It appears that all 19 of the firefighters, who died recently in an Arizona blaze, were white men. Given the aggressive push to get more women and non-whites into fire departments, we might have expected somebody to complain that there should be more faces of color among the dead. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, nobody is so complaining.

Had there been a recruitment billboard for Arizona firefighters featuring those who died on that fateful June day, we would never hear the end of how “racist” and “bigoted” that billboard is. There would be demands for the resignation of whoever designed or authorized it. The billboard would be held up as evidence of how backward and narrow minded Arizona is. We would be reminded that this is the state that tried to enforce our border with Mexico and make life difficult for those who enter illegally.

But this is not a recruitment billboard. It’s an image of 19 white men who tragically lost their lives. A google search for “dead firefighters” and “white” yields results that mention the “White House” and the “white van” that took away the bodies. Nobody seems to pay attention, or care, that all the victims were white. Diversity is the national religion of America, but its followers show apathy when there is no diversity among the dead. It wouldn’t surprise me if certain Afro-centric, and Latino, groups are privately rejoicing. For them, the white man is a demon, and no amount of heroism can erase the sin of his white skin.

Mother nature was to blame for those 19 deaths, but the silence surrounding the race of the victims shows a certain measure of acquiescence. Had they been 19 black men, they would have been doubly mourned: Once for having died as young heroes, and again for having died as black men. Blacks would have mourned the loss of their young black men, and whites would have joined in.

Incidentally, when people die in a conflagration, it’s called a “holocaust”.