Answer: When the black candidate is a Republican, and the protester is a progressive. Had the affiliations been the other way around in this encounter caught on video, the media would have feasted on it for weeks, and reporters would have demanded answers for it from every GOP candidate for office.

However, since it happened to my friend and Salem Radio colleague Larry Elder while walking through progressive Los Angeles, the media instead reported it as a “hostile confrontation.” Watch the video and judge for yourselves. The egg attack comes from the right side of the screen:

Come and see the violence inherent in the progressive system. That’s definitely not how the Los Angeles Times covered the attack, though. Instead, they framed it by noting how Elder “hastily exiting” after being “angrily confronted” by homeless activists:

Larry Elder’s scheduled tour of homeless encampments in Venice ended shortly after it began Wednesday morning, with the leading Republican in the gubernatorial recall race hastily exiting in an SUV after being angrily confronted by a group of homeless people and advocates.

Elder — who had arrived in his new “Recall Express” campaign bus shortly after casting his ballot at a voting center across town — spent roughly 12 minutes in the neighborhood, with his departure hastened by what appeared to be an egg thrown in the candidate’s direction and a physical assault on his staff.

Er … shouldn’t the physical assault be the lead here? Elder and his team didn’t cut the visit short over angry protests — they cut it short over the political violence being committed by Elder’s opponents. And why does it take the LAT until the fourth paragraph to mention the gorilla mask?

A woman in a gorilla mask riding a bicycle threw the small white object past Elder’s head, as seen in a video posted on Twitter by Spectrum News reporter Kate Cagle. The woman appeared to be white, Elder is Black, and ape characterizations have been used as a racist trope for centuries.

At least the LA Times got around to that point at all, or even reporting on it. The local ABC affiliate never even mentions the mask, although at least the egg shows up in the lead:

Larry Elder had to cut his campaign event short in Venice after he encountered an angry crowd and had an egg thrown at him. …

But when Elder arrived in Venice to tour a homeless encampment, we were there when those who live at the encampment at Sunset and 3rd weren’t pleased to see the Republican candidate for governor. An egg was thrown at Elder as the crowd grew, shouting at the conservative radio talk show host. The egg did not strike him.

Note well the passive voice here — “An egg was thrown,” as though the egg itself bears the moral weight of its journey toward Elder. There isn’t a single mention of the woman wearing a gorilla mask, even though she’s clearly seen in video throwing the egg and later attacking at least one member of Elder’s entourage.

Speaking of passive voice, our friend Jeryl Bier noticed the sound of silence coming from the rest of the national media, which seems very odd in the context of a highly covered gubernatorial recall election in America’s most populous state (via Twitchy):

Honestly, I almost respect @CNN and @washingtonpost for completely ignoring the story. Maybe they argue it might have been staged or the woman was mentally ill. The @NYTimes just buries it in graf 14 of a story about "the vice president"! https://t.co/GHTXHBRBzS

— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) September 9, 2021

Now imagine if this had happened to a black Democrat touring a suburban district or the Central Valley. Would ABC and the LA Times retreat to passive voice in that instance? Would the New York Times bury it in the 14th paragraph of an election round-up? Nonsense. It would be headline news in every national news outlet, and people would be screaming at prosecutors to charge the woman with a hate crime.

Candace Owens makes a similar argument to Fox’s Brian Kilmeade in this clip from the Post Millennial:

“If this was on the other side, if a white woman wearing a monkey mask threw an egg at a black democratic candidate, there would be wall to wall coverage,” Owens said. “This might actually constitute as a hate crime in Los Angeles.”

“We need to find out exactly who this woman is,” Owens continued, host of the Candace Owens Show on Daily Wire.

“She needs to be arrested and charges need to be brought because this is absolutely criminal and disgusting, and it might be racist. I’m unsure why she was wearing the monkey mask. I have no idea why she was wearing it, but I’d like to see more information about that,” Owens fired back.

So would I, but I certainly don’t expect to get it from the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, ABC’s LA affiliate, or the Washington Post.

Addendum: Well put:

National news outlets and journalists who all swear they heard a baseball fan yelling the N-word at a packed stadium suddenly have nothing to say when a person in a gorilla mask throws an egg at a black candidate for governor,

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) September 9, 2021