U.S. Teacher: I Did 7 Months Of Forced Labor In A Chinese Jail

[JackRiddler]

15. Imagine the same thing in the U.S.

Stuart Foster's odyssey inside the Chinese penal system began in April of last year, when police in the city of Guangzhou took him to jail on theft charges. Foster had confessed to taking a large sum of money from an American colleague at a local university.

Because, of course, worse happens in the U.S.

That doesn't mean this is just or good. It is very bad. But in the U.S., people often get LONGER sentences for stealing "a large sum of money" and they often end up doing forced labor -- sometimes at private prisons.

If this story had happened in the U.S., and if amazingly it had received coverage from NPR, it is guaranteed that the man would never be referred to primarily as a teacher. He would be called a confessed, convicted felon -- and a former teacher.

So when a U.S. outlet does this for China in the absence of comparable coverage for the U.S., it is of course seen as hypocrisy and opportunistic blindness.