07/09/2026
This is the double standard people are pointing to: when a powerful white man commits monstrous crimes, society usually treats him as an individual monster. His race is not placed on trial, and everyone who shares his background is not ordered to apologize. But when a suspect is Black or Muslim, commentators too often rush to turn one person’s actions into an indictment of an entire community. The Epstein case is not proof of what would have happened under a different identity, because that is a counterfactual we cannot verify. But the broader question is still worth confronting. Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes belonged to Jeffrey Epstein and to anyone who knowingly enabled, protected, or participated in them. That is exactly how responsibility should work in every case. Guilt should follow evidence, not skin color, faith, ancestry, or political convenience. No race produces criminals, no religion owns the actions of every person associated with it, and no community should be collectively punished for an individual’s wrongdoing. If we understand that principle when the accused is powerful and white, why do so many people forget it when the accused belongs to a minority?
