Leonard Pitts, You Need to Apologize Just Like Don Imus

Are you beginning to see the real double standard at work here? Are you? By Curt MaynardIf you’re white and live in modern America today you’re well aware of the double standard that exists in the reporting of the news. The most recent example of this double standard was the Duke Lacrosse rape fable and its associated coverage in the media. There was not a single newspaper, news magazine, tabloid, that didn’t cover it extensively. There was not a single network news program that didn’t splash it across their screen ten thousand times during those months that Mike Nifong was still able to keep the majority of facts under wraps. There wasn’t a single radio program that didn’t broadcast every false accusation and innuendo intimately tied to the case. In the end, what did the case amount to? Hooey that’s what.Do you remember Don Imus’ “nappy headed hoes” comment? Couldn’t we safely say that it too received an incredible amount of news coverage? Didn’t all the talking heads appropriately denounce Don? Wasn’t Don forced to make a nationally televised apology to America’s black community via a face to face with Al Sharpton? In the end wasn’t Don fired?One of those on the leading edge of the Imus bashing crusade was a black Pulitzer Prize winning journalist from the Miami Herald named Leonard Pitts (pictured). In an article dated April 13, 2007 and entitled “Firing of Imus Removes Leader of Sorry Band,”[1 Pitts self righteously questioned whether or not crack cocaine hadn’t been added to the nation’s drinking water, as if Imus’ comment was affirmation that everyone in the country was crazy. Pitts then noted a very important fact associated with the Imus case; and one I intend to expand on a bit below, Pitts wrote “And then there’s radio shock jock Don Imus who, as even polar bears must know by now, last week leveled racist and sexist insults against the Rutgers University women’s basketball team, most of whom are black.” In the above sentence Pitts himself confirms what everyone else knows, that the Imus case received an unbelievable amount of media attention, so much attention in fact, that Pitts himself doubts whether there are any “polar bears” unfamiliar with the case. By noting this, and doing so in newspapers across the nation, as Pitts is a syndicated columnist, Pulitzer Prize winning Leonard Pitts has assigned himself the role of our moral anchor, he’s preaching to us what a racist statement is or isn’t. To reinforce his self assigned role as our moral compass, Pitts then writes that it was “beyond pathetic that two grown men [Imus and his producer would use the reach and power afforded them as members of the media to mock the looks of a bunch of college girls” and that it was “fitting that Imus’ slur has angered and energized the African-American community.” Bear Pitts’ words in mind, because I’m going to use them below to expose a virulent and pernicious form of racism that exists in our society today that clearly reveals an obvious double standard and receives an undeserved sort of amnesty with the added caveat that whites aren’t allowed to comment on it, or at least not without being labeled a “white supremacist.” I myself can comment on this phenomenon because I’m a politically correct apostate and have given up on the religion of political correctness, and I can tell you with certainty that I find the freedom refreshing and more importantly, productive. Call me a racist if you like, I don’t care.The only thing important about Pitts’ above comments is to shine the light of scrutiny on our Pulitzer Prize winner, to show that he indeed condemned Imus for calling a group of black females basketball players “nappy headed hoes.” Pitts’ is an expert at defining what a racist is you see, he’s our moral compass because the Miami Herald gives him a platform and because the mainstream media says he is. He’s above racism, or at least being accused of it, even when he is. In a recent article entitlted “Oppressed Whites, Give Me a Break,” about a black on white crime that happened in Knoxville TN last January[2 that is so horrific it’s difficult to detail, but involved the kidnapping of a young white couple, by four blacks, including a black female, and their subsequent rape [of the male as well, torture, mutilation and murder, Leonard Pitts’ clearly told white America that he couldn’t give a damn about their growing awareness of the reality of black on white crime or their concern with it. The FBI and Department of Justice’s statistics[3 clearly show that approximately 4% of the American population commits more than 50% of the homicides annually in America and that 4% represents black males between the ages of 12 and 60. His exact words [and this is important as he is a Pulitzer Prize winner after all and thus should be