Just when I think our future is an enlightened, post racial one, a story like this comes out and makes me realize that the collective IQ of most of the U.S. is less than 100.

I HATE Jezebel, but even a broke clock gets the time right twice a day. They got it right when they were outraged that some fans of the book, Hunger Games, were mad two of the main characters in the book–“Rue” and “Thresh”–are black. And another WTC…I’m at Sprouts market and I see the cover of People and guess who’s NOT included on the cover.

Note the subtitle. It says, “The Stars,” plural. How many stars are on the cover? What’s that you say? Just one? Oh.

And for context, Rue looks like this:

And this is “Thresh”:

A series of racist Tweets revealed much, but one in particular stands out to me, and reinforces what many of us have suspected:

Let’s examine what this shite-for-brains said for a second. Because “Rue,” is black, her death is not as sad. Why? Because she doesn’t matter as much. Because she is a black girl. Because, hey; we all know when black folks die–especially the darkie girls–it’s like 2/3 less as important than when a white person dies and 1/3 less important than when a black male dies. (To be fair, the boneheads are also salty because Thresh is a black dude. But…he doesn’t die. Does he?)

The magnitude of what this means is profound. And one commenter on another blog nailed it to the wall:

We as BW lose out when we’re portrayed in ways that don’t reflect our realities. This is our general complaint about the media: that we’re shown in ways that cast us as the other at best, as deviant in the common use, and at worst, as a threat to order, civility or normality. This constant depiction of us in this way is the reason why we don’t see our missing children on TV alerts – little black girls are rarely seen as victims. It’s why we don’t see nerdy black girls, or scared black girls, or ordinary girl next door black girls in the news. It’s exactly why people are in a snit over the casting in Hunger Games, because of course, even when a black girl is specifically listed in the text as being a main character, the fact that she’s given a primary role means that she’s read as White.

And, if little black girls aren’t “victims,” then they don’t need protecting, right? When you people demonstrate that that is true, don’t be surprised when others on the outside make it the narrative.