Brian Nichols: America's New Scapegoat

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You could see it shaping up fast---faster than the reporters could speak. Black man on the loose. Dangerous and armed. Anti-social. We know the routine. When another black man falls, we are all on trial. This is how I felt when I came home last Friday afternoon and saw the folks on CNN and MSNBC alerting the nation about Brian Nichols and his "murderous" transgressions in an Atlanta courthouse. And for the next 26 hours until they apprehended him, I watched in anger, suspicion, empathy, remorse and fear. I listened to several networks cover the "capture" on Saturday as if slave catchers had cornered an escaped slave. One man when interviewed near the apartment complex where Nichols surrendered, said that he wished that he could have gotten his hands on him. Later in the same Fox News news cast, Geraldo Rivera said, "They got the S.O.B." And then there was the woman, Ashleybrian Smith, who supposedly was chosen by Nichols as the angel that would save him from death. Much of the media coverage of Brian Nichol's story deserves scrutiny.

Now, don't get me wrong. What Nichols is alleged to have done is horrific and, when tried and convicted, he deserves a fitting penalty. I can not move my keyboard to say anything different about the tragedy of these murders. The rampant racism, on the other hand, is enough to drive many of us to question the nation where we live. How far have come?