Topic: NewsBusters
Dan Riehl keeps racking up the stupidity. In an Aug. 25 NewsBusters post, headlined "Allen Critic S. R. Sidarth Exposed," Riehl asserts that Sidarth -- the University of Virginia student videotaping Republican Sen. George Allen's campaign for Allen's opponent, James Webb, whom Allen famously called a "macaca" -- was "making fun of an Hispanic William & Mary student's death."
Unfortunately for Riehl, the UVA discussion board he cites contains no racial slurs on Sidarth's part, and not much "making fun" either. Sidarth started the thread by merely linking to an article about the W&M student's death -- but offering no comment, racial or otherwise, beyond the link. Later in the thread, when the discussion shifted to sports, Sidarth added another post: "Al Groh left the NFL to coach UVA." The article on the student's death, by the way, offers no obvious clue that the dead student was Hispanic; his last name, Reyno, is not an obviously Hispanic name.
So we have Sidarth "exposed" as someone who likes football and, apparently, doesn't like William & Mary.
Riehl later updated his post to explain what the hell his point was:
I understand some are questioning the point of this post, so please allow me to clear this up from my point of view. The Washington Post has been showing us this sensitive, hurt young man named SR Sidarth for a week. Now, we find out that Sidarth is fully capable of using the death of another individual, who also happened to be Hispanic, as a means of feeding his ego and touting his school. That really is not disputable if you read the thread Sidarth himself started and followed.
In essence, this allegedly sensitive young man had no problem exploiting the actual death of another individual for some props and yuks. Now, where is the sensitivity in that? My point in addressing Reyes ethnicity is because it is a fact of the story and said ethnicity did not give Sidarth pause. So, how sensitive is he really to the issues of race when it comes to others? Obviously, not very.
But I am addressing his obvious lack of sensitivity, not calling him a racist. Frankly, I think mocking a young man's death is just a bit more repugnant than calling someone a silly name. And if you wish to suggest he wasn't mocking the man's death by posting that story so it could be held up to ridicule, then you need to either read the thread, or consider extending that same generousity to Senator Allen. Because in Sidarth's case, holding up Reyes' death to ridicule is precisely what was done.
And no one can even agree on the origin of the word to conclude it was racist. If Allen is going to hang for being insensitive, SR Sidarth is not worthy of tightening the noose given his own grossly insensitive actions in initiating the thread at issue.
Despite claiming that he is "not calling him a racist," Riehl -- by bringing up the dead student's alleged ethnicity -- certainly heavily implied that Sidarth was, in fact, a racist. Riehl is the only one talking about the race of the dead student here -- not Sidarth, not even anyone else on that thead. And of course, to make the point that he wasn't calling Sidarth a racist, he brings up the dead student's ethnicity again and, to top things, gets his name wrong, calling him "Reyes" (it's "Reyno").
Hey, NewsBusters: Are you really sure you want this guy blogging for you?
