Shooting of Australian Baseball Player Deserves More Media Attention

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August 21, 2013 by kujhawk

By Evan Dunbar

A 22 year-old Australian baseball player was killed in Duncan, Oklahoma Tuesday. He was allegedly shot in the back by three teens, one of whom said “he thinks it is all a joke.”

The victim, Christopher Lane of Melbourne, was walking on the side of a road on the north side of Duncan when he was gunned down. Prosecutors say there appears to be no motive for this crime, saying that the teens just shot Lane “for the fun of it.”

Chancey Allen Luna, 16, and James Francis Edwards Jr., 15 both of Duncan, will be tried as adults for first-degree murder. The other person involved, Michael Dewayne Jones, 17, also from Duncan, will also be tried as an adult for using a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon and with accessory to first-degree murder after the fact.

No good will come out of this

Lane had just recently returned to the U.S. from Australia with his girlfriend the previous week. Memorials occurred in Duncan and Melbourne this week, as friends and family of Lane across two continents wonder why something like this could happen.

Lane, 22, was pursuing a baseball career at East Central University in Ada, OK. Courtesy: East Central University

“He’s left his mark as we know, and you know there’s not going to be any good come out of this, because it was just so senseless,” Lane’s father Peter Lane said. “It’s happened, it’s wrong, and we’re just trying to deal with it the best we can.”

Lane had given up an Australian rules football career to pursue baseball in the U.S., and was playing for East Central University in Ada, 85 miles from Duncan.

Now, I have been on different social media websites all day, and I have only seen this story mentioned once. I have been watching ESPN, and there has been no mention of it on any of the network’s shows. I know that I reserve this blog for my opinions on sports, but just this once I am going to delve a little deeper into the heart of this story.

Not a racial issue? 

Reading about this tragedy sickens me. The unnecessary pain and suffering that these people are being put through is terrible and I hurt for everyone affected by this random act of violence.

But where is the national outrage? Is it because the victim is not American? Why are people not rallying around this case for stricter gun laws? Is it because it doesn’t seems like a racially motivated crime? The teens involved are black. The victim was white. The teens have said they “wanted to watch someone die.” What if it had been a black man? Or a Hispanic? Would the media coverage be different?

Where are the political pundits spinning this every which-way? Where are the activists using this to promote their agendas? Oh, wait, there aren’t any, because in today’s society the media only covers stories that they can editorialize and spin to make the general public not see the truth of the matter.

So of course you won’t see a Trayvon Martin-like response to this brutal murder. No, it will be swept up with the other killings that happen everyday that we never hear about all over the country. The gang killings, the black-on-black crime, the drug-related murders. Yup, this will just be jumbled in with those. You might see a report about it for a day on the networks, but nothing more after that.

Story doesn’t fit the mold for racebaiters

The three teens involved with the shooting said they did it because they were “bored.” Courtesy: CNN

This was three teens (two black and one who appears to be white or bi-racial)  randomly targeting a white person to murder. How is this not a racially motivated crime? They said they were doing it “for fun.” But no, in America we can’t have the race issue go both ways. It always has to be the whites oppressing and targeting blacks, not the other way around.

Where are the racebaiters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? Nowhere to be found, of course, because this racism does not fit their platform. if they had their say, they would make sure racial issues in this county are never solved so they can continue to laugh all the way to the bank. The media has become a propaganda wagon for racial issues, but only the ones where they can make the most money.

If the racebaiters and media truly cared about the future of America and racism, this story would be at the top of every news show this entire week. But we know it won’t be, and that is what is wrong with society.