Watcher's Council Forum: What's Your Reaction To The Baltimore Police Being Criminally Charged ?

The six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray. From left to right, top row: Officer Caesar R. Goodson, Jr.; Officer Garrett E. Miller; Officer Edward M. Nero. Left to right, bottom row: Officer William G. Porter; Lt. Brian W. Rice; and Sgt. Alicia D. White.

Each week, the Watcher's Council hosts a forum as well as a contest for best post among the Council members. This week's forum question, referring to the wrongful death of Freddie Gray, is "what's your reaction to the Baltimore police being criminally charged?" I have been kindly been invited to respond.

Update: The Forum is posted here. I urged you to click on the link and read the various responses.

Here are the facts. On 12 April, Freddie Gray was out in public in Baltimore City when he saw several police officers headed in his direction. He made eye contact with an officer and took off running. That gave the officers probable cause to stop him, though not to arrest. After a chase of over a mile, police caught up with Mr. Gray and tased him. He went to the ground. Mr. Gray had no outstanding criminal warrants nor any record of violence. Police searched him and found a pocket knife. They arrested him for possessing an illegal weapon, but we learn from reports today that the knife was of legal size and type under Maryland law and the arrest was wrongful.

The arrest was filmed from the time Mr. Gray was on the ground after having been handcuffed and searched. The arrest itself and the transportation to the van appear wholly unremarkable. Mr. Gray was calling out as if in some pain every few seconds and he dragged one leg. None of that is atypical during an arrest. There was no brutality involved in the portion of the arrest that was filmed. When the police get him to a police van, he stands on the bumper. That is the end of the film.

Three days prior to the arrest of Mr. Gray, a memo was sent through the Baltimore City Police Department mandating that suspects being placed into the police van be placed in a seat and secured with a seat belt. Mr. Gray was simply lain on the floor of the vehicle. Mr. Gray continued to complain and act agitated while in the van. At some point, and perhaps twice, he requested medical aid, which requests were ignored. Within 30 minutes, Mr. Gray was taken from the van by paramedics where he expired a week later as the result of an 80% severing of his spine at the neck. There were no other injuries to Mr. Gray. As Bookworm Room has pointed out, there is some basis to suspect that Mr. Gray's reported prior exposure to lead may have left him particularly vulnerable to the type of injury that caused his death.

At this point, we are being fed information piecemeal by the Baltimore City Police Department and the District Attorney's office. No statements have been released. The indictments have not been made public. The Medical Examiner's Report has not been made public. There have been witness statements of barbarous treatment of Mr. Gray during the arrest, but based on the video and the fact of what information has been released from the ME, they appear baseless. Nonetheless, Baltimore has seen race riots occur over the past several days. And, at last report, Rev. Al is on his way there for some good old fashioned race based demagoguing.

On 1 May, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced that six Baltimore City Police officers have been arrested and charged in the death of Freddie Gray. Of the six officers, three are white, three are black, one is a woman. Two of the officers have been charged with crimes relating to wrongful arrest. Three others have additionally been charged with involuntary manslaughter. The driver of the police van has been charged with second degree murder.

So, on the facts above, what is my reaction to the police being criminally charged?

As a threshold matter, Freddie Gray deserves justice, period. That is beyond question. It will certainly mean civil damages for his death. Whether his death involved criminal wrongdoing such that others deserve punishment is a separate question. Equally, those involved in Freddie Gray's death are entitled to justice. They need to be prosecuted to the degree to which they are culpable, and spared any punishment if they are not.

There is not enough information yet to say for certain if the ends of justice are being served by the arrests of these six officers. My initial reaction, and I dearly hope that I am wrong, is that a lot of this is nothing more than a sacrifice to the racial grievance industry. This is not a planted evidence case, nor a case of brutality by the arresting officers. If they wrongly arrested, that would, in the normal course, be a matter for internal discipline as well as open the officers up to civil suit. But now a wrongful arrest on these facts is being used, in at least three cases, to end careers and criminally prosecute police officers? It appears that all three of them are the white officers, by the way. That seems utterly outrageous just on the facts available. Indeed, it seems a lynching, no less than that which happened to Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson.

Likewise, charging three officers with involuntary manslaughter, just on the known facts and the lack of established policy regarding transport, seems as if it is quite a stretch. It is far less of a stretch to the extent the charge of involuntary manslaughter is based on failing to timely render aid, if such aid was requested and may have in fact saved Mr. Gray's life. But it is not clear which evidence is being relied upon to support each charge against each individual.

Lastly, the driver of the police van, a black officer, has been charged with second degree murder. He, having sole custody of Mr. Gray from the time Mr. Gray was placed in the van until he was removed, injured, by paramedics, is likely at least guilty of involuntary manslaughter. That said, a charge of second degree murder, which requires some degree of intent or extreme recklessness, is likely an overcharge, just on the basis of the known facts.

