Where is the outrage over Carmel case?

You want Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and The Race Card to go away. You love it when their white-wing soul mates, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, pretend the solution to America’s race problem is for black people to quit talking about race.

OK, read this.

Clockwise from top left: Scott Laskowski, Oscar Falodun, Brandon Hoge and Robert Kitzinger.

Hamilton County Sherriff's Office

A prosecutor in Carmel, Ind., hid behind the grand-jury process so that misdemeanor charges would be filed against a group of senior Carmel High School basketball players who “hazed” a group of freshmen players by allegedly pulling their pants down and violating them with some type of “anal penetration,” according to a lawyer for one of the alleged victims.

The group of seniors consisted of three white players and one black. The group of alleged victims consisted of two black players and one white. The black victims and their parents, according to reporters covering the case, have cooperated with the police. The white victim’s family has denied to reporters that their son is involved.

The Indianapolis Star, the newspaper I was raised on, has done an outstanding job covering the facts of the story, but, in my opinion, has gone to great lengths to avoid the race and privilege components of this sad affair.

Carmel is a suburb of Indianapolis, my hometown. Carmel is my high school’s football rival. I have lifelong friends who now live in Carmel, including my favorite quarterback, Jeff George. I know Carmel quite well. It’s a wealthy suburb that in the last decade has received its first real taste of racial diversity.

The Carmel school system, the prosecutor and the parents of the alleged perpetrators have “managed” the investigation of this crime since day one. If they had had their way, the “hazing” would’ve been ignored or handled by school administrators. In 1998, when the Carmel swim team was engulfed in a similar hazing incident, the prosecutor hid behind a grand jury and declined to seek any criminal charges against the swimmers.

This time the prosecutor has been dragged to court by an avalanche of evidence and because of the race of the victims.

There is videotape evidence of what transpired at the back of the freshman bus on Jan. 22, when one of the alleged victims was violated. Under the myth of protecting the victim, the prosecutor won’t make the tape available to the media.

One of the senior players is the son of John Laskowski, a former Indiana University basketball player for Bobby Knight. Laskowski played two seasons with the Bulls and has done color commentary for IU and the Big Ten Network. Laskowski has friends throughout the Indianapolis media.

The local media are politely telling the truth and hoping things work out in a fair way. Here is a very good Indianapolis Star story outlining many of the pertinent facts.

Here is another Star story that covers the response to the three white senior players raising the ire of sheriff officials by joking, laughing and practicing their golf swings during their 12 hours of arrest and incarceration.

And here is sports columnist Bob Kravitz’s opinion piece that blames the senior basketball players.

What’s missing is a credible, objective media arbitrator applying genuine pressure on the prosecutor and the school to do the right thing. There’s no meaningful outrage.

The prosecutor didn’t need a grand jury to bring felony charges against the players for deviant sexual conduct. Sonia Leerkamp, the prosecutor, went the grand-jury route because the proceedings are secret, and she knew a grand jury would be reluctant to damage rich kids with bright futures.

“The only people she could be trying to protect through a grand jury are the suspects,” a retired Indiana law professor told the Indianapolis Star. “It’s a coverup, pure and simple. It’s obscene.”

It’s the kind of obscenity that attracts the attention of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

They specialize in the kind of outrage that provokes action. They spotlight the race and privilege inequities the mainstream media often ignore out of fear of losing access.

Jackson and Sharpton fan the flames of racial distrust because they look at the kid-glove treatment the criminal justice system affords kids of privilege, and then they compare it to how poor, black high school athletes in Jena, La., were threatened with 20-year sentences for beating up a white classmate.

And don’t go there with me about the Jena Six. I covered that issue at the time in its proper context.

No one thinks the Carmel kids should be locked away for years. But a few no-harm-no-foul misdemeanors for allegedly jamming things down a kid’s butt on the back of a bus?

Reverse the races and move the case to the inner city. You think misdemeanors and a giggly field trip to jail would be on the table?

Remember Limbaugh’s “Obama’s America” school-bus beating in Belleville, Ill., the one where two black kids attacked a white kid and it was captured on videotape? Those kids got charged with felonies.

If you’ve read my columns, you know I’m not a Sharpton or Jackson cheerleader. But I understand what motivates them, what gives them credibility.

Those of us who claim to be free of biases, those of us who claim we want everyone treated fairly, too often lose the courage to support our stated convictions. The people manipulating the criminal justice system in this case should be shamed into doing the right thing by the people who actually live in Carmel.

If they can’t muster the courage, someone should call Al and Jesse and invite them to Carmel. I’ll be happy to join them. My parents have been begging me to come home for a visit.

E-mail Jason or follow him on Twitter. Media requests for Mr. Whitlock should be directed to Fox Sports PR.