Saturday, April 05, 2008

Black crime

When the news first broke, in December 2000, about the four bloody bodies found in a soccer field in Wichita, Kansas, the early reports left some people wondering about a possible gangland slaughter. Was it about drugs or turf? Did some bad guys kill some other bad guys, and save the police unnecessary labor?

As it turned out, five victims were meant to be lying in that field, but the fifth one survived – to tell the horrible tale. And, no, it had nothing to do with old-fashioned gangsters evening scores. The murderers were two black brothers, Jonathan and Reginald Carr, and the bloody bodies belonged to four young whites in their 20s.

As the story unfolded, its details were the kind to make you want to cover your eyes and read no further. The vicious nature of what were ongoing, hours-long, unprovoked assaults on people who never deserved such a fate, stunned the senses. For the sake of relevance, I offer the bare bones of the atrocity, but if you insist on the gory details, you can find them in multiple places on the Internet.

The survivor, whose identity was later protected and became known only by the initials H.G., went to stay at the apartment of her boyfriend, Jason Befort, a residence he shared with his roommates Bradley Heyka and Aaron Sander. They were later joined by another friend, Heather Muller. During the night, the Carr brothers, armed with guns or just a gun, invaded this apartment and dragged each of the residents from the room in which he or she had been sleeping into one bedroom.

You can guess at the forced multiple rapes that took place and other detestable, coerced acts, as the Carrs grooved on this lucky night they got to debase a little band of white folks, those people who appear to have such picture-perfect lives, who seem to recover even after bad things happen to them. Well, this night, they were not going to get a chance to recover.


Downplaying the terror

Americans are taught not to fixate on the racial aspect when it comes to assaults by blacks upon whites. Yet, we are conditioned to look upon every abuse perpetrated by a white upon a black as nothing less than an intentional racial affront – whether it happened in 1723, or yesterday. Black thugs, it seems, don't choose their victims on the basis of race – not when they rape them or rob them or murder them. To think otherwise is to think in “racist” terms.

The Carrs invaded the Befort apartment on December 14, 2000, but a week earlier, on December 7, in East Wichita, they carjacked the vehicle of Andres Schreiber, a 23-year-old white man, forced him at gunpoint to withdraw money from ATM machines, and then pistol-whipped him. On December 11, in attempting to carjack the SUV of Linda Walenta, a white woman, one of the Carrs stuck a gun through the window and shot her several times. She died three weeks later. December had certainly been a busy month for the brothers.

Many of us followed this story over the Internet on an almost daily basis, since we wanted to understand why five adults, three of them men, appeared to have submitted themselves, without a struggle, to two brigands brandishing guns, or a gun. It was not clear in the first reports just how many weapons had been involved – one or two? Had just one gun been shared between the two monsters?

I did not want to believe a notion I was slowly coming to harbor about whites, of a newly emerging fear of blacks, different from the physical fear, more of a mental anxiety resulting from unique social programming. Could the fear of being racially “incorrect” have shifted to a fear of fighting back, even when their lives are endangered?

In New York, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, street crime was rampant and did not abate until the early 1990s. During this period, I had listened to endless personal accounts of muggings from white college buddies, office colleagues, and all manner of other acquaintances. This was a period when such disclosures could break out between New Yorkers while standing on a supermarket line or waiting for a bus.

Yet, even in the course of describing muggings they had suffered, I felt that most whites strove to downplay the terror of the encounter and especially to hide the anger and hatred they experienced as a consequence. They would cautiously not belittle their tormentors, in order to show that they held no grudges.

Was their caution based on an inability to be open with me, a black, or was it more than that? Why did I get the feeling that they were just as fearful of revealing anger or downright detestation of their attackers even to fellow whites? Was the desire to appear pristine clean on the race issue subverting their normal feelings?

No one in charge

When, in April 2001, in Cincinnati, a white police officer shot and killed a black man, while trying to arrest him, all hell broke loose, as mobs of blacks rioted. This episode came to exemplify not only white concern for behaving “correctly” in relation to the race of the marauders, but a palpitating fear of black retaliation.

