Sins Of Omission

Tim Blair calls them 'men of no description' when certain Australian newspapers edit out any mention of ethnic appearance in police crime reports.

Agence France Presse and News Limited go one further in a report on a rape and subsequent circumstances in the United States:

ONE of four boys charged with raping an eight-year-old girl in the US state of Arizona last week will be prosecuted as an adult. The details of the case have shocked local officials and provoked outrage across the United States after the parents of the young victim disowned her on grounds she had "shamed" her family.

It's a matter of disgraceful shame too - on the part of AFP and News - that they did not extend the 'details of the case' to mentioning pertinent facts.

For throughout the remainder of the story, there is no mention of the fact that both the victim and her attackers were Liberian refugees, something which was easy to find in under 60 seconds by Googling the case and reading US reports.

It's quite plain that the agency and/or the news outlet edited out this information so that readers' prejudices against Americans could freely have their head, clearing the way for a picture to form of dastardly rednecks disowning a child raped by equally ignorant and typically thuggish white American boys.

I made three or four attempts early in the piece yesterday to set the record straight in comments but none were published by News' information gatekeepers, though, late in the day, an American reader was able to get it past them.

However, by then the damage was done, and not just in furthering the vile anti-American prejudices of AFP and many journalists generally.

Lost is a vitally important opportunity to consider the implications of Western nations accepting refugees who are psychologically damaged from years of civil war in their homelands.

This story is a stark and shocking example of how Americans are paying for their kindness. In Australia and Britain too, there are like events relating to refugees from similarly war-torn African countries.

It really is time that Western governments considered the welfare of their existing nationals and undertook to assist in resolving conflicts and fostering extended periods of social stability in troubled overseas countries rather than just importing their damaged goods and imagining this largesse will instantly cure the horrors that ail them.

-- Nick

Footnote: Andrew Bolt asks some of the same questions in his blog today.