Craziest Thing I've Ever Seen on National TV News

By Mark Yarbrough

I didn’t believe it when I heard a national news anchor and a Harvard professor talking about why people should not report violent crimes committed by Muslims or black people.

A joke, perhaps. Or something taken out of context.

So I followed the link to WND.com and there it was in black and white. Along with a video of MSNBC anchor Melissa Harris-Perry and Harvard divinity professor Leila Ahmed doing the impossible.

Dr. Ahmed was chastising a reporter for an article that detailed violence against women in the Arab and Muslim world. Ahmed did not want to give any “fuel, fodder to people who simply hate Arabs and Muslims in this climate of our day.”

MSNBC anchor Melissa Harris-Perry had set up the response when she claimed violence is often unreported in the black community because the police are racist and reporting it will make the black community look bad.

It is extremely unusual to catch a news anchor and a Harvard professor talking on air about how they're going to shape the news to protect their favorite religious, ethnic or racial groups. They usually do it at the MoveOn.org conventions instead.

But I thought this story was important because it fit into a book lots of reporters and elected officials all over the country are reading: "White Girl Bleed a Lot: The return of racial violence to America and how the media ignore it."

The book puts into print what a lot of people have been wondering about: The explosion of racial violence all over the country over the last three years. This book documents hundreds of incidents in more than 50 cities.

Not just in the big cities, but also in places like Wisconsin, Minnesota, and even Iowa and Peoria. And a lot of it is on YouTube; you can see for yourself by following the links in the book.

As troubling as the violence is, the willingness of the press to ignore it, rationalize it, justify it, even not be truthful about it is just as bad. In Chicago, the superintendent of police said he knew who was responsible for a wave of racial crime in this city: Sarah Palin.

That was something else I would not have believed had I not seen it. Lots more of that in the book.

"White Girl Bleed a Lot" is full of crazy stories just like that. Stories that would be funny if they were not so deadly serious.

"White Girl Bleed a Lot" is a masterpiece of reporting. The author, Colin Flaherty, sticks to the facts. He does not generalize. Or use stereotypes. Or give aid and comfort to racists of any kind.

Nor does he apologize for documenting some very dangerous and troubling behavior that, if taken each incident by itself, might not be worth national attention. But when linked together in a pattern is troubling to the extreme. And which we ignore at our own peril.