The media has treated the shootings in Oak Creek very differently from those that happened just two weeks earlier in Aurora. Only one network sent an anchor to report live from Oak Creek, and none of the networks gave the murders in Wisconsin the kind of extensive coverage that the Colorado shootings received. The print media also quickly lost interest, with the story slipping from the front page of the New York Times after Tuesday. If you get all your news from “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” you would have had no idea that anything had even happened on August 5th at all.

The tragic events in the Milwaukee suburb were also treated differently by political élites, many fewer of whom issued statements on the matter. While both Presidential candidates at least made public comments, neither visited, nor did they suspend campaigning in the state even for one day, as they did in Colorado. In fact, both candidates were in the vicinity this weekend and failed to appear. Obama hugged his children a little tighter after Aurora, but his remarks after Oak Creek referred to Sikhs as members of the “broader American family,” like some distant relatives. Romney unsurprisingly gaffed, referring on Tuesday to “the people who lost their lives at that sheik temple.” Because the shooting happened in Paul Ryan’s district, the Romney campaign delayed announcement of its Vice-Presidential choice until after Ryan could attend the funerals for the victims, but he did not speak at the service and has said surprisingly little about the incident.

As a result, the massacre in Oak Creek is treated as a tragedy for Sikhs in America rather than a tragedy for all Americans. Unlike Aurora, which prompted nationwide mourning, Oak Creek has had such a limited impact that a number of people walking by the New York City vigil for the dead on Wednesday were confused, some never having heard of the killings in the first place.

The two incidents were obviously different in important ways: Holmes shot more people, did so at the opening of a blockbuster film, and was captured alive. There were also the Olympics. However, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Oak Creek would have similarly dominated the news cycle if the shooter had been Muslim and the victims had been white churchgoers. Both the quantity and content of the coverage has been clearly shaped by the identities of the shooter and his victims.

The relative neglect of Oak Creek was not a foregone conclusion. Although the shooting took place at a gurdwara, or Sikh temple, the narrative of the incident contained enough archetypal elements to be compelling to all Americans. The murders took place at a house of worship on a Sunday. There was a heroic president of the congregation who, even though he was sixty-two, battled an armed attacker, sacrificing his own life. There were the children who sounded the alarm and joined fourteen women huddled in a tiny pantry for hours, listening to the agony of the wounded outside. There were the relatives at home, receiving texts and phone calls from loved ones. There were heroic police officers, a shootout, and the attacker’s death by self-inflicted gunshot.

There is also Wade Page himself, with his hate tattoos, photographs in front of swastikas, and his Southern Poverty Law Center dossier. Page so fits our stereotypes of white supremacists that, if he did not exist, it would have been necessary for Quentin Tarantino to invent him. Page appears to have hated blacks, Jews, Latinos, and probably everything else associated with modern multicultural America. Here is a figure whose malevolence should frighten all Americans, not just Sikhs, in the same way that Holmes should terrify all of us, not just those who watch movies at midnight.

Sadly, the media has ignored the universal elements of this story, distracted perhaps by the unfamiliar names and thick accents of the victims’ families. They present a narrative more reassuring to their viewers, one which rarely uses the word terrorism and which makes it clear that you have little to worry about if you’re not Sikh or Muslim. As a Sikh teaching at a Catholic university in the Midwest, I was both confused and offended by this framing. One need not be Pastor Niemöller to understand our shared loss, or to remember that a similar set of beliefs motivated Timothy McVeigh to kill a hundred and sixty-eight (mainly white) Americans in Oklahoma City.

A week later, post-Paul Ryan, Oak Creek has largely receded from public consciousness, along with the important policy issues it raises. There will be little debate about claims that the Department of Homeland Security has understaffed its analysis of domestic counterrorism in response to political pressure. There will also be little attention to the accusation that the military has repeatedly been willing to accept white supremacists in its ranks. Representative Peter King will continue to hold hearings about the threat posed to America by Islamic extremism while refusing to investigate domestic right-wing groups, even though right-wing groups are more worrisome by any systematic measure.