So my reaction is mixed. At least one of the indictments - and perhaps as many as three - are or may well be warranted based on the available information. Several seem like nothing more than a lynching to satisfy the Al Sharpton wing of the left, who would dearly like to turn this into an indictment of racism and police brutality with which to, somehow, blame the right.

Baltimore City is a model of left wing urban governance and has been a social laboratory for nothing but left wing social policies for the past half century. The fact that Baltimore City, as well as its Police Department, are wholly owned subsidiaries of the left, and indeed, are led by minorities, is meaningless to the developing narrative. Already, Joan Walsh of Salon is tweeting that "there is no debate that tragically, black police officers often absorb the attitudes of their colleagues." Shades of white hispanics. The left will do anything to insure that whatever comes out of the Baltimore riots, it will not be a platform for rational discussion of the problems besetting Baltimore and inner city blacks. And if justice actually occurs in Baltimore -- justice for Freddie Gray as well as the six officers -- I am afraid it will be purely by accident.

Update: Alan Dershowitz shares my concerns that this is, in far too large a measure, a politically motivated prosecution:



Sheriff David Clarke from Milwaukee County, feels likewise:

. . . Clarke said of the charges, “it’s a miscarriage of justice. This neophyte prosecutor stood up there and made a political statement, Neil, and I say that because she’s chanting or voicing some of the chants from this angry mob. Her job is to tune that out. She said, I hear the voices. She’s not supposed to hear anything as she reviews this case that is not consistent with the rule of law and our system of justice. Look, I’m an experienced and a veteran homicide detective. I’ve had — I’ve participated in charging conferences. There is no way I have ever gotten a criminal charge within 24 hours after taking over all the reports and evidence to a prosecutor. A prosecutor who is thorough needs several days to sift through hundreds of pages of reports. They usually want to interview some of the witnesses themselves, in person, and they have to sift through all of the evidence, piece by piece, and they have to wait for some of the forensics evidence to conclude, to come back and that’s why I say on a minimum, three to four days. She just got this case yesterday. This is political activism. She’ll never prove this beyond a reasonable doubt, and I’m not going to silently stand by and watch my brother officers, offered up as human sacrifices, thrown like red meat to an angry mob, just to appease this angry mob.” And that “she rushed this thing through.”

After his interview was cut off to carry a Fraternal Order of Police press conference live, he continued, “she knows she’s not going to be able to prove these charges beyond a reasonable doubt. This is George Zimmerman and the Duke Lacrosse case all over again. A politically active district attorney or state’s attorney, you can tell the emotion in her voice, she almost did this with glee. And that’s why I believe, like they [the FOP] do…she needs to remove herself from the case. I hope the state’s attorney general gets involved in this, and sees the error of her ways. The smart thing for her to do is recuse herself and name a special prosecutor.”

He added that “there may be and probably are, some civil torts here, but what little I know, and I don’t know all the facts, but I’m listening to the emotion in their voice, and listening to those political statements that she made at the end of that news conference, that’s political activism, it’s wrong, it’s probably in violation of her code of ethics as a lawyer. And again, I’m going to take my time with this, but I’m not going to sit idly by, and I want to call out to every law enforcement officer in the country to pay attention to this. Because, I see a pattern, at least demands from an angry mob, that we be offered up as human sacrifices. We don’t do that in our system of justice in the United States just to please an angry mob. And I sense from what I heard her say, Neil, that that’s what is going on here.” . . .

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Bob Parks On The Zimmerman Trial & Its Aftermath

Bob Parks is a conservative journalist and radio show host. He runs the website Black & Right. He appears in a Sun TV interview on the Zimmerman case as well as how it is being exploited by the racial grievance industry. It is well worth a listen.



And here is another radio show host, Larry Elder, also on the Zimmerman trial with CNN Host Piers Morgan. Let the fireworks begin:



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Stand Your Ground: Holder's Pandering And The Reality Of The Black Community

Eric Holder's latest paen to the vociferous racial grievance industry is to suggest that Stand Your Ground laws play an unfair role in violence against blacks. As I said the moment Holder made the claim, the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus will eat this up. It will give many in their constituency the illusion that their leaders are taking a firm stand against something implicated in imaginary rampant white racism. Of much greater import, I opined that those who would be most hurt by removing Stand Your Ground laws would of necessity be blacks - that group of people far more likely to suffer violent crime, and indeed, to suffer it from other blacks. And lo and behold, this from the Daily Caller:

African Americans benefit from Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law at a rate far out of proportion to their presence in the state’s population, despite an assertion by Attorney General Eric Holder that repealing “Stand Your Ground” would help African Americans.

Black Floridians have made about a third of the state’s total “Stand Your Ground” claims in homicide cases, a rate nearly double the black percentage of Florida’s population. The majority of those claims have been successful, a success rate that exceeds that for Florida whites. . . .

But approximately one third of Florida “Stand Your Ground” claims in fatal cases have been made by black defendants, and they have used the defense successfully 55 percent of the time, at the same rate as the population at large and at a higher rate than white defendants, according to a Daily Caller analysis of a database maintained by the Tampa Bay Times. Additionally, the majority of victims in Florida “Stand Your Ground” cases have been white.