Although the mainstream media did its best to downplay the actuality of blacks randomly attacking whites – pulling them from cars and beating them – the local talk show hosts practiced no such restraint. White listeners were able to call in, share what they had either seen or experienced, and vent their spleen.

The Cincinnati Post reported on stores being looted, fires set, and whites dragged from cars and “beaten to a pulp.” This was the newspaper's first, spontaneous reactions to the barbarity. However, the editors soon learned to rein in such graphic detail, as they scurried to reduce references that might put blacks in a bad light.

Meanwhile, on national television, the country got to see the response of Cincinnati's law enforcement leaders, especially that of Mayor Charles Luken and Police Chief Tom Streicher, both white. Their first press conference is an event I shall always remember.

Mayor Luken preceded the Police Chief into the room, looking distracted and downright helpless. Before speaking, he kept glancing around, as if looking for something or someone. (An exit door, perhaps?) It turns out he was searching for Chief Streicher, whom he claimed should be the person to address the reporters. Finally, in came Streicher, a slight, slender guy in shirtsleeves, looking as fearful as the Mayor. These were not figures who projected a sense of authority.

When some rowdy blacks interrupted the proceedings, yelling loud, incomprehensible remarks, probably vulgarities, the two leaders looked more terrified than ever. Both gave the impression that there was no one in charge. (Perhaps, some day, tapes of this conference will make it to YouTube, with the caption, “How not to run a city.”)

Pacify the unpredictable blacks

Cincinnati talk show hosts (mainly conservative, of course) angrily told of fawning attempts by some whites to downplay the racial overtones of the riots, like carrying flowers to the place where the black suspect was shot, while ignoring the sites where various whites took undeserved beatings. Callers described scenes they had witnessed being filmed by various media outlets, only to see this news coverage censored and watered down, with particular violent events excised from the tapes, apparently, in order to protect the already damaged black image. The city's bureaucrats rushed to meet with Cincinnati's many versions of Al Sharpton, and with Reverend Al himself, who quickly moved in on the fun and games.

It was clear that the primary quest of the whites in Cincinnati was to pacify the unpredictable blacks, and yet not come off as “racists.” The late white nationalist, Dr. William Pierce, in assessing the feeble behavior of the whites, who fell all over themselves to prove what devout “anti-racists” they were, wryly concluded: “An impartial deity looking down on such scenes from above to decide which race should inherit the earth certainly would not choose the Whites.”

In the case of the Carr brothers' crimes, the story hardly moved beyond the environs of the Wichita region. Here, too, certain whites hurried to cover up the racial aspect of the crimes. As the Carr trial approached, word came, unexpectedly, that the trial would be carried on Court TV, which certainly would give it national prominence. As it turned out, more prudent heads prevailed at Court TV, with network executives deciding that the topic was too hot and, by daily focusing on these two heinous black assailants, public sensibilities might be inflamed. In Wichita, two cable TV channels and one local radio station provided continuous coverage of the trial, along with regional Associate Press coverage.

A fantasy of retribution

I first began writing this article last year, before health and other problems intervened. I was gratified when, in December, Professor Walter Williams devoted one of his syndicated columns to the media's concealment of black-on-white crimes. He cited the crime statistics compiled by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice, noting that in 2004, “more than twice as many whites were murdered by a black than cases of a white murdering a black.” He feared that by suppressing these realities, the media and black leaders “contribute to a pile of racial kindling awaiting a racial arsonist to set it ablaze.”

In 2004, blacks, who make up 12-13% of the country's population, accounted for almost half of the nation's murder victims primarily at the hands of other blacks. And, although police statistics around the country show that blacks commit more crimes against whites by at least a rate of two to one, the federal government limits its release of crime statistics by race, and fudges some stats by lumping Hispanics/Latinos into the “white” category.

