reynolds makes a remark I find baffling.

My earlier comment on the case has had me excoriated by some white-supremacist sites for covering up a hate crime.

Well, to be a hate crime, the motivation has to be hate. I haven’t seen any evidence of that so far. It’s certainly true, of course — as LaShawn notes — that if the races were reversed the press would be all over this case and lots of people would be confidently pronouncing it a hate crime without any evidence other than the races of the perpretrators and victims, but since it’s black-on-white crime they’re making less noise. That’s the press.

I do not believe in hate crimes, as I have explained before. But if this crime is not a hate crime, then what the hell is?

La Shawn Barber remarks that

several people in the comment section mentioned that “white supremacist” and “neo-Nazi” sites have taken up the Christian-Newsom murder case as a cause. What that has to do with the main focus of this post — the media blackout and feminist non-outrage — is a mystery to me.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Certain Nazis think this story is being blacked out because the victims were white and the criminals black. It certainly does seem that way. The national media blackout serves to give the Nazis the justification they crave and need to sustain their fantasy world. Wonderful.

Posted on May 16th, 2007 by pwyll
Filed under: culture