African Americans used “Stand Your Ground” defenses at nearly twice the rate of their presence in the Florida population, which was listed at 16.6 percent in 2012.

So Hodler takes a law to task as racist that actually protects law abiding blacks most of all. What a nightmare.

There are several inexcusable obscenities in American society. One is the endless cycle of poverty, single parent homes, criminality and poor education effecting a large strata of black society. Another is the racial grievance industry that does NOTHING beyond paying lip service to these conditions. It paints a picture of America still in 1950's Selma with the deeply racist Bull Connor Democrats still in control. I truly hope that there is a special place in hell for the leaders of the racial grievance industry. They are causing untold harm to our nation and, even worse, they are devastating to black culture and society.

Related: Speak of the devil, I just now saw this from The Hill:

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are readying a flurry of bills in response to George Zimmerman’s acquittal on charges in last year’s fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin.

The lawmakers are drafting proposals intended to rein in racial profiling; scrap state stand-your-ground laws; and promote better training for the nation’s neighborhood watch volunteers, among other anti-violence measures. CBC members had remained largely silent throughout the trial, but following the verdict, argued forcefully that, decades after the civil rights movement, the nation’s criminal justice system still discriminates against blacks and other minorities.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), an icon of the civil rights era, said the decision “seems to justify the stalking and killing of innocent black boys and deny them any avenue of self-defense.” Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), head of the CBC, decried “the presumption of guilt so often associated with people of color.”

“George Zimmerman targeted Trayvon Martin as a potential criminal because Trayvon Martin is black,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told MSNBC Monday.

“Anyone who denies that racism isn’t alive today, particularly in the so-called justice system, is exceedingly delusional,” said Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), who wore a hoodie on the House floor last year in a demonstration.

“This verdict points to the reality that there are far too many walking America’s streets wearing a hoodie, carrying snacks and soft drink, which can result in a ‘death sentence’ particularly if they are young, black and male.”

Leading the legislative charge is Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and a CBC member, who for years has pushed legislation to curtail racial profiling in the nation’s law enforcement agencies.

Conyers’s proposal is still being crafted, but past iterations have barred any law enforcement agent from targeting people based solely on race, gender or religion. It would also mandate race-sensitive training as a condition of receiving federal funding and require the Justice Department to provide Congress with periodic reports detailing discriminatory profiling practices.

Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), a CBC member who represents the district where Martin lived, said problems would persist until Congress acts.

“Until we pass meaningful laws against profiling, Americans will continue to be singled out and arrested for driving while black, shopping while black, walking while black and just plain being black,” said Wilson, who’s also working on the racial profiling bill. “My own children, and nearly all of the young men I know, have been stopped by the police at least once, for no apparent reason.”

Right - because laws against profiling will help blacks every bit as much as repeal of stand your ground laws. Compare and contrast the black murder capital of America, Chicago, a place more deadly than for Americans than Afghanistan and a place that studiously does not "profile," with, and I hate to say it, but Nanny Bloomberg's New York City. Under Bloomberg, NYC has instituted a highly aggressive stop and frisk program - something that clearly falls in the CBC's definition of profiling. That program has had a tremendously positive impact on crime in NYC, to the benefit of all but, particularly, to blacks and hispanics. This from NPR:

Closing arguments are set to take place Monday in the federal class action trial involving New York City's stop-and-frisk policy. The trial has been going on for two months in Manhattan.

Plaintiffs in Floyd v. City of New York claim the New York Police Department, its supervisors and its union pressured police officers to stop, question and frisk hundreds of thousands of people each year, even establishing quotas. They argue that 88 percent of the stops involved blacks and Hispanics, mostly men, and were in fact a form of racial profiling.

The police and the city argued that these policies were goals, not quotas, and have made New York the safest big city in America.

"I can't imagine any rational person saying that the techniques are not working and that we should stop them," says Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The city also argued that these stops took place in high crime areas where the crime was often black on black or Hispanic on Hispanic. As NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told public radio station WNYC: "Ninety-six percent of the shooting victims in New York City are black or Hispanic. Crime is down in this city in the last two decades 80 percent."

So the CBC and Eric Holder want to ritually sacrifice George Zimmerman, they want to repeal all stand your ground laws, and they want to end "racial profiling." Not a single one of those actions will help, in any way, the black population of our nation. To the contrary, each in their own way will do significant damage to the black population - including the sacrifice of the racially innocent George Zimmerman. But all will help the racial grievance industry to gather money and stay in power. Bastards. Absolutely worthless bastards.

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The Racial Grievance Industry & A Juxtaposition Of Three Cases - Zimmerman, Scott & Spooner

What do George Zimmerman, Roderick Scott and John Henry Spooner have in common? All three are men who shot and killed boys who were below the age of 17 and of a different race.

