While the world watches Paris, Islamic militants slaughter 2000 in Nigeria

The big story this week was in Paris, where Islamic militants murdered 12 middle-class white dudes.

A story that may have escaped your attention this week comes from Africa, where Islamic militants slaughtered an estimated 2000 black folks, in what Amnesty International is calling Boko Haram's worst mass murder in its mass-murdering history.

These stories have more in common than the fact that Islamic militants were the perpetrators. A superficial analysis would stop there, and conclude that there's obviously something profoundly wrong with Islam. That's been the overwhelming thrust of the punditry we've seen in the main-stream media thus far re: the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

What we call "Islamic militants" don't suddenly emerge from a void. These groups come from long-marginalized populations wherein some members eventually turn to violence after every other avenue for redress has been denied them.

Eventually these people lash out. The fact that the 12 middle-class white victims in France get a thousand times more publicity than those 2000 poor black victims in Nigeria is another symptom of the dysfunctional system that marginalized those populations in the first place.