What Is Racism? (Truth Hurts, Part 2)

Harper's Weekly, May 10, 1873

The Colfax massacre occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana, the seat of Grant Parish.  Approximately 150 black men were murdered by white Southern Democrats in the bloodiest single instance of racial carnage in the Reconstruction era.  The Colfax massacre was an example of the lengths to which some opponents of Reconstruction would go to regain their accustomed authority. Among blacks, the incident was long remembered as proof that in any large confrontation, they stood at a fatal disadvantage.

Not to take anything away form the victims of the tragic shooting in Las Vegas, but 58 or even 59 dead is not even close to the largest mass murder in American history.  Considering the deaths of 150 black men in Reconstruction Era Colfax, Louisiana and 250 Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee, it's only the largest mass murder of white people in American history.  

But judging by the media's reaction, it's only the white head count that matters.