Zimmerman of course shot Trayvon Martin, black, during a brutal attack that left him bloody. The penultimate issue for the jury was whether Zimmerman was under a "reasonable" belief that he faced a threat of imminent bodily harm. That the jury did so has caused the racial grievance industry in the U.S. to go into overdrive.

John Henry Spooner is a an elderly white man in Millwauke who shot and killed an unarmed 13 year old black boy - and his neighbor - outside of the boy's home because he suspected that the boy had stolen some of his guns. He goes to trial tomorrow. There is no claim of self defense. It appears from the few facts known that this was murder, pure and simple.

Roderick Scott is a black man in Rochester, New York who came upon three 16 year old white boys whom he believed (or observed, not quite sure) were stealing from cars in the area. Brandishing a gun, he ordered them to stay in place until the police arrived. According to Scott, one of the boys charged him, saying that he was going to "get" Scott. Before the boy so much as touched Scott, he lay dead of a gunshot that Scott claimed he fired in self defense. Unlike Trayvon Martin, the person Scott shot had no history of any troubled past. Like Trayvon Martin, the boy's parents are inconsolable, believing their innocent son was murdered. Scott was acquitted of manslaughter charges yesterday following a jury trial.

Now, I admit, I only know about the facts of Spooner and Scott cases from news stories, not from the jury trials, so the thumbnail sketches that I have given above do not tell the whole story, and indeed, could well be biased. That said, let's assume the stories are accurate. Which of these two cases would you think would be national news and why?

Zimmerman did, of course, but the other one is, it may surprise you, the Spooner case, which is being billed by Yahoo News at least as "a case that bears some striking similarities to George Zimmerman's." No, there are virtually no similarities between the Zimmerman and Spooner cases. But the Zimmerman and Scott cases are indeed photo negative similar. Both were within the bounds of reasonable questions of fact on manslaughter and self defense - and both have been answered by a jury. These cases are indeed strikingly similar.

Yet you likely won't hear a single person on the left who knows of the Scott case. You will not hear of it on the national news. The Rev. Al will never mention it. And rest assured that the NAACP will not be making it their raison d'etre to insure that Scott is punished under federal civil rights laws. There will likely not be death threats against Mr. Scott, nor will he have to spend the rest of his life being hunted by the members of the racial grievance industry. And indeed, the Scott case is strictly making it to the local news - it appears nowhere on Yahoo news, ABC, CBS, NBC, or even for that matter, MSNBC.

There is probably no greater proof of how the racial grievance industry is manipulating blacks and this nation than the treatment of these three cases.

And there are others. Former representative and army officer Allen West - a man who believes that Zimmerman should have been given a trial, but solely for manslaughter - in fact points out that the Zimmerman case is no longer about justice. It is only about power and money for the racial grievance industry. Where is, he asks, the NAACP in respect to outrageous black on white violence, or for that matter, the statistically significant problem of black on black violence?



Where are they indeed.

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Race & The Zimmerman Case (Updated)

The Zimmerman case is the poster child for all that is wrong and destructive with racial politics in America. The left has been trying to make this into a race hate crime, something which it never was. Nor was this case about Florida's Stand Your Ground law, something never raised as a defense at trial. This has been about racial politics from start to finish - facts be damned.

The race machine - and the left which is fully invested in it - has built up a pile of myths surrounding this case, none of which stood the test of evidence at trial. They painted Treyvon Martin as an innocent angel who did nothing wrong while demonizing a white man (actually a mixed race hispanic, white and black, but let's not confuse the issues with facts) who supposedly hunted Trayvon down, accosted him and then killed him for no reason but racial animus. No one more so than the nation's worst race baiter, Al Sharpton (a man actually responsible for murder) has led the charge:



As to the facts and law presented at trial, it is clear that both Zimmerman and Martin had every right to be where they were on the night of the shooting. What Trayvon Martin did not have a right to do was begin pummelling Zimmerman. What Zimmerman had a right to do was act in self defense if he reasonably believed himself in danger of serious harm. Listen to those screams on the 9-11 tape and it is apparent that the person screaming felt himself in extremis. Since we know that Martin was on top, pummelling Zimmerman, it follows logically that it was Zimmerman making those panicked screams for help. [Update: One of the jurors has just in confirmed the above as the basis for the jury verdict] This from Protein Wisdom:

Anyone with half-a-brain who actually watched the trial cannot come away without knowing that it was Trayvon’s own behavior that led to his death. It was the behavior embodied in his “creepy-ass cracker” remark, his braggadocio attitude about street-fighting and his problems with authority that had him bounced to his father’s home that ultimately killed him, not George Zimmerman. . . .

So when Martin circled back to teach the “creepy-ass cracker” a lesson in respect by punching George in the nose, then beating his head against the concrete for 40 seconds while George screamed for help, then it was Trayvon, not George, that ended his own life.

George never did anything illegal, though those that want the sheep civilians to “shelter in place” in their homes at night, tried to use this show trial to reinforce the meme that The State will take care of you, don’t you dare try it on your own. . . .

