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  • 2008-09-25 (xsd:date)
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  • Did a Fire Kill Black and Mexican Families But Spare a White Couple? (en)
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  • The first two versions of the item quoted below began appearing on the Internet in August 2008. One asserted the story was harvested from the Los Angeles Times; the other that the fire happened in New Jersey. Variant versions soon began popping up all over: No such news account was published in the Los Angeles Times on 1 August 2008 (the date given in one form of the message), nor could we find any report of a fire in New Jersey from that timeframe which matched this tale. The titles given the piece (e.g., Good ole Jesse and Jesse Jackson outraged in NJ) provide the context for the fiction: It's a swipe at those who are regarded as constantly soapboxing about the hardships unfairly visited upon minorities while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the life choices that might contribute to their less-advantaged state. At first blush, says the item, while it might appear one demographic received preferential treatment (the Mexican and black families perished in the fire, yet the white family survived, implying that firefighters pushed themselves to rescue the light-skinned folks while leaving the dwelling's darker-hued occupants to fend for themselves), upon further examination it was the lifestyles of the people involved that led to the outcomes described — the Mexicans and blacks burned to a crisp because they were ne'er-do-wells lazing about during the day rather than being at work or at school, while the white couple escaped harm because the process of earning a living absented them from the scene of tragedy. The blacks and Mexicans are portrayed not only as shiftless but also as having reproduced like bunnies (the black family loses six members, the Mexican eight or thirteen), while the white family, by contrast, has only two members (both gainfully employed) and is therefore positioned as morally superior. The third version ups the ante by adding a Nigerian family of con artists (as to why Nigerians would be presented as such, our articles about the Nigerian and card not present scams explain all), an Islamic group of seven Kenyan welfare cheats who are all illegal immigrants, and morphs the Mexican family of eight or thirteen people into Six LA, Hispanic, heavy-duty, ex-cons. The fourth version transports the fire to London, changes the Nigerian family of con artists to a Nigerian family of six internet con artists and full time benefit cheats, alters seven Kenyan welfare cheats into seven Islamic welfare cheats, and morphs the heavy-duty Hispanic L.A. ex-cons into Albanian gang-banger ex-cons, throwing in for good measure their claiming political asylum and living off the state for free. Such characterizations position those who perished as harms to society while they were here, thus positioning the outcry raised over their loss by Jesse Jackson and others as even more ludicrous. (en)
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