In the end, the events of Oak Creek are tragic on at least two levels. There is the tragedy inherent in the brutal murders, the heroic sacrifices, the anguished waiting, and the grief of relatives whose lives will never be the same. But there is also the larger one of our inability to understand this attack as an assault upon the American dream and therefore a threat to us all. The cost of this second tragedy is one that the entire nation will bear.

Naunihal Singh is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame

Read more Why Oak Creek Isn't Being Treated as a Tragedy for All Americans : The New Yorker

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huge proof that the media is not as liberal as some would suggest. if it were, events like this would get a ton more coverage. instead, barely anyone even knows about it. had this happened in a church, it would be headline news for months.

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there was shooting yesterday at a school.

Well you are taking it in a wrong sense. Media is fairly liberal when it comes to politics and domestic issues. Though I agree that American media whether liberal or not, is definitely jingoistic and ignorant. This is what sells and that's how media has mold itself.

But then again in today's age which country's media is not? India? UK? Europe? All are same. Media is hardly trustworthy. Instead of trusting media I'd rather look at independent reputable resources.

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kya bood-o-bash poocho ho purab ke sakino! hum ko gareeb jan ke, hans hans pukar ke...
jis ko falak ne loot ke veeran kar diya, hum rehne walay hain usi ujray dyar ke -

british media is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to covering important global issues. no BS, they present the facts and let you come up with your conclusions. watching the news in the US is like watching a reality show, all the anchors are clowning around, and half the stories they cover have absolutely no scope. oh no some cat got stuck in a tree in middle of nowhere, virginia, let's spend 30 mintues talking about the heroic efforts to rescue a cat!! it then follows that americans are so ignorant about events going on in the rest of the world.

but on this story, if this attack happened in a church, it would be headline news for months. that's the point. theres a large wing of the republican party that loves to pretend that christianity is somehow under attack in this country. and yet events like this prove without a shadow of a doubt that it is not. attack in a synogogue, mosque, gurdwara etc none of these would get more than a few days of coverage. but an attack in a church? man it would be on every station for WEEKS. which i don't have a problem with since the majority of the country is christian, that's fine. but then republicans need to stop acting like somehow they are under attack, or that christianity does not dominate national sentiments in this country. please call a spade a spade, that's all i ask.

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i hate generalizing and being reductionist in my arguments but if a white boy goes crazy and shoots up people he is acting alone, not as a terrorist but a 'poor crazy person' who was such a 'good kid' who was 'quiet and respectful' and went 'crazy' cuz he couldnt find gainful employment...

now if it was a brown guy, he'd be a muslim terrorist whose religion is medieval and violent, a black guy would be a thug, and a mexican a corrupt drug dealing wetback.....and the mainstream media here also doesnt cover it as aggressively.

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I agree with you here Adil. I am not denying that media may be a bit better and neutral in Europe than in US, but we also have to see the demographics of those countries. In UK, the Muslims and other religious minorities are greater in percentage of total population than what they are in US. Secondly, the Christian Evangelical factor that you brought is also nearly non-existent in those societies. The difference over there is more of cultural adaptation than of religion. By no means I am trying to excuse the issue, I am just giving facts. Media (print or electronic) is no more neutral or reliable, you know that it has long become a Business and demographics has affect on it. The lobbys and corporations feed money in the system to channel their agenda instead of staying neutral. Hence, I said that independent resources like blogs and websites of free lance or investigative journalists may be our best source to reliable info.

Coming to the point about if the attack had happened at Church it would have been different. I agree, this is how it has been here. You can see even the liberal media was completely biased (unwilling to test those waters) as compare to the huge outcry after Aurora shooting. Killing of a countryman is still a loss, regardless of religious or racial distinction. Why? perhaps US is not ready for that, no media outlet wants to see TRP goes down or wants to face public criticism. It wouldn't have been the same had it happened in Europe. I don't agree with Republicans on this fear mongering. I believe that we are far safer today than we ever were in last 10 years. This is a negative political ploy which lobbyists wants them to play to win the dirty game. I wish Muslims were more involved in Political scene and shouldn't have face such isolation and ignorance. That I still say Muslims and particularly Pakistanis should do to be the part of both representing Parties, in order to get the perspective through. All I see from Muslims is outcry over maltreatment, and disregard to reforming their own self. They are unwilling to learn from successful communities. We are unfortunate that we have numbers, and yet we are ineffective. This in my opinion got to change.