The race machine, epitomized by Sharpton, wants desperately to milk this incident for all of the black rage and white liberal guilt that its worth, irregardless of the facts. And for their part, many on the left, including Obama, want to use this as an excuse for limiting access to guns. Obama actually has a foot in both camps, calling not only for gun control - apparently irrespective of whether Zimmerman used his gun in a legitimate act of self defense - but also called on the nation to "honor" Treyvon Martin, certainly suggesting that Martin was the innocent in this matter.

The last thing any on the left, from Obama on down, want is to have someone point out that this case is, more than anything, an indictment of the black subculture that promotes violence and criminality. For instance, Tristan Breaux, the recently elected 25 year old head of the Norfolk NAACP wrote the following on his Facebook Page:

"I wonder why it is that we are always willing to say someone who clearly had a shaky past, was the victim," Breaux asked . . . referring to Trayvon Martin. . . .

The post went on to ask if people are blinded to why Trayvon was staying with his dad and why he wasn't at home at at time of the shooting.

For his intellectual honesty, the left has turned on Breaux and are now calling for his ouster. And Mr. Breaux is not the only voice of honesty - rapper Lupe Fiasco can also likely expect a backlash one would imagine for his non-conformist remarks in the wake of the trial.

As to the legacy of this case, the attorney who runs the site Talk Left gives a good summation:

. . . [T]he legacy of this case will be that the media never gets it right, and worse, that a group of lawyers, with the aid of a public relations team, who had a financial stake in the outcome of pending and anticipated civil litigation, were allowed to commandeer control of Florida's criminal justice system, in pursuit of a divisive, personal agenda.

Their transformation of a tragic but spontaneous shooting into the crime of the century, and their relentless demonization of the person they deemed responsible, not for a tragic killing, but for "cold-blooded murder," has called into question the political motives and ethics of the officials serving in the Executive branch of Florida's government, ruined the career of other public officials, turned the lives of the Zimmerman family, who are as innocent as their grieving clients, into a nightmare, and along the way, set back any chance of a rational discussion of the very cause they were promoting, probably for years. . . .

The NAACP is now calling for Holder's Justice Department to file civil rights charges against Zimmerman. The big problem for this is that none of the evidence, including that unearthed during an FBI investigation, showed any hint of racial animus in George Zimmerman's past. But then again, this is not about facts, its about myths and political power. This is doing a grave injustice not merely to our nation and to the Zimmerman family, but most tragically to the black community. This is saying that there are no problems in the incredibly dysfunctional lower strata of black society, but rather that it is all a function of racism. No one sums up the myths of this case or the specious argument more so than the NYT editorial board in their op-ed of yesterday:

. . . While Mr. Zimmerman’s conviction might have provided an emotional catharsis, we would still be a country plagued by racism, which persists in ever more insidious forms despite the Supreme Court’s sanguine assessment that “things have changed dramatically,” as it said in last month’s ruling striking down the heart of the Voting Rights Act. (The Justice Department is right to continue its investigation into whether Mr. Zimmerman may still be prosecuted under federal civil rights laws.)

The jury reached its verdict after having been asked to consider Mr. Zimmerman’s actions in light of Florida’s now-notorious Stand Your Ground statute. Under that law, versions of which are on the books in two dozen states, a person may use deadly force if he or she “reasonably believes” it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm — a low bar that the prosecutors in this case fought in vain to overcome.

These laws sound intuitive: who would argue that you may not protect yourself against great harm? But of course, the concept of “reasonable belief” is transformed into something deadly dangerous when firearms are involved. And when the Stand Your Ground laws intersect with lax concealed-carry laws, it works essentially to self-deputize anyone with a Kel-Tec 9 millimeter and a grudge.

It has been a bad year so far for gun control. But if anything, cases like this should be as troubling as the mass killings that always prompt a national outcry and promises of legislative remedy. We were heartened that President Obama, in his statement after the verdict was issued, took the opportunity to denounce once again “the tide of gun violence” sweeping the country.

In the end, what is most frightening is that there are so many people with guns who are like George Zimmerman. Fear and racism may never be fully eliminated by legislative or judicial order, but neither should our laws allow and even facilitate their most deadly expression. Trayvon Martin was an unarmed boy walking home from the convenience store. If only Florida could give him back his life as easily as it is giving back George Zimmerman’s gun.

The NYT is hardly the only outlet keeping up the myths, and indeed, are positively staid in comparison to Salon's Edward Wyckoff Williams who writes that the trial was part of the "new Jim Crow," that calls not to riot are unreasonable, and that:

The nation’s sociopolitical consciousness remains plagued by a three-fifths compromise that devalues the lives of black people in general, and black boys and men in particular. . . .

For African-Americans this is not new. The paradox of being implicitly excluded from the guarantee of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness has been reiterated and reinforced by public policy and social malaise for centuries. President Barack Obama is not immune — as he’s become the target of incessant “white rage”: race-baiting attacks, prejudice and bias even prior to his election. The Republican Party and its neo-Confederate Tea Party wing has been committed to invalidating his political and legislative legacy as much as the Zimmerman jury invalidated the civil rights of Trayvon. The disparate precedent set, therefore, becomes all the more insulting when we’re told to simply shut up and bear it. . . .

