Media Ignores Two Black Teens Setting Mentally-Ill White Man on Fire, Killing Him

A disturbing story emerged over the weekend. Two teens in Rochester, New York set a 53-year-old mentally-ill man on fire, ultimately killing him. Interestingly, unlike many past stories written in The New York Times and USA Today, the races of the involved parties were not mentioned. In 2021, that's rare. It turns out, the two teens are black and the now-deceased mentally-ill man was white.

I will ask a simple question: what if the roles were reversed? If two white teens randomly set a mentally-ill black man on fire, killing him — it would unequivocally be deemed an act of racism. Riots would break out, social media would go to war, buildings would burn, and talking points would appear around the clock. 

Rochester journalist and radio host Bob Lonsberry reports that the two teens instructed the victim to tell authorities they were "white" as they burned him alive. The Daily Wire confirmed Lonsberry's report.

The demand to lie about the teens' skin color delivers a strong hint that the assault and murder was possibly racially-motivated. While the order does not definitively prove racism, it's more evidence toward the label than most incidents the national media has called undoubtedly horrible acts of racism.

Columnist Amanda Prestigiacomo says, "News reports of the incidents concerning Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner and George Floyd, for example, were not shown to be connected to race, other than the media’s injection of the issue into the tragic incidents."

The police have yet to announce a motive, but do say the teens had no prior connection with the man. And the details are horrific. The teens, ages 14 and 16, snuck into the man's home on Friday, sprayed him with an ignitable fluid, and set him on fire until 70% of his body was covered in second and third-degree burns. The victim died four days later in a burn trauma unit.

The teens have been charged with only first-degree assault.

A white person hurting a black person is not, on its face, racist, yet we are always told it is. A black person hurting a white person is not, on its face, racist either, but these instances are ignored. In this case where race is a possible motive for the killing based on two reports, the mainstream press refuses to mention race and therefore refuses to consider it.

UPDATE: 13 WHAM reports the man was 53, not 70 as previous linked reports said.