Racism Alive And Well in the USA

I always like to think the best of the American people - kind, generous, warm-hearted folks. Most of them, I'm sure, are precisely that. Yet every now and again, something comes along to test that assessment, and today is one of those days.

Lately on MSNBC there has been a series of news stories concerning the tragic death of a child or teen. I don't mean violent deaths but deaths resulting from a long battle with a terminal illness such as leukemia or other conditions that I can't even pronounce much less spell. At the bottom of these stories there is usually a place to post comments, and they have been overwhelmingly sympathetic to the deceased children and their families. There are pages and pages of comments like, "My prayers go out to the family of that courageous little girl," or "He's with the angels now," and "Oh how awful for the parents and family of such a brave child!"

But then this story comes along:

MAUMERE, Indonesia -- A 10-year-old girl was swallowed by a crocodile as her father watched helplessly, Indonesian officials said. The girl, named Juraida, was hunting for turtles with her father and brother in East Nusatenggara province when a giant saltwater crocodile sprang up from a river and pulled her in, The Jakarata Post reported.

One would expect similar comments to a story like this one. But no. Many people wrote things like, "This isn't even news" or "Why is this even being reported?" Others made jokes about not going to Indonesia for a vacation, others debated about the behavior of crocodiles ("Crocodiles don't eat their victims right away. Instead they stuff the bodies under a rock and wait for the salt water to tenderize the meat") and still others tried to form a conspiracy theory around it ("Has anyone considered the possibility that the father did this on purpose?" and another said "Maybe the father killed the girl and blamed it on the crocodile"). One person went on a tirade using this story as a springboard to bash environmentalists and animal rights activists. A couple of people brought up population density ("One less mouth to feed!" or "Perhaps when the US has a billion people, life won't be as valuable here, either.") To this last person, I just want to yell at him - it's Indonesia, you moron, not China. The US has more people than Indonesia! But what do you expect from people like this. Intelligence? Of course it goes without saying that, judging by the comments, the value of life here has already been downgraded several times. How angry would an American become if someone from Indonesia said, "Well, perhaps if we had 310 million people in our country, we wouldn't care about our children, either."

And then the inevitable happened. Finally, after a lot of scrolling, I found the very first sympathetic comment: "That's the most horrifying thing I've ever heard!" While that's certainly not as sympathetic as, "She's in the arms of the angels now," I suppose it's still better than, "One less mouth to feed!"

But the response to that sympathetic comment was what was inevitable: "Even more horrifying than Obama being re-elected?"

*sigh*

And so it went...

Perhaps if an American child had been devoured in front of her parents - especially a white child - the comments would not have been so callous or irrelevant. No doubt she would be receiving a hug from God right about now. But, because this girl was Asian in a far away country, who really cares, right?

After all, this isn't news.