What words written here can suffice to argue on behalf of an innocent dead child, as his murderer walks free — absolved by the system that failed to hold him responsible from the very beginning? The very logic that precipitated Trayvon’s death and rendered jurisprudence to justify his killing reflects the misguided principles at the heart of Zimmerman’s defense: that this black boy had no right to live. . . .

And that's not even the most outrageous example of this political myth of victimization and rampant white-conservative racism. The worst comes from The Guardian, where Gary Younge wrote over a picture of then 12 year old Treyvon that it is now "Open season on black boys after a verdict like this."

The race machine is in overdrive and there not going to let this one go so long as they see the possibility for political and monetary gain. Al Sharpton, who demanded not merely the arrest of Zimmerman but his conviction, will be "mobilizing" protests in 100 cities . . . to pressure the Justice Department into taking legal action against George Zimmerman." And the animals are out, with death threats against Zimmerman and other "crackers." These are people fed on a steady diet of victimization and the myth that we are still in (Democratic controlled) 1950's Selma. It is obscene.

But the settling of accounts on this is far from just on the side of the race baiters. The parents of Trayvon Martin are considering a civil case against Zimmerman - and that is the one where all of the unvarnished truth will come out. What will be on trial in such a proceeding is not merely Zimmerman, but also Trayon Martin. All of the evidence kept out of the criminal trial will likely be admissible in a civil trial, and from just what is out in the public domain today, it would likely paint the picture of a young man with impaired judgement, uncontrollable by his mother and caught up in the black subculture of violence. Zimmerman, for his part, plans to sue NBC - and hopefully others - for their role in demonizing him.

And then there is the Special Prosecutor in this case, Angela Corey. One could argue that her decision to bring suit in this case - even for second degree murder - was within the outer boundaries of her discretion. But what is beyond argument is the way she handled this trial, including the withholding of key evidence and the termination of a whistleblower who brought her actions to the attention of the defense attorneys. She needs to be fired and subject to a civil suit for these acts.

Lastly, to add on a personal note, I am so tired of this horseshit it is beyond belief. I am deeply conservative, as are many, but hardly all, of my friends. I firmly believe in equality for all and that neither racism nor race baiting have any place in this country. And indeed, I know of no one among my friends, nor in the larger circle of those on the right, who believes in anything else. I resent the hell out of being labeled a racist by the left because I refuse to kow tow to their use of the race card or because I think their policies a complete failure. I am apoplectic with Sharpton and his ilk doing their best to gin up rage in the black community for their own power and wealth while doing nothing to fix the real problems in at least a large strata of black society. At the heart of those problems is, as David Goldman writes at PJM, "the breakdown of the black family" and all that means for criminality, jobs and education - something apparent ever since Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan raised it in his 1965 report "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action." As Goldman concludes at PJM:

Why have civil rights organizations and black clergy wagered their reputations on the Zimmerman case? It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the issues that really concern African-Americans simply are too painful to discuss. Five years after the ultimate boost to self-esteem — the election of the first black president — things are getting worse faster. If black leaders — from Barack Obama and Eric Holder on down — can’t talk about the real problems, the prospects for the future are frightening indeed.

Goldman is right. The race baiters need to be called to account every bit as much as actual racists. And the race card, something that has done so much to harm our nation, needs to be put in the dust bin of history.

In conclusion, this from Martin Luther King, quoted in today's WSJ by Jason Riley:

"Do you know that Negroes are 10 percent of the population of St. Louis and are responsible for 58% of its crimes? We've got to face that. And we've got to do something about our moral standards," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. told a congregation in 1961. "We know that there are many things wrong in the white world, but there are many things wrong in the black world, too. We can't keep on blaming the white man. There are things we must do for ourselves."

The problems of actual racism in our society have greatly receded since MLK's remarks. But clearly, the problems raised by MLK have not - least of all by the race baiting industry exploiting the tragedy of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman.

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Oh Breitbart, Where Are You? We Need A New Race Narrative In The U.S.

Justice demands that the killing of Trevon Martin, precisely like any other killing, be fully investigated.   Justice likewise demands that if the facts warrant, his killer, the "white Hispanic" (and registered Democrat) George Zimmerman, should be prosecuted, but, equally, that if the facts don't show Zimmerman's conduct to be culpable, that Zimmerman should not suffer any legal consequence. For all of the facts known to date, Sister Toldjah has an exceptional roll up.

But justice has taken a back seat as the race hustlers have come out in force, calling for George Zimmerman's blood - the facts, investigation and applicable law be damned. All of the problems of the black community are glossed over as the loudest of voices all claim that the biggest problem blacks suffer from is violent white racism. That is about as far from reality as one can get.

