Six black men assaulted a white man outside a restaurant in Seneca, S.C. on March 17 after insulting him with a racial remark. Such was the severity of the beating and obvious racial motive that local police have referred the case to federal officials. However, contrary to their usual reaction in such matters, the national media have yet to jump on the case, and civil rights leaders have said nothing about it. The leftist media’s and “civil rights” groups’ silence on the subject stands in sharp contrast to their handling of the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Florida. The media have provided non-stop coverage of that case, often distorting the truth about it, and black leaders are demanding justice — perhaps without knowing all of the relevant facts — for the young man.
The Beating in Seneca
According to the Anderson Independent Mail, “police say they are referring the case to federal authorities to see if the men might be charged with hate crimes. Seneca Police Chief John Covington said the investigation indicated that race was a factor in the attack, so the case file would be transferred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
The trouble for Terry Moore, a 32-year-old resident of Macon, N.C., began at about 12:50 a.m. outside the Applebee’s in Seneca.
“According to a statement given later by Moore,” the newspaper reported, “he had been fishing with friends in Oconee County all day on March 16 and the group capped the day by going to the Applebee’s.”
As the group left, Moore said, he went to the restroom while his companions went to their vehicles. When he went into the parking lot, Moore said, he was taunted by members of a group of 15 to 20 blacks who called him names such as “tree honky” and “cracker.”
One of the group hit him, Moore said, and as he reached for the alleged assailant, “everything went black.”
According to one of Moore’s companions, one of the assailants used a stun gun on Moore.
Moore said that he recalled being on the ground surrounded by feet and being beaten. According to one of Moore’s companions, one of those around Moore appeared to try to protect Moore’s head from injury.
Police officers found Moore lying in the restaurant’s parking lot, the Mail reported.
Fox [News] Carolina offered more details about the police report describing the savage assault:
The report said that a woman told police that there were several black men attacking the 32-year-old white man, whose identity was redacted.
Upon exiting the restaurant he was jumped by a mob of individuals, and severely beaten about the head and torso,” said John Covington, the Seneca police chief. “The report was that racial slurs were being used toward the victim.”
The man told police that he didn’t know what happened, didn’t remember coming to the restaurant and didn’t know why he was attacked, according to the report.
Fox interviewed the victim, who has two black eyes and a swollen face. “He told us he was leaving the restaurant when a group of black men near the door called him a “tree honk,” the affiliate reported.
He said he had never heard that, but it “tickled” him, so he turned to ask them what it meant. He said that is when one man hit him, and another hit him in the head with a stun gun; he fell, and others began kicking him in the head.
Curiously, one witness stepped forward to claim Moore “was overhead inside the restaurant making racial comments about black people and using the “N” word,” Fox Carolina reported. Law enforcement officers could not confirm the report. “The person refused to give their name or a statement,” the police chief said. “Therefore, it remains uncorroborated.”
The six black men, who range in age from 18 to 25, are charged with assault and battery by mob.
All Quiet on the Media, Civil Rights Front
Searching for “Seneca,” “South Carolina” and “beating” did not return hits on the websites of the New York Times, the Washington Post, Fox News, CBS, NBC, or ABC.
MSNBC, the main site for NBC News on the Internet, carried yet another two stories about the Trayvon Martin case and ran teasers about it on their homepage. The network did find the time to edit the recording of Martin’s alleged assailant’s phone call with police to make Zimmerman appear to be a racist. It has since launched an investigation into the matter to find out what went wrong.
But observers have noted that the media’s voice isn’t the only one that seems stilled in the quest for racial justice. Nothing on the South Carolina case has been heard from, for instance, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and others, who bill themselves as “civil rights” leaders.
On the other hand, they have been pushing the Trayvon Martin story nonstop for weeks, while members of Congress are flatly accusing George Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon, of murder, a crime with which he has not been charged. An example is leftist Representative Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.): “I want America to see this sweet young boy who was hunted down like a dog, shot in the street, and his killer is still at large,” she declared.
Other Cases the Media Ignored
The Seneca beating isn’t the first vicious crime with racial overtones that the media have ignored.
The media have also been silent about the racial attack against a boy in St. Louis last February. As The New American‘s Selwyn Duke reported, the attack against Allen Coon, 13, was undoubtedly racial. “This is what you deserve. You get what you deserve, white boy,” Coon’s black assailants told him before dousing him with gasoline and setting him ablaze.
Another major crime the media ignored is the Wichita Massacre in Kansas. On Dec. 14, 2000, Jonathan and Reginald Carr wound up a week-long crime rampage by torturing five young whites and murdering four. The orgy of violence was so sadistic it nearly defies description. One victim escaped and helped bring the murderers to justice.
Yet another black-on-white murder case the major media left uncovered is the murderous frenzy known as The Knoxville Horror, in which a gang of black killers raped and murdered two whites in Knoxville, Tenn.
Covering Hoaxes
Aside from ignoring black-on-white hate crimes, the media also covers hate-crime hoaxes with remarkable intensity.
Three of the most famous shams involved what many observers have said the media should have known were preposterous charges. The first among them was that of Tawana Brawley, who claimed that white policemen in Dutchess County, New York, had raped her and covered her with feces. Al Sharpton, Brawley, and her attorneys even included the prosecutor in their list of perpetrators. The whole story turned out to be a fabrication, and the prosecutor won a defamation judgment against Sharpton, Brawley, and her attorneys.
A more recent example was that of the rape that did not occur during a lacrosse players’ party at Duke University. The case — which was given non-stop coverage by the media, particularly the New York Times — ended with the prosecutor being disbarred for prosecutorial misconduct.
Another hoax in which the mainstream media were involved with as the Jena Six case in Jena, La., which occasioned seven months of national news coverage, as the Weekly Standard noted, and mass protests in the small town. It was supposed to be, the Standard noted, quoting National Public Radio, the start of “America’s next great civil rights movement.”
That cause célèbre fizzled when the facts proved that six black teenagers severely beat a white boy, and that its racial hatred component was on the side of the attackers.
Wikipedia notes: “Lady Justice, an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems … has often been depicted wearing a blindfold.”
Most Americans have traditionally believed that champions of justice should also be blind to the color of those accused of crimes, and render their verdicts accordingly.