Murder of Chris Lane warrants as much attention as death of Trayvon Martin - Examiner.com

According to The Daily Caller, principal deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest claimed to have not heard of the murder of Australian Chris Lane when asked about the tragedy by a Fox News correspondent. Earnest said that, "This sounds like a pretty tragic case. I wouldn't want to get ahead of the legal process here and it's clear that law enforcement officials are involved and are investigating." This sounds like a level-headed response from an Obama administration official who does not want to get involved in a sensitive case that has not yet been fully resolved in the courts, a response that is completely antithetical to the powerful and emotional response from the president after Trayvon Martin was killed.

Of course the press secretary has heard of the Chris Lane murder. We understand why he has to claim otherwise, so that he may avoid having to make any comments about the affair. Second, Earnest knows full well that President Obama's silence on the Lane murder stands in stark contrast to the way Obama responded to Trayvon Martin's death. Although the leftist media have gone out of their way to avoid covering the Lane tragedy, the outrage over his murder has been significant enough to reach millions despite the barriers erected by the leftist media. The American people know that were Lane an African-American, and his perpetrators white, Democrats would be speaking out against racism. The Congressional Black Caucus would be pushing for yet another national discussion on race relations in America. President Obama would be calling Lane his son. The media would be investigating to find out if the young white boys had a Rush Limbaugh app on their iPhones or whether their fathers attended any recent Tea Party town hall meetings.

The president and many other progressives actually believe that African-American violence against whites is justified as a reasonable and warranted expression by young blacks who live in a society that oppresses them because of their race. Were the president and other Democrats truly concerned about racism and race-based violence, they would have given as much attention to Chris Lane's death as they did to Trayvon Martin's. The important difference is that there really isn't any evidence suggesting that Martin was shot because of his race, whereas Lane may very well have been singled out for his whiteness. In the mind of Barack Obama, the thugs who killed Chris Lane are the real victims. Lane's death is nothing more than a necessary consequence of racial oppression, a signal that white people had better stop discriminating against African-Americans if they want to remain secure in their communities.

During today's press conference, Josh Earnest added that, "But any act of violence is something that — the president I think himself has spoken pretty eloquently about violence in our communities and he stood at this podium a few weeks ago where he talked about his concern about the impact that violence is having on, in particular, young people in this country." Were the president so concerned about violence and our young people, what other recent event than the murder of Lane so poignantly reflects the need for an honest, thoughtful, and apolitical discussion about this issue? Doing so now would be as improper as the politically-motivated comments by Australian Tim Fischer, but certainly this tragedy warrants a frank and honest discussion that is necessary at some point but will be avoided by many who fear the truth. The most we will hear from the political left is that the type of violence which led to the murder of Lane should be "frowned upon," as tweeted by Jesse Jackson. What we should really frown upon is the moral and cultural decay in the African-American community that has resulted from decades of progressive-socialist policies and the exploitation of such tragedies by those on the left.