France Riots: Coding Gets Bizarre

As Day Six of France's Muslim youth riots draws to a close, the politicians' and media's obsession with not saying who is rioting is getting bizarre.

In a BBC story called Anger girps Paris riot suburb, the reporter doesn't just ignore the fact that it's Muslims who are rioting, he goes to great lengeths to misrepresent the rioters.

Besides never mentioning the words Muslim, Arab or Islam, the 24-paragraph story distorts the situation by focusing on a family of black immigrants from North Africa, not Arab immigrants. Only one resident of Clichy is quoted in the story -- a black from Tunisia.

For the record, Tunisia's population is 98% Arab and 98% Muslim.

How hard did this reporter have to hunt for a black Tunisian?

In another BBC report we find this quote:

"Let's avoid stigmatising areas," Dominique de Villepin told parliament. "Let's... avoid confusing a disruptive minority with the vast majority of youngsters who want to integrate into society and succeed."

Is that the vast majority of all youngsters or the vast majority of Muslim youngsters? It's obviously the latter, but this compliment to France's Muslims is unintelligible because of its PC filter.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Micolas Sarkozy called the rioters "scum." He did not call them "Muslim scum," which is a good thing. But just as de Villepin's compliment was unintelligible because of PC, Sarkozy's insult was possible because of it.

This know-but-don't-tell policy of the media makes it impossible to relate these riots to any analysis of tension between the Muslim and white communities, the Islamic and Christian communities, or even of the tensions within the Muslim commuity. Those are important stories that just can't be told if the MSM is going to continue to not report that the rioters are Muslims.