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kya bood-o-bash poocho ho purab ke sakino! hum ko gareeb jan ke, hans hans pukar ke...
jis ko falak ne loot ke veeran kar diya, hum rehne walay hain usi ujray dyar ke -

wht the hell is this ?S

I don't think most rational people would suggest from any stretch of the imagination that the U.S. media is in anyway liberal or leaning to the left.

Unless of course we're talking about MSNBC and/or PBS or HBO programming I guess..

The rest of them all are fairly right of centre...

i wholeheartedly agree. however, the majority of this country leans to the right, and right now they have this weird victim mentality thing going on. fox news has more viewers than cnn, msnbc, and other news outlets combined. yet if you actually listen to fox, they keep perpetuating this theory that the "mainstream media" is out to get the conservatives. mainstream media? fox news, you ARE the mainstream media! they have been perpetuating this stereotype ever since democrats won the house and senate from republicans in 2006. it's been going on for so long, that now most people actually believe it even though its totally bogus. but hey, it keeps the viewers hooked and the ratings up, so why not. it's quite ingenious really, feed the people the lie that "others" are out to get them while only you are looking out for them, then repeat it for many years until everyone believes it, and viola, you have created a new reality and hooked millions of viewers onto your product! instead of their tagline being "fair and balanced", it should really be "reality is subjective". it's actually a good motto for the republican party as a whole, since they pretend to be the party of the common man, but instead are the party of the wealthiest americans and actually institute policies that keep the overwhelming majority of people from achieving the same success.

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That may not be true.

That actually depends on which perspective you are looking at media. As far as this issue of violence against immigrants, yeah may be. But on Social issues an Politics media is not conservative or right wing at all. Of course discounting Fox News.

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kya bood-o-bash poocho ho purab ke sakino! hum ko gareeb jan ke, hans hans pukar ke...
jis ko falak ne loot ke veeran kar diya, hum rehne walay hain usi ujray dyar ke -

I can't believe you as an educated and achieving person are buying that liberal excuse for their short comings. Media didn't cause Democrats to lose the HOUSE in 2010, it's their failure which perpetuated their ouster.

I agree with you on the FOX News part. But I watch all sorts of media for perspective. I don't find MSNBC any fairer than FOX, or CNN any neutral than what they claimed. It's business buddy, and that's what I was explaining you in prior post.

@BOLD: Bhai, You are at the White House, you are at the Capitol Hill as well. You have a big decision from SCOTUS going on your way too recently. Why have you failed in last four years? Particularly the first two years, when you have everything under control and yet achieved nothing what you promised. Even today, The President is yours, what's stopping you from implementing the so called CHANGE that was suppose to assist common man? The point is this Government has failed, at least till now. The only leverage I am willing to give is only to OBAMA, as he was a capable man but his team was incapable and waste. Though it puts OBAMA's leadership skill under great doubt. Plus, I am not very optimistic from Republican Presidential candidate either so that's a +1 in your pocket as well. But you can't change the fact that Govt. has failed on delivering and calling out Media for failure is just not right. Had the results were delivered, media would've been silent.

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kya bood-o-bash poocho ho purab ke sakino! hum ko gareeb jan ke, hans hans pukar ke...
jis ko falak ne loot ke veeran kar diya, hum rehne walay hain usi ujray dyar ke -

absolutely, democrats have not been good enough. not strong enough to act on their principles. if obama wins a second term, i hope he is ruthless and gives up this act of trying to appease republicans and pass legislation that everyone agrees with. it doesn't work. when republicans are in power they do whatever they want, and when democrats are in power they try to be too nice and work together and all this cheesy stuff. but hopefully obama and dems have learned their lessons and if they win this election, they go out there and deliver on the promises that they have made. i mean it's not like he's failed in all counts, he's delivered healthcare reform, the banking and automotive industries did not crash, DADT was repealed, bin laden is dead, iraq war is over, so it hasn't been a total failure. but was disappointed that guantanamo is still open, didn't like how syria/libya have been handled, and unemployment rate is about what it was when he took office. so overall theres still a lot of work to be done, and let's see if he's given the chance to fix these problems in his second term.

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