Racism not Paranoia

Yesterday I wrote about racial overdetermination--reading into race. This morning I read this CNN article and saw footage of an African American news reporter being attacked by a group of white people in South Carolina for doing her job: reporting.

For more on this attack and the racial slurs against this reporter, click on this link for the CNN article (and you can also click on a video link for footage captured by a white film crew also in the area).

Basically, two African American reporters, a cameraman and a newscaster, were reporting on a homicide in a South Carolina neighborhood. Another news team, comprised of a white newscaster and a white cameraman, stood by and watched while the African American newscaster was attacked--filmed the whole thing.

Four people have been charged in the assault. They cannot be prosecuted for a hate crime because SOUTH CAROLINA HAS NO LAWS PROSECUTING FOR HATE CRIMES. And the two white news reporters will not be arrested for standing by and doing nothing (although I suppose we should all be thankful that this was captured on tape--maybe the white newscaster was the white man helping to hold back one of the women trying to attack the black newscaster? Or maybe he was just watching from the sidelines. Hard to tell).