The Silent Crime, Part II

Knoxville, TN

In an earlier post, I wrote about the blackout by major media outlets over the Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom rape/murders. Apparently, some of the initial information put out on the case was incorrect:

1) Channon Christian was killed within one day, not held for four days (She was raped and tortured for several hours after Newsom was killed however).

2) The bodies were not mutilated as originally described (although they were still beaten, torn, and burned)

3) Channon's body was not dismembered and placed in five separate trash bags; instead her dead body was wrapped in five trash bags.

While these facts are important, I don't think they mitigate the crime very much. Besides, the trial is just starting and unfortunately I would not be surprised if there are a few more horrifying revelations along the way. Still, I want to keep this story as currently accurate as possible.

The story has generated a couple of backlashes, and even backlashes to those backlashes. One, from people who believe this is a hate crime, and can't understand Police Chief Sterling Owen saying:

"We have no evidence to support the notion that this was a race-based crime. We see this as a cold-blooded murder."

But that's just the point. Every cold-blooded murder IS a hate crime. What else would it be, a love crime? This helps illustrate the absolute absurdity and uselessness of hate crime laws. The defendants are already facing penalties of life in prison or the death penalty. What more can you do by charging them with a hate crime? Penalty wise, why do we care if they did this crime out of hatred or just for fun? I think most of the people who are insisting this is a hate crime, are not so much driven by anger against hate crimes, but by simple unfairness in the media and the justice system, which pretty much automatically assumes any crime committed by a white on any minority is a hate crime.

Also, family of the victims and government officials are speaking about their distaste that white supremacist groups are taking up this crime as a rallying cause. This is unfortunate, but the media has some culpability here as well. By hyping up the bogus Duke Rape case to absurd levels, some people feel like they deserve payback. John Gill, special counsel with the DA said:

"The DA's office is outraged they have tried to abuse the victims by using the death of loved ones for racist purposes"

Fair enough. But once again, where were any of these cries of outrage when special interests groups hyped up the racist aspects of the Duke Case, the James Byrd murder, the Amadou Diallo shooting, the Don Imus controversy, etc? Besides, other than a few die-hard white separatists, most of the critics are asking for the media to be more race-neutral, not racist, and pointing to this as an example of the media's hypocrisy in the matter.

Speaking of bias, that is the next problem. The media is not so happy about all the criticism directed their way:

On the Internet, they are a Wikipedia entry. Among white separatists, they are a tool. Within a racially divided America, they are a cause.
That they are murder victims in a horrific Knoxville crime has gotten lost in all that noise.

No, the problem is that it is the media that has forgotten this young couple, and the blogosphere that is not letting them forget it. The media's attention deficit disorder is what started the blog frenzy, and now both FOX and CNN have been forced to mention the story due to this (although they have both reported on the media bias aspects, not really on the story itself).

In the end, you have a group of criminals who are devoid of any amount of decency or respect for life whatsoever. They took this young couple, used them up, and discarded them as if they were nothing.



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