A big lie at the L.A. Times

Howard Sutherland writes:

I just came on this story via a link from a Vdare blog post. The Los Angeles Times reports on the brutal murders of black African immigrants to South Africa (almost all illegal, no doubt) at the hands of frustrated and enraged South African blacks, who resent their competition for scarce work. In the very first line of the story, though, true to liberal form, the Times indulges in an incredibly misleading, though technically true, statement in its determination to keep kicking that deadest of dead horses, apartheid, and to continue the systematic vilification of white South Africans.

Here’s the quote, opening this nasty story:

DIEPSLOOT, SOUTH AFRICA—The brutal apartheid-era practice of setting opponents on fire has been revived in this country’s crowded, litter-strewn shantytowns. But now the victims are foreign migrants.

If one knew nothing of South Africa, and it’s a safe bet most L.A. Times readers know nothing of South Africa, how could one fail to conclude that the apartheid-era brutes setting opponents on fire must have been white (probably Afrikaner) defenders of apartheid, and the victims saintly fighters against apartheid?

But while the Afrikaner-run National Party wasn’t always too gentle (by Western, not black African, standards; by black African standards the Nats were gentle indeed) in maintaining apartheid, I don’t recall that white South Africans ever made a habit of immolating their political opponents.

The black nationalist/Marxist African National Congress, however, did. Anyone remember the charming Winnie Mandela, “Mother of the Nation” and wife of Nelson, and her myrmidons, and their “necklaces” of burning tires draped around the necks of other blacks who would not collaborate with the ANC?

And what is the ruling party in the multiiculturally diverse wonderland that is post-apartheid South Africa? Why, the African National Congress, of course!

LA replies:

That’s a classic of liberal lying. As my First Law puts it, under liberalism, the worse blacks behave, the worse whites must be made to appear. The LA Times reporter has just discovered the simplest way of achieving this operation: attribute black atrocities to whites.

By the way, while the mainstream conservatives expose every liberal media lie about President Bush and Sen. McCain, what are the chances that any mainstream conservative will protest this vicious misrepesentation? Perhaps the same chance that the mainstream conservatives would have held out for something other than a black-run unitary, South Africa.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 20, 2008 06:36 PM | Send