You know all about the bombing that occurred outside of the Colorado Springs chapter of the NAACP last Tuesday, right? No? Well, the FBI is investigating the act of potential domestic terrorism after a homemade pipe bomb exploded but failed to ignite a 5-gallon gas container to which it was rigged.
The bombing happened Tuesday morning against the wall of a building shared by the local chapter of the NAACP and an adjacent barbershop. No one was injured, but the blast shook the building considerably — and the black community even more. But frankly, the actual attack is not the main reason I was startled. The NAACP has a history of being the target of violence, and unfortunately this event doesn’t come as a surprise. What outraged me was the mainstream media’s failure to cover an event of this magnitude.
According to the news site Think Progress, only one of the three major TV news stations — CNN, MSNBC and Fox News — discussed the incident on air within 24 hours. That coverage, which was not substantial, was seen on CNN at 6:34 a.m. Wednesday — 16 hours after the bombing. The attack the FBI is investigating as a possible act of domestic terrorism was so poorly covered that some residents of Colorado Springs weren’t aware a bombing occurred in their own city.
To understand the severity of this attack, and why it should have been covered more, let’s look at a timeline of events. The NAACP has championed for equality and progress for people of color since 1909 — longer than any other civil rights organization. In past months, this specific chapter has been especially active, involving itself in local policing issues and calling for prayer vigils following the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown decisions. On Jan. 5, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund asked Missouri Circuit Court Judge Maura McShane to appoint a special prosecutor and examine the grand jury proceedings that did not indict Officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown. Just 12 hours later, on an almost-tragic Tuesday morning, the bomb was rigged and detonated outside the NAACP’s building.
The investigation is ongoing, but it’s rather obvious to me this attack was an act of retaliation as a result of the NAACP’s advocacy for justice in these recent cases. If so, such an attempt to silence them seems like an ugly page torn out of a book from 1951 — when a prominent NAACP field secretary and his wife were killed by a bomb detonated in Mims, Florida, on Christmas Day. It’s deeply concerning.
Even more disconcerting, however, is the hampering of knowledge of the attack by not broadcasting it sufficiently. If a pipe bomb explodes outside of a particularly vocal chapter of a civil rights organization which has endured more than 100 years of threats, bombings and assassinations, it should be all over the news.
Our nation is immersed in a tense, racially charged conversation about police brutality. When the media fails to detail what could be backlash against unrest in the black community, they’re hiding the violence that people of color face when they speak out. Furthermore, if the media chooses to provide extensive coverage of the violence by several extremists during the #BlackLivesMatter protests but fails to mention a vicious attack on the black community, they’re unfairly skewing coverage and depriving the nation of the complete story.
We’re trying to engage in meaningful dialogue to ease racial tensions and prevent future tragedies, but the media is depicting a violently outspoken black community while ignoring a cold-blooded attack aimed at silencing it. They’re presenting a one-sided conversation and hindering progress as a result.
So, as the FBI continues its search for the perpetrator, this case needs to make its way to the spotlight. We have sat through weeks of coverage of the back-turning and tantrum-filled divorce between New York City Police and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, so we should be able to follow a bombing that seems to have been an attempt to kill members of the NAACP. All lives matter, and the media needs to report accordingly.
Christopher Wilde is a UF biochemistry freshman.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 1/12/2015 under the headline “NAACP bombing lacks media attention"]
