Last week, four young blacks -- two males, both 18 years old; and two females, 18 and 24 years-old -- kidnapped a mentally disabled 18-year-old white boy and tortured him for 24 hours. Among other things, they kicked him, beat him, cut his scalp, made him drink from the toilet and made him kiss the floor while saying he loves black people. During the beatings, the suspects yelled out, "F--- white people, boy" and "F--- Donald Trump."
The victim was found by police on Jan. 3rd.
There are five important lessons to be learned from this episode.
1. Even after largely ignoring the story in the beginning, the mainstream media have barely covered it. And when they started to, the racial element was first ignored and then downplayed. The original Associated Press report not only did not mention the racist outbursts but it also never mentioned the race of the perpetrators or the race of the victim.
Under the headline "Chicago police investigate video beating," the AP report began: "Chicago police said Wednesday that they're investigating a video circulating on social media that shows several people beating a man at a residence. Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said at a news conference that four suspects, two males and two females, are in custody."
What makes the mainstream media's reporting a moral scandal is that every honest person living in America knows that if four whites had kidnapped a black, tortured him for hours, made him say "f--- Barack Obama" and "f--- blacks," and made him bow down to the floor and say, "I love white people," the story would have been on the front page of The New York Times and every other liberal and left-wing newspaper in the country; and it would have been the lead item on all news broadcasts and the subject of virtually every editorial and left-wing column. It would have been portrayed as more proof that America is racist, and that hate has taken over America since the election of Donald Trump.
For example, since the election of President-elect Trump, The New York Times has run a weekly column titled "This Week in Hate." In the Jan. 5 column, there was no mention of the crime. The lead story of the column involved a black transgender man who was attacked on the subway.
On Jan. 6, the Times finally had a feature article on the attack, but it had no mention of the central role that race, the hatred of whites and the hatred of Trump played in the incident. Titled "Beating of Disabled Teenager Highlights a Crime That Often Goes Unpunished," it portrayed the crime as a hate crime against the disabled.
It began saying: "The appalling video seized the nation's attention this week: A group of young people kidnapped, bound, beat, slashed, gagged, humiliated and threatened to kill a teenager with mental disabilities over nearly three days, and laughed about it as they carried out their acts."
And the left talks about right-wing "fake news."
2. The Chicago police also downplayed the most obvious aspect of the case.
The police spokesman, Commander Kevin Duffin, said at a news conference: "Kids make stupid decisions -- I shouldn't call them kids; they are legally adults, but they're young adults, and they make stupid decisions."
And Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said the act could not be labeled a hate crime: "I think some of it is just stupidity, people just ranting about something that they think might make a headline. I don't think that at this point we have anything concrete to really point us in that direction, but we'll keep investigating."
After the Chicago Police Department was attacked nationally for such remarks, it eventually concluded that it was indeed a hate crime.
3. Aside from the media's reaction, imagine what black America's reaction would have been had the races been reversed. The NAACP, the Black Lives Matter movement, the Congressional Black Caucus, the white left -- led by the irresponsible Southern Poverty Law Center -- and the mainstream media would have led an outburst of national hysteria about Trump-unleashed hate. And there would have been riots in Chicago and many other major American cities.
4. The most frightening aspect of the crime was that the racist sadists who committed it broadcast it live on Facebook, laughing all the way through. In this regard, they share something frightening with the Islamic State group. Unlike the Nazis and Communists, who tried their best to hide their atrocities, radical Islamists and these young blacks made every effort to inform the world about them.
This is actually a new low in the long, dark history of human evil. It is horrific enough to commit great evil. But to be proud of it to the point of wanting the world to know about it, that is a new level of evil.
5. A universal root of modern evil is the belief that one -- or one's group -- is, more than anything else, a victim, especially when it is based on a mostly false narrative. There would not have been a Nazi movement without the belief that the Germans were victims. That gave them the green light to hurt others with impunity. So has the vast lie that permeates the Islamic world -- that it is a victim of the West. And the same goes for individuals whose primary identity is that of victim.
The left's narrative that says blacks are victims more than anything else -- of "systemic" racism, racist police, racist banks, racist universities and white privilege -- will inevitably lead to more violence on the part of blacks. People who see themselves as victims lose their conscience -- especially when they aren't.
It is yet another way in which Democrats and the left have worsened the state of black America specifically and worsened the state of America in general.