Rape or assaults on white women by black men is one of the leading crimes, according to a 2007 Department of Justice survey. A common banality that is sometimes expressed by angry black men, who may not be offenders themselves, but are disposed towards their brothers who target white women for rape, goes something like this: "If we were to indulge in rape from now until the end of time, we black men could never make up for the millions of rapes of black women at the hands of slave owners."

The last time I heard this atrocious argument was in the course of a heated dispute with a black man, who was “explaining” the actions of two black thugs then awaiting trial for the callous rape and beating of a white woman. In defending the indefensible, he made me wonder if this is what this form of violence is about for certain men. Do such men get themselves worked up fantasizing over what took place in the past, when black men had no power? Could this be the result of some of that “Afrocentric” teaching, with its emphasis on the injustices done to blacks?

In 1999, a white woman in Raleigh, North Carolina, was battered and raped by James Henderson, who broke into her apartment. During the assault, he told her several times that he was attacking her because her forefathers had raped and enslaved his ancestors. In the twisted minds of these men, are today's living, breathing women justifiable targets to act out a fantasy of retribution in the name of people who lived more than a century ago?

I informed the buffoon with whom I was conversing that, while he and his brothers were busy cursing those white slave owners, they should be sure to save some of that hate for the thousands of blacks in this country who not only owned slaves, but traded in slaves and, no doubt, had their way more than a time or two with their female property.

In this symbiotic dance going on between black and white men, perhaps the ultimate demonstration of power over the dominant male is proving he is no longer capable even of protecting his own women – not only from rape, but from seduction as well.

Gun shy policemen

Another example of media and bureaucrats working together to cover up the deeds of miscreant blacks occurred during the mardi gras riots in Seattle, in 2001. Members of marauding gangs dragged white women by their hair, threw them to the ground and kicked them, while men who went to their rescue were pummeled and kicked. During what turned out to be a three-hour seige, the Seattle police stood by, doing nothing. Their police chief had given orders for them to stand down. (Later, members of the force complained of their frustration over not being able to take action.)

One writer, giving an account of the anarchy that he witnessed, expressed astonishment that the thugs who attacked whites “cared nothing about being grossly outnumbered by whites, but moved with impunity through the crowds.” And, indeed, why shouldn't they?

The hours-long siege was not covered on the local television news, much less did it get any national coverage, even though 60 young people ended up in hospitals, with one dead.

Days later, when the flak finally hit the fan, the greatest concern expressed by the city's leaders was not for all the property damage done and the looting, or for the many citizens who were assaulted and injured, or even for the dead Kris Kime, a 23-year-old man who had tried to aid a woman under attack. No, the greatest concern expressed, as reported in the Seattle Times, was that the ugly episode might become a “race issue,” and that blacks might be blamed for the violence they perpetrated.

The police, whose crews finally did go in and disperse the gang bangers, were worried about being charged with “racial profiling.” As reported by the Associated Press, a spokesman said of the police, “They're gun shy about the perceptions of coming down hard on one single group.” The city fathers were determined to make the public believe that the attacks on whites “were not racially motivated.” They seemed to imply that racial motivation would be an even greater crime than the attacks themselves.

No justice, no peace

The knowledge that blacks will support the criminals in their midst, and that timid whites will hesitate to protest too profoundly was never more apparent than in an episode in Long Beach California, in 2006, deemed by the court a "hate crime," and handled as felonious assault.

Three white women, attempting to avoid the advances of a group of aggressive black males, were then set upon by the males and their black female companions. The episode took place on Halloween night, at a public “haunted house,” when a mob of at least 25 to 40 black teenagers took dominance of the residence. Earlier, these scoundrels had terrorized the mostly white visitors to the house by verbally abusing and physically intimidating them.

Witnesses described the unprovoked attacks on the women, who were beaten to the ground by the males. The gangsters' female counterparts then moved in by kicking and beating the prostrate women, first with a skateboard, then with tree branches, and finally with their fists. Two of the victims were knocked unconscious, with one suffering a recessed eye. Another suffered a dozen fractures to her face and damage to the lining around her lungs. All three suffered broken bones.