The New Black Panthers - the same group calling for the murder of "cracker babies" - put out a "wanted" poster and has now put a bounty out for Zimmerman's capture. Louis Farrakhan - whom you might remember as the man who motivated the Virginia sniper - has called for "retribution." Spike Lee retweeted Zimmerman's address - though he got it wrong - in a clear invitation to vigilante justice.  Jesse Jackson, who recently commented that "“targeting, arresting, convicting blacks and ultimately killing us is big business” in America - has proclaimed that there will be "no peace" until Zimmerman is arrested. MSNBC's resident race hustler, Al Sharpton - the man largely responsible for the Crown Heights riots that ended in the murder of two men by blacks - has made the Martin case his cause celebre, likewise portraying this as a racial incident and calling for Zimmerman's immediate arrest.  According to Democrat Rep. Hank Johnson, that intellectual heavyweight who worried that too many people on Guam might cause it to tip over, Martin was "executed for 'WWB' in a 'GC.' Walking While Black in a Gated Community."  Johnson may be dumber than a tomato, but he knows the language of race hustling.  He has been joined in his obscenities by many other of his fellow black Congressmen and women.

Are you at all surprised that there has not been a single word of criticism from the left - and nowhere near enough from the right - for these outrageous acts, at least several of which amount to a call for a lynching?  On the contrary, the left embraces these scandalous acts, while the right is so used to them that the response is muted.    

Now let's take a look at some of the other race based violence going on in America - most of which is going virtually unreported and unremarked.

Two weeks ago, two 16 year old blacks followed a 13 year old white boy they did not know while he was on his way home from school. At some point, they tossed gas in his face, then lit him on fire while saying "you get what you deserve, white boy."  There was zero mention of it in the national media.  Regardless, to commit this barbaric crime, what kind of hatred must these two blacks have been fed, and who fed it to them?  It turns out that race hatred was being taught to blacks in their Kansas City public school which, as Robert Avrech describes, "teaches and encourages racial constructs that make Nazi Germany look positively multicultural."  Do see his post for the whole stomach churning story.

Though the above described attack was particularly heinous, it is hardly an anomaly. Brutal black race violence is not unusual at all in many places. In Philadelphia, they are seeing "almost weekly racially motivated mob attacks on white people. The media censors all mention of the race and only prints tiny stories calling them “flash mobs.”' This type of black mob racially motivated violence has also appeared in other cities across the U.S. In San Francisco and Oakland, its black mob violence directed at Asians. These are blacks being fed a steady diet of hatred and victimization by the left, and then lashing out.

The above is anecdotal evidence.  Let's review some of the statistics.

- "In 2005, there were more than 645,000 victims of cross-racial violent crimes between blacks and whites in the U.S. In 90% of those crimes, black offenders attacked white victims."

- "Black men are the leading cause of death among young blacks [male and female]”; “1 in 146 black males are at risk of violent death”; and though comprising only 13 percent of the U.S. population, 43 percent of all murder victims are black, compounded by the fact that 93 percent of them are killed by other blacks."

- "There were two and a half times as many white and Hispanic victims of black killers in 2009 as there were black victims of white and Hispanic killers, even though the black population is one-sixth that of whites and Hispanics combined. If Hispanics were removed from the category of “white” killers of blacks, the percentage of blacks killed by Anglo whites would plummet, since a significant percentage of what the FBI calls “white”-on-black killings represent gang warfare between Hispanic and black gangs."

- In "New York City, [b]lacks commit 80 percent of all shootings . . . — as reported by the victims of and witnesses to those shootings — though they are but 23 percent of the population; whites commit 1.4 percent of all shootings, though they are 35 percent of the population. Add Hispanic shootings to the black tally, and you account for 98 percent of all of the city’s gun violence."

- "The life expectancy for black men in prison is higher than the life expectancy for black men outside of prison."

But let's go beyond crime statistics.  One of the single greatest indicators of how a child will turn out - academically, financially, and in virtually all areas of achievement, is whether the child is raised in a single parent household as opposed to a two parent household.  It is also a predictor of violence and criminality.  Today, in the black community, fully "72 percent of Black children are raised in a single parent household."  The much maligned Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s now fifty year old Department of Labor report, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," has proven horribly prophetic.

Black poverty is the highest in the nation.  In 2011 it topped 27%, with over 38% of black children being raised in poverty.  There is the direct correlation between education and income, and thus, poverty.  The problems of education in inner city schools are open, obvious, and simply unforgivable.  It is a crisis issue for black America.  For but one example, Detroit, a city that is over 80% black, is America's poorest city, with over 36% of its residents listed as impovrished.  Half of the residents of the city are functionally illiterate.  Yet it is the left, protecting their public sector union piggy banks at all costs, that are the reason for this situation.

