Star Trek represents a wonderful, heroic universe.

Remember Star Trek II? Captain Spock allows the Enterprise to escape an explosion by fixing the warp drive and getting a fatal dose of radiation in the process.

His dying words to Capt. Kirk are, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few … or the one.”

Sadly, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s words were more realistic, “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths are a statistic.”

Following Stalin’s hellish logic, the prevalent American view is that the needs of the wealthy, prominent few outweigh the needs of the voiceless many.

Don’t believe me? Look at what Americans and the American media have focused on this year.

Consider the Terry Schiavo case. Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn isn’t sure about the number of appeals Schiavo received, but said the number was “well over 30 (six cracks at the U.S. Supreme Court alone) and may constitute a record.”

You’d think America is a civilized country, except for the fact an attempt to euthanize one woman has to overcome 30 hearings, a specially-enacted federal law named after her and unending debate in the media.

You’d think that, except for the 10,600 detainees held in American-run prisons in Iraq.

Col. Austin Schmidt, who oversees a U.S.-run prison in Baghdad, “estimated that one in four prisoners ‘perhaps were just snagged in a dragnet-type operation’ or were victims of personal vendettas,” according to an Aug. 24 Washington Post article.

So 2,650 innocent Iraqis are being held, at one prison for an average stay of a year.

One American receives more than 30 appeals, but 2,650 innocent Iraqis get no hearing for what amounts to a one-year prison sentence.

Americans in trouble get more attention than Iraqis, but certain U.S. citizens also receive more attention than others.

Chicago Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice wrote on July 4, “If we took all of our cues from the media, we’d be forced to conclude that the only people who come up missing in this country are young girls and women who are white. Who are middle-to upper-middle-class. Who are cute as a button.”

She’s right; searching CNN.com four different names proves it.

Jennifer “Runaway Bride” Wilbanks got 16 hits on a search. Alabama teen Natalee Holloway, missing in Aruba, got 44 hits. Laci Peterson, whose husband Scott was convicted of her murder in 2004, got 233 hits. But Tionda and Diamond Bradley, young African-American Chicagoans missing since 2001, got only a single hit.

The message is clear – If you’re a person of color from Chicago, you better hope you don’t go missing. But I’m sure the people of color reading this column know that already.

Feel free to quote this column to anyone who says racism doesn’t exist in America today.

Race doesn’t always determine who gets coverage. Often, it’s wealth or fame. Pop star Micheal Jackson’s sexual molestation charge received around-the-clock coverage on news networks for months. The media went so far as to have helicopter fly-overs, camera-persons chasing Jackson’s relatives and interviews with Jackson protestors and supporters.

Meanwhile, ethnic cleansing in Darfur, Africa, which has killed more than 70,000 people, received 26 minutes of coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC last year, according to a recent American Journalism Review article.

An African-American pop star received seemingly endless coverage while 70,000 dead Africans receive 26 minutes.

Some Americans blame the media, but the media companies only show what they think people want.

If you don’t like this, write a letter of protest to CNN or congress.

Otherwise, accept Stalin’s world view as your own, instead of Capt. Spock’s.