Thoughts On The Double Standard Of The Accused Killers Of Mollie Tibbets And Shanann Watts

As much as I would love to say that America has become a post-racial society, the reality is that the issue of race and skin color is very much a sore spot for many Americans.

This issue is especially highlighted by the response to the murders of Mollie Tibbetts and Shanann Watts.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera, the accused killer of Mollie Tibbetts, has been called out by authorities as an illegal immigrant originally from Mexico. It didn’t take long for certain people in this country to use the murder of this innocent girl as an excuse to ramp up discrimination against immigrants and more specifically, immigrants of color.

This week, Christopher Watts was accused of killing his pregnant wife, Shannan Watts, their unborn son and their two pre-school age daughters. While the outrage of the murders is the same, the reaction differs slightly. Mr. Watts is a Caucasian male who I presume is an American citizen. While Mr. Rivera was labelled all sorts of names because of his immigration status and skin color, in addition to his accused crime, Mr. Watts was only labelled for his accused crime.

There is clearly a double standard going on. Justice should be blind. A person accused of a crime should be judged based on the facts, not on his or her race, immigration status or national origin. Unfortunately, I fear that all three of those may play a part when Mr. Rivera has his day in court.