So there are huge problems in the black community.  But among those problems, violent racism directed at blacks is at or near the bottom of the list.  And indeed, racism itself of any kind directed at blacks is so absent from our country today that the race hustlers have felt compelled to invent the ludicrous construct of "color blind racism."  Yet no one would know that if they just listen to the rouge's gallery of race hustlers listed at the top of this post.  All of them want to pretend that its 1950 and Bull Conor, that infamous southern Democrat, is using the dogs and the hoses on blacks.  The left teach blacks to feel victimized by whites, to nurse and, indeed, be defined by hatred of whites, and to blame all their troubles on whites.  Not a single one of these "black leaders" is doing a damn thing about the true problems of the black community.  And of course, they are aided and abetted by the left as a whole.  To the left, anything that supports the black victim narrative is acceptable, no matter how unmoored from reality, no matter how obscene and noxious.

Racism has no place in America.  That holds equally true for reverse racism - it too is every bit as repugnant and likewise, has no place in America.  Yet the left has created two standards in America.  They have set a high bar for anyone not a left wing black, all of whom are held to rigid standards of political correctness, and no standards whatsoever for left wing blacks.  The right has acquiesced in this for years.  No more.  Everyone in our country needs to start holding all the race hustlers and their leftist enablers to account.

The acts of the New Black Panthers are illegal and we should be demanding that they be investigated.  (I know, fat chance with Eric Holder, but the demand should be made all the same.)  The same with Spike Lee - who should also face civil action from the people actually living at the address he tweeted.  Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam need to be denounced and treated just as were the KKK - whom they resemble in mirror image.  Moreover, we should be demanding that Nation of Islam "prison ministry" should be shut down in every state.  Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton need to be challenged vociferously for their ridiculous claims about white racism and, equally, about just what have they done to advance the plight of blacks.  It is no secret they have done far more for their bank accounts than their community.  After that, they should be shunned and their appearances protested at every opportunity.  They need to be treated like the vile race hustlers they are.

And just to ask, if the state concludes, as they well may, that Zimmerman acted legally, do you think that there will be violence from black mobs stirred up by these race hustlers?  I think it is inevitable.  And every one of these race hustlers need to be held to account for it. Update: Apparently, a "flash mob" of black high school students found not merely time to rally for Martin, but then also to raid a Walgreens. Because, you know, nothing says racial justice like ransacking and robbing a store. The race hustlers need to be billed.

Race hustling and reverse racism need to go the way racism itself in America.  It is long past time we need to start disrupting the race narrative with actual facts.  For the benefit of every single person in this nation, it is long past time that we start holding the black left to the same standards of conduct as everyone else.  Is there any doubt that if Breitbart were alive, he would be leading the charge on this.  He left us far too soon.  It is left up to us.

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Interesting News – 10 January 2008

The top three Republican candidates appear to be in a tie in Michigan. I wonder if we will see a Republican nominee emerge before the convention. Rick Moran is asking for our support for Fred Thompson.

Some thoughts on McCain that mirror my own here. McCain is hardly a die hard conservative, and his votes on tax cuts and immigration are hard to swallow. But he has vowed to end earmarks and he makes the highest marks on national security, both of which make him an attactive candidate to me at least. In terms of bipartisanship, he is also the real deal – a true thorn for conservatives on many issues, but he would likely appeal to many independents. Bookworm Room wonders if he isin’t trying to position Lieberman as his running mate.

Remember the Lancet Report claiming 655,000 Iraqi dead issued just before the last election? The World Health Organization has released its own, much lower count based on a much larger sampling. Laer has the story here.

I am regularly amazed by the arguments against using picture I.D.’s to combat voter fraud. Of particular note is the argument that it would harm the indigent and prevent them from voting. That seems a canard. Anyone who can make it to a polling booth on election day can just as easilly make it to a government office, show proof of their identity and get an i.d. card. Contrary arguments appear to be an invitation for fraud. More thoughts here.

The People’s Democratic Republic of San Francisco wants to be a gun-free an island unto itself. And in some ways, they are making progress towards that goal.

Al Sharpton smells some race-geld to be had in the inadvertent comment of a TV golf analyst. He has started mining and much to its shame, the Golf Channel has caved.

And from Across the Pond . . .

Europe has discovered democracy. They want to vote and have their say . . . in the U.S. elections.

Democracy does have its limits, however. The governments of Europe want a "mature debate" on the EU, but no vote on the same. And on this most important issue facing Britain since 1939, Labour is being assissted by the Tories. Scandalous. When the Queen took the oath of coronation near half a century ago, it was clearly not the EU Constitution she was binding herself, along with the people of Britain, to uphold. At least some people are attempting to expose the government’s deceit in their own way.

The BBC knows where its bread is buttered – its Brussels, not Westminister. EU Referendum ponders whether this might explain the BBC’s fawning coverage of and deference to the EU. I think that the EU is simply the ultimate leftist construct, and given the bent of the BBC, that explains the affinity.

And the MCB responds to the comments of the Bishop of Rochester that there are no-go areas in Britain. Sheik Yer Mami notes that most Britons seem to disagree with the MCB.

"Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn to recite as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world. Extracting these children from the jaws of bias could mean the difference between world prosperity and menacing global rifts." This is a quote on education in French and German public schools. Read this exceptional post at DWM.

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