Ten people, nine males and one female, were finally rounded up, arrested and charged with felony assault, along with a “hate crime” charge. There were 10 defense attorneys, some of whom lauded their clients as “model students,” even as “scholars and athletes” -- propaganda that the California media faithfully parroted, until the testimony of school authorities proved otherwise.

And how did the black parents and friends of the accused, other adults and “activists” in the black community respond to news of this mayhem? Many parents vociferously argued against any punishment for the teenagers and underplayed the seriousness of the crimes. This might account for why there was no display of remorse or contrition on the part of any of the accused. Eddie Jones, apparently a local Al Sharpton wannabe, led demonstrations on behalf of the accused, with dozens of his acolytes shouting the now customary chant of “No justice, no peace.”

However, there was the voice of Joe Hicks, a black man well-known for his dissident opinions, who excoriated the unrepentant thugs and their parents, claiming that the parents exhibited “the same street culture attitudes” of their children.

Except for brief, one-time mentions in the Washington Post and the New York Times, the national media ignored the story. Most white-owned media did not want to touch it. One local newspaper called it a “man-bites-dog tale,” implying that whites are the normal perpetrators of such crimes – in spite of all evidence and statistics to the contrary.

Is it worse if it's a “hate crime?”

Like the quadruple murders that took place in Wichita, there are those crimes that are hard to get one's mind around. Such is the case of the grotesque rapes, torture, mutilations, and murders, in 2006, in Knoxville, Tennessee, of the young white couple Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. As in Wichita, their torment lasted for hours, as four black men and their female accomplice played with the living bodies of these human beings, physically torturing them, as the depraved do with helpless cats and dogs. In typical fashion, the story of this black-on-white crime was not touched by the mainstream media.

Not exactly coming off as apologists, but close to it, were two black columnists, Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald and Gregory Kane of the Baltimore Sun and BlackAmericaWeb. Each felt it necessary to make the case that this horrendous offense did not fit into the category of “hate crime,” thereby not motivated by race. There is no way that either know this for a certainty, but blacks typically want to deny the reverse racism feature of black crime. The precept that blacks don't kill for racial reasons has now become a knee-jerk response to black-on-white atrocities.

Pitts ended one of his columns with a mocking taunt to those who grieved over the fate of Christian and Newsom and other victims like them: “Cry me a river!” Who, after all, he suggested, are whites to make such complaints, what with all the baggage they carry from history? “It always amazes me when white people put on the victim hat,” he callously wrote.

Kane, in defending Pitts' taunt, furthered the platitude about “complaining whites,” as he wrote, “No matter how many white victims like Christian and Newsom there are, there are far more black ones who are victims of gangs like the Bloods and Crips.” In other words, blacks are killing far greater numbers of blacks than whites, therefore, blacks, as a group, suffer more.

Kane did not mean his remarks to be, nor were they a comfort to the people who knew and loved this young couple. His crude, insensitive words were in no sense meant to mitigate their deaths. Will the fact that blacks mindlessly kill other blacks help those who are haunted by the photographs of Christian and Newsom's youthful, appealing faces and the open, trusting expressions on them, and the knowledge that, in their darkest hour, no one came to their aid? How do their parents live with such stark, brutal reality that will never go away?

Are we supposed to care whether this atrocity was legally deemed a “race-motivated” crime? Blacks are killing whites in inordinate numbers, and have been doing so for decades. What kind of ideas were flopping around in the fiendish brains of these five degenerates is of no importance. They targeted this young white couple and brutalized them for hours, for entertainment, causing them unimaginable suffering before their lives finally slipped away. We can only guess at the roots of the irrational hatred that could compel five wretches to follow through to the end, to enjoy the power they had to shut down the lives of these two attractive, “privileged” whites.