intimately familiar with sentence construction and context were “I have four words for them [so-called white supremacists and any other white Americans who feel themselves similarly victimized… Cry me a river.”When a Pulitzer Prize winner adds the inclusive “AND” and then tags “any other white Americans that feel themselves similarly victimized” along with it, he is including exactly that, any other white Americans. So, what Pitts is really saying is that he cries a river for the family of Stella [9-years-old and Ruby [4 years-old Harvey[4 who had their young throats slit by two blacks in a crime 99% of America never heard about that happened back in 2006 in Richmond Virginia. Like the Channon Christian and Chris Newsom murder it too received absolutely no national news coverage. Pitts is also telling the families of Jason Befort, Heather Miller, Aaron Sandler, Bradley Heyka and Linda Walenta[5, all horribly raped and murdered by two black brothers from Wichita Kansas in another “hush crime” that he “cries them a river” as well. You won’t hear Pitts mention Lindsey Bruce, a black man that raped and beheaded a 5 year old white girl named Emily Rimel, or Lanny Perry Barnes, a black man that intentionally ran over a white family in a McDonald’s parking lot, killing their 2-year old daughter with a smile on his face, and then backing up and running them over again, but if he were to cite these crimes, he’d do his best to deny that they were racially motivated and he’d “cry us a river” or possibly label us “white supremacists” if we demurred in any way from his oh so wise conclusions. Yep, our Pultizer Prize winning journalist clearly told white America that he couldn’t give a damn about our concerns and for that Pitts, like Don Imus before him should be held responsible and fired from his lucrative position at the Miami Herald. The Herald however has come out defending Pitts, they’d like you and I to believe that Pitts’ only critics are in the “white supremacist” movement, which is a joke and more to the point, highly illusory and deceptive. The Herald does not have a leg to stand on, the fact of the matter is they are attempting to bury what Pitts said as quickly as possible, but the facts are already out there, it’s only a matter of time before the Herald concludes that Pitts has become more of a liability than an asset. Rather than email and/or call the Miami Herald, I suggest that readers call and/or write to their local papers and demand that they stop publishing any of Pitts columns. Send them a copy of what Pitts wrote and explain to them you’re tiring of the obvious double standard that the media engages in. Tell them you are sickened by the hypocrisy of a man that condemns the so-called racism of whites but gives black racism a pass. Considering the above, is it not at least “pathetic,” not to mention highly irresponsible for Leonard Pitts to “use the reach and power afforded [to him as [a member of the media” to chastize white America and to tell them that he’ll cry them a river in respect to their concerns? I’m using Pitts own words here, just as he described Imus’ comments. Why is it perfecetly “fitting that Imus’ slur… angered and energized the African-American community,” but somehow not okay that whites are angered by the highly provocative and inflammatory words of Leonard Pitts? Are you beginning to see the real double standard at work here? Are you? I don’t know about you reader, but I’ve had enough of this hypocrisy and I’m not going to take it any more. This kind of double standard and the media’s unwillingness to cover black on white crime has gotten to the point where it can no longer be tolerated. Wake up America, you’re being taken for a ride. In respect to Leonard Pitts and the Miami Herald’s attempts to elicit sympathy from Americans by suggesting that Pitts is being harrassed by so-called white supremacists, and their concern that it might lead to someone harming him, I say…. “cry me a river.” [1 <a href=”http://www.miamiherald.com/285/story/72285.html”>http://www.miamiherald.com/285/story/72285.html</a> [2 <a href=”http://pcapostate.blogspot.com/2007/03/angry-whites-plan-knoxville-rally.html”>http://pcapostate.blogspot.com/2007/03/angry-whites-plan-knoxville-rally.html</a> [3 <a href=”http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm”>http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm</a> [4 <a href=”http://www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/0106/0302_harvey_killers_in_house1.html”>http://www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/0106/0302_harvey_killers_in_house1.html</a> [5 <a href=”http://www.amren.com/0208issue/0208issue.html”>http://www.amren.com/0208issue/0208issue.html</a> <a href=”http://pcapostate.blogspot.com/2007/06/leonard-pitts-you-need-to-apologize.html”>original article</a>

2007-06-23