"Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor... Your Anglo"

Devoted reader Philip Pangrac had a fitting email postscript to my post about discrimination against Haitian refugees, with the subject line "Give me your poor, your tired, your anglo." He writes:

I think Elian was so well received by the media because his skin was paler than the Haitians'. I also noticed this during the summer when kidnapping stories were all the rage (despite the fact that kidnappings were--say it with me--lower than before). The media would give all the attention to white skinned and preferably blonde haired kids, with ethnic children recieving less attention on the average. If Jon Benet was black, do you think the media and tabloids would have cared a month after she died, let alone a couple years?

No, I don't. I think if Jon Benet was black she would have been a newsbrief on the bottom of page 12, if she was in the paper at all.