It isn't necessary to find notes, as in the case of pitiful, little 8-year-old Kevin Shifflett, from his black murderer, ranting about his desire to “kill whites.” Nor do we need eyewitness reports about either of these sadists shouting anti-white racial epithets, as in the Long Beach case. Pitts and Kane seem to imply that this monstrous crime is less so, because it could not be determined that nasty, “racist” thoughts were running through the minds of these warped beasts. Racism, of course, being deemed by the benighted likes of Pitts and Kane, as the World's Worst Crime.

Although in some felony cases we get hints about a possible race angle, we will never know the degree to which authorities caution against officially deeming a crime one of racial hatred, due to their fear of public retaliation -- fear that even a brief skirmish on the part of an addled, infuriated white might set off rioting black mobs. The driving factor in suppressing such information, of course, is fear of blacks, not of whites.

Dredging up the past forever

Here's why reporting on who's committing most of the felony crimes today against ordinary citizens is important. Last year, bills were introduced into both the House of Representatives and the Senate “to provide for the investigation of certain unsolved crimes, and for other purposes.” This potential law is called the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act (H.R. 923 and S.535).

The bill's sponsors, led by Rep. John Lewis, aim to set up an “Investigative Office” in the civil rights units of both the Department of Justice and the FBI, granting authority to agents to plow through old alleged crimes that were committed against blacks prior to December 31, 1969, supposedly during what is known as the “civil rights” period.

On the one hand, a general statement within the bill claims that said past crimes had to result in a “death.” On the other hand, the stated purpose in the introduction of the bill says nothing about death, and adds the vague wording, “and for other purposes,” implying that the law could be used as a catchall for all kinds of infractions of the law that we cannot conceive of at the moment.

If they don't find enough murders to prosecute, will they seek to ferret out half-century old alleged assaults, robberies, larcenies? Could they go back, find an atrocity that had occurred on which a town's police failed to act, and today make that town's government complicit and hold it accountable? Does the “civil rights” period mentioned mean only the recent past, i.e., 1950s through 1960s? The use of the term “civil rights” goes back a long way.

If this law is passed, we can expect that the country will be subjected to yet more black victimology, as the media grooves on the resurrection of old crimes that can unnecessarily stir up animosities. But, hey, it's only white folks who are bound to come out on the short end of the stick, right? The media will delight in sending us images of some 90-year-old codger, handcuffed and forced to do the perp walk. Of course, so much of the details of these events are lost in the mists of time and in dimmed, undependable memories, but no matter. There's bound to be some stories out there that can be milked and exploited. During this period when so many crimes committed by blacks against whites are virtually ignored by the media or rationalized away as justifiable, blacks are being primed to dig up crimes from the past, and make somebody pay.

There are other questions about this law. Just as Congress gradually extended the power of the EEOC to implement the 1964 Civil Rights Act, eventually giving us affirmative action and quotas, so too might the Emmett Till law be modified or reinterpreted, in order to carry out agendas not explicitly cited in the original bill. Just as the Brown vs. Board of Education court decision was “misinterpreted” to eventually justify forced busing and the crippling of school systems around the country, so, too, this law, if passed, could bring unexpected consequences.

Might we be looking at a law that opens the door to crafty mischief makers, to plod through a couple of centuries worth of real and imagined “crimes?” While whites are urged to shush their mouths about current atrocities, black leaders are gearing up, or as they put it, “beefing up investigations” of old crimes against blacks, for what might conceivably be ad infinitum.


See also: The everlasting quest: To transform whites

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read your post with a lot of interest and I wanted to commend you on writing it. It takes a lot of insight and a lot of courage these days to go against the blind tide of society.

It is sad to see those statistics. Sad to see the rigmarole of modern new media not reporting much. It is sad to see modern journalist not reporting impartially anymore. Sad to see corporations gobbling up media companies. They look all tangled up in a web they weaved.

