In Florida, a 13 year-old white boy is savagely beaten on a school bus by three black thugs.  Yet it gains not a fraction of the attention paid by the press of the whole Western world to Oprah Winfrey’s claims to have fallen prey to “racism” while perusing a fancy boutique in Switzerland.

The racial double standards accentuated by the juxtaposition of these two events couldn’t be more glaring.

Winfrey is a billionaire, one of the wealthiest, most famous, and, to the extent that she’s done more than rub elbows with the biggest names in Hollywood and American politics, one of the most influential human beings on the planet. If anyone qualifies as “privileged,” to use the left’s lingo, it is Winfrey.

The Florida boy who was beaten senseless, like the shop clerk whom Winfrey accused of “racism,” is an obscure figure of modest means. Again, parroting the left, he is among the “powerless” or “voiceless.”

The racially-oriented cruelty to which Winfrey’s allegedly been subjected consists in her having been denied the opportunity to inspect a nearly $40,000.00 pocketbook.

The cruelty to which the 13 year-old from Florida was subjected is a vicious beating by three black cowards.

Within the last couple of days, Winfrey’s “victimizer” has staunchly rejected her accusation.  Immediately thereafter, Winfrey began backpedaling, going even so far as to apologize for all of the attention that this incident has received.

Winfrey, you see, was less than fully truthful, if she wasn’t outright dishonest, about her treatment at the proverbial hands of the white shop clerk in Switzerland.

The 13 year-old, however, really did suffer at the literal hands of his assailants: he was beaten mercilessly and then robbed. The incident was caught on video and his tormentors have confessed to the charges against them.

Still, Winfrey’s non-incident throws the world off of its axis while the plight of this poor 13 year-old is neglected. The media rushes to elicit sympathy—and guilt—for another alleged black victim, even if she happens to be among the most fortunate human beings to have ever lived, and even if the “indignity” to which she was supposedly subjected is not exactly the stuff of which the annals of human suffering are filled.  At the same time, the media rushes just as quickly to suppress the deeds of black victimizers—even when they engage in acts of sheer barbarity.

Moving beyond these two events, there seems to be no end to the racial double standards.

First, loudly and proudly, we’re all supposed to decry racial discrimination when the discriminators are white and those discriminated against are black. To do otherwise is to betray one’s “racism.” However, unless one loudly and proudly endorses so-called “affirmative action”—racial discrimination in favor of blacks—one is “racist.”

So, the “racist” is he who seeks to place blacks at a disadvantage with respect to whites. No less of a “racist” is the person who refuses to give blacks an advantage over whites.

Second, it is “racist” for a white person to render judgments about “black America” on the bases of the actions of individual blacks.  This explains why, say, “racial profiling” is held by the professional “anti-racists” to be morally obscene.

Yet it is not “racist” for blacks (and whites) to complain endlessly about the transgressions of “white America.”  Very few white Americans—including Southerners—owned slaves or had anything but contempt for those whites, like the men who beat and murdered poor Emmet Till, who aspired to treat blacks cruelly.   Moreover, if not for the gallant efforts of legions of white Americans, the injustices of the past would be the injustices of the present.

And yet whites are judged collectively while blacks are freed of such an oppressive restraint.

Third, when whites flee those areas that lower and underclass blacks begin to inhabit, it is called “white flight” and chalked up to “racism.”  But when blacks do the same, it is called “movin’ on up” and applauded.  Though as John Perazzo noted in The Myths that Divide Us, at least as many blacks fled the chronic dysfunction of the black underclass in the 1980’s and beyond as did whites in preceding decades.

Fourth, for the scandalous rate of criminality and violence among blacks, young black men in particular, an explanation in “root causes” is always sought out. Yet “root causes” are never, ever invoked when it comes to accounting for “white racism.”  It is understandable, even justifiable, that blacks should harbor a violent, even murderous, rage toward whites for centuries of oppression.  But that whites may be wary of blacks is chalked up as the species of some raw, uncaused prejudice.

Finally, blacks commit a vastly larger share of interracial crime than that perpetrated by whites.  Relatively rarely are they charged with “hate” crimes. For example, five black guttersnipes in Knoxville, Tennessee carjack, abduct, rape, torture, and murder a young white couple, but because some of the assailants had white girlfriends and because, as far as could be determined, none of them had used any racial epithets in connection with their victims, race is deemed not to have played any role whatsoever in this outrage.

Every effort is made to discern the intentions of black perpetrators.

Such is not the case when it comes to whites.

According to the doctrine of “institutional racism,” white society is incorrigibly “racist”—even if white individuals have the best of intentions. More exactly, even if whites are consciously well meaning toward blacks, subconsciously they entertain the most degrading of stereotypes concerning them.

There are more racial double standards that could be listed. Space precludes it here.  Still, these five are plenty enough to get going that “honest” discussion of race that Eric Holder says he wants.