Information Related to "Why This Death Didn't Count"
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Why This Death Didn't Count |
Most Americans, and many in other countries, have heard of Matthew Shepard, the 21- year-old Wyoming college student who in October 1998 was robbed, beaten and left to die on a fence in an alleged antihomosexual "hate crime." Details of his death and the trials of his murderers were recounted endlessly in newspapers and television news programs. He became a cause cÈlËbre for hate-crime legislation and the subject of several books and at least two made-for-TV movies.
Few, however, have ever heard of Jesse Dirkhising. That's not surprising, since the Arkansas seventh-grader's tragic death less than a year later, in September 1999, and the circumstances surrounding it were not considered newsworthy by those who shape the news we hear.
The difference, as some media watchers have pointed out, is that the two men who tied up and blindfolded 13-year-old Jesse Dirkhising, gagged him with his own underwear and repeatedly sodomized him before he suffocated were homosexuals. When Mr. Shepard was murdered, a great outcry arose for more hate-crime legislation. When Jesse Dirkhising was murdered, not only was there no outcry for hate-crime legislation, there were extremely few news sources that even carried the story.
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