I was born and raised in Europe. I feel thankful in the sense we are raised early on with different cultures. We easily accept different people. It is interesting to live here by choice. I have a hard time understanding races, after all aren't we the human race? :) Somehow, bringing the past into focus constently just will not heal any wounds nor pave a positive future. And wounds have long been buried. Let's move on for the sake of the whole. Maybe those who are perfect in every ways can pass judgments but everyone else would better work on themselves first.

Thank you for also reporting another atrocity rarely mentioned, Africans who sold Africans for slavery. That is a very big reality rarely told. It doesn't matter anymore who is right and wrong. What matters at this point is that we focus on moving forward. For those who take delight in living in the past and continue hurting themselves and others are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over. They don't help, they drag history back without a chance to evolve.

So thank you for this article. I hope it opens up people's eyes. There are plenty of role models out there of all genders and skin pigmentations. It's still up to us to know ourselves and move forward in a positive way.

My motto is to go forward, leaving behind as smooth a quake as possible for those who follow. Anything else is destructive and narrow minded.

Anonymous said...

I read your post with a lot of interest and I wanted to commend you on writing it. It takes a lot of insight and a lot of courage these days to go against the blind tide of society.

It is sad to see those statistics. Sad to see the rigmarole of modern new media not reporting much. It is sad to see modern journalist not reporting impartially anymore. Sad to see corporations gobbling up media companies. They look all tangled up in a web they weaved.

I was born and raised in Europe. I feel thankful in the sense we are raised early on with different cultures. We easily accept different people. It is interesting to live here by choice. I have a hard time understanding races, after all aren't we the human race? :) Somehow, bringing the past into focus constently just will not heal any wounds nor pave a positive future. And wounds have long been buried. Let's move on for the sake of the whole. Maybe those who are perfect in every ways can pass judgments but everyone else would better work on themselves first.

Thank you for also reporting another atrocity rarely mentioned, Africans who sold Africans for slavery. That is a very big reality rarely told. It doesn't matter anymore who is right and wrong. What matters at this point is that we focus on moving forward. For those who take delight in living in the past and continue hurting themselves and others are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over. They don't help, they drag history back without a chance to evolve.

So thank you for this article. I hope it opens up people's eyes. There are plenty of role models out there of all genders and skin pigmentations. It's still up to us to know ourselves and move forward in a positive way.

My motto is to go forward, leaving behind as smooth a quake as possible for those who follow. Anything else is destructive and narrow minded.

Elizabeth Wright said...

Well, Nick, it would be nice if we could just leave things "behind," as you repeated several times. However, there are those whose entire livelihoods are built on the past, and they're certainly not planning to leave anything behind. As you can see from the proposed Emmett Till law, the past is the future for these people, and they are never going to let go of it.

Walter Lewkowski said...

We have come to understand that the sexual-reproductive drive of the sexes differ. What men want from women is not same as what women want from men. The reproductive strategy of the male is different from the strategy of the female.


The male can reproduce hundreds even thousands in his life time. Females are limited to dozens or so. Men do not have nine months gestation or years of demanding early care to corral them. Thus females look for a good provider, whereas males look for a good healthy sex partner.

After thousands of years females have set out certain characteristics that they find attractive in males. He must be a male of status. Females world find this trait in males irresistible.

With this truth in mind the idea of the white slave owner having to rape the black slave is greatly suspect. It is almost certain the female slave would find the high status slave owner very attractive. If she produced an offspring by him there was a great chance that the off spring would get special treatment.

Also the idea that the salve owner would permit any one that wanted to, to rape one of his female workers is absurd. Again white men would have a definite status advantage over black men. As is obvious from the interracial parings we see today, white men are not drawn to black women in anywhere near the numbers of black men and white women.

The conclusion is that the myth of massive white men rape of black slave women is just that , a black myth.

Elizabeth Wright said...

Walter Lewkowski wrote:
The conclusion is that the myth of massive white men rape of black slave women is just that , a black myth.

This is one of the strangest spins on a subject that I've ever read. You appeared to be on the right track when it comes to the biological basics between men and women in normal consensual situations. See what I've written about this in the post entitled Can politics transcend Nature?

However, when it comes to men having the power to satiate their sexual appetite with no consequences, as in slave ownership, the looks of the women have nothing to do with it. Sometimes not even youth is important. And since the subject slave woman has no choice in the matter, it's pointless to talk about her preferences in men. In fact, it's idiotic.

One of the perks, if you like, of slave ownership is having power over the women of the weaker group. This is one of the advantages enjoyed by the more powerful males. And this is why black men take such satisfaction in their current power to seduce (or rape) white women. To conquer these women proves the weak state of white men. There is nothing that proves the degree of weakness of any group of men than the fact that they cannot prevent the rape or seduction of their women by outsiders. Of course, for black men, there is also the notion of higher status that goes along with the conquest of white women. Many black men discuss this quite openly, and several have written about it.

It is no "black myth," as you call it, that white slave owners had their way with their female slaves. Besides the evidence of all the offspring that came from these unions, which set off a caste system among blacks, one can read the expressions of white women of the time, who berated this "peculiar institution." If there is a "myth," it is the belief that these unions came about only at the consent of enslaved women.

John T. said...

It amazes me that I had to look this hard, this long to find this opinion voiced by a black person. Since the Wichita crime my awareness has been raised as to the reality of black-on-white violence. When the Knoxville case came along, I was enraged beyond consolation. So too was I at the intitial reports of the Meghan Williams case. I cannot suffer sadists of any color or creed, particulalry those who prey on women, children or the elderly. Sexual torture appears to be a running theme and I think you are very much on point as to the causes.
What enrages me the most in the aftermath of these incidents is the flippant attitude of most blacks who give these things any attention at all. Leonard Pitts is not forgotten, nor shall he be forgiven. He may as well have been a participant in the rapes and murders of Channon and Christopher.
The thing that angers me and many whites I know is that we were constantly bombarded as youngsters with historical anecdotes regarding the vehement racist of whites toward blacks exemplified by slavery and Jim Crow. We were raised to think that this was horrible, as it was. Now that the vast majoirty of us see things in this light our reward for doing so is to be regarded as deserving of the same. I reflect on how Eve Carson was a champion for "diversity" as the student body president. So the message seems to be that nothing is ever going to be enough, and there is ever more vindication for old attitudes toward the inherent desire of blacks to rape and murder whites. The Leonard Pitts of this world have either responded out of hubris and arrogance or out of total ignorcance to what type of sleeping dog they are kicking. That is a viscious and deadly dog they kick. I for one don't want to see it awakened.
But thank you for writing this. To hear just one black person lay this out for what it is eases my anger, as there has not been a day that has gone by since the Knoxville case that I haven't thought of Channon and Christopher. You are right that there is fear in whites, but as with me, it is a fear of ourselves should these things continue.
How far can the pendulum swing in one direction before it is sent back the other way with great force?

Elizabeth Wright said...

John T. wrote:
What enrages me the most in the aftermath of these incidents is the flippant attitude of most blacks who give these things any attention at all. Leonard Pitts is not forgotten, nor shall he be forgiven. He may as well have been a participant in the rapes and murders of Channon and Christopher.

I agree. His disgusting, casual attitude still rips into me.

... there has not been a day that has gone by since the Knoxville case that I haven't thought of Channon and Christopher.

It is only recently that I have been able to stop thinking of the moment-by-moment horror they experienced, suffering the pain, while knowing that no one would ever come to help them. I could not read one word about the case once it gained publicity and the trials were announced. I just did not need to know anything further.

The thing that angers me and many whites I know is that we were constantly bombarded as youngsters with historical anecdotes regarding the vehement racist of whites toward blacks exemplified by slavery and Jim Crow.

And this, of course, is the very notion that must be overcome. I figured out early on, as a teenager, that there is no monstrous crime that has not been committed by all men on this earth. No one group is responsible for unique crimes. And I learned early on that black suffering is the consequence primarily of the horror handed down from black to black, not from white to black.