Race, Politics, Riots, and Justice

By Alan Caruba

When I heard the Florida special prosecutor Angela Corey announce that second degree murder charges would be brought against George Zimmerman, my first thought was that she was enhancing her resume in the hopes of becoming a judge someday.

By now everyone knows that the 28-year-old Zimmerman shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on February 26 in Sanford, Florida. The media have been meticulous in describing Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic” and Martin as an “African-American.” The Sanford police thought the incident was so transparently a case of self-defense they initially declined to arrest Zimmerman. Moreover, Florida has a law that empowers a citizen in fear of his life to respond with force.

Case closed, right? Wrong, very wrong. As word of the incident spread it became a cause celeb for every race-monger on either side of the black-white dividing line, but especially for people like Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson who were on the first available flight to Florida.

The Zimmerman-Martin case revealed how sharply divided whites and blacks in America still are since the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While strides have been made in the nearly fifty years since then to ensure equality before the law, a relative minority of the black community, some 13% of the U.S. population, has demonstrated progress. By almost any measurement of social disfunction African Americans lead all other races in America.

Walter E. Williams, a professor of economics at George Mason University, identified the problem in a recent commentary, saying “there’s a larger issue that few people understand or have the courage to acknowledge, namely that black and young have become synonymous with crime, and, hence, suspicion. To make that connection does not make one a racist.”

Williams quoted a black, former chief of police of Charleston, S.C., Reuben Greenberg, who said “The greatest problem in the black community is the tolerance for high levels of criminality.” Another black, former police chief, Bernard Parks of Los Angeles, has said “It’s not the fault of the police when they stop minority males or put them in jail. It’s the fault of the minority males for committing the crime.”

At this stage in the unfolding drama, a poll cited in an April 12 Reuters news report indicated that “Americans are deeply divided by race over the killing of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, with 91% of African-Americans saying he was unjustly killed, while just 35 percent of whites thought so, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Thursday.”

And therein lies the real story and a very sad one at that. Beyond that divide lies the politics evoked by the incident that included the President of the United States saying, “If I had a son he would look like Trayvon.” This is the second time the President has inserted himself in a story of the arrest of a black American. Presidents are not supposed to do this, especially if they are trained lawyers and alleged experts on the Constitution. It instantly politicized the case.

An April 13 Rasmussen poll revealed that “Americans are slightly less sure that the man who shot black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin is guilty of murder, but more convinced that he’ll be found guilty of that crime. However, a sizeable number still remains unsure about what happened and what will happen in the days ahead. Thirty percent (30%) of American adults now believe George Zimmerman should be found guilty of murder…but twenty-four percent (24%) think Zimmerman acted in self-defense.”

Fortunately the case will be decided in a court of law, not by public opinion.

The famed attorney, Alan Dershowitz was asked on a MSNBC segment what he thought of the case and he expressed the view that the indictment was of dubious merit. That brings me back to my initial reaction to Angela Corey’s self-aggrandizing decision and performance.

Aside from her personal stake in the action taken, I had to wonder how much of the decision was based on the fear of race riots such as those in 1992 when the Los Angeles police officers who sought to subdue Rodney King were acquitted; the two days of rioting in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1996, when a black youth was fatally wounded by police officer after being stopped for speeding; the 2001 riots in Cincinnati following the shooting of an unarmed young black male during a police foot pursuit; and the 2009 riots in Oakland, California following a similar fatal shooting by a BART transit policeman.

You can virtually put money on the likelihood that riots will occur no matter what the outcome of the indictment of Martin Zimmerman. They will not advance the cause of justice.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Violent Death in America is an Equal Opportunity Crime

By Alan Caruba

I have had an interest in demography, the study of populations and trends within populations, for a long time. Racial animosities in America have been a factor from the moment white colonists stepped off the boat and were greeted by Native Americans and, not that long after, when the first blacks arrived from Africa where slavery had flourished for centuries.

I lived in the South when Jim Crow laws were on the books and public facilities were segregated. I was a young reporter during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s and even met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on one occasion. I have seen the best and worst of what race represents in America.

I would count the initial reporting on the killing of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, as among the worst media coverage in a while because, as the facts begin to emerge after a month, it turns out that there was an eye witness to the incident in which George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, suffered a broken nose and injuries to the back of his head consistent with an attack.

The Black Panther Party issued a reward for Zimmerman’s “capture.” In the meantime, Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson, have been out doing what they always do, stirring up black anger and blaming all whites for what occurred.

Let’s look at the demographic facts. In 2007 the Associated Press reported that “Nearly half of the nation’s murder victims were black and the number of black men who were slain is on the rise.” The other half were murdered white victims.

Murder in America is an equal opportunity crime.

The article went on to note that black people represented an estimated 13 percent of the U.S. population in 2005, the latest data then available, but were the victims of 49 percent of all murders and 15 percent of rapes, assaults and other nonfatal violent crimes nationwide.”

The U.S. Justice Department study found that “Most of the black murder victims—93 percent—were killed by other black people.”

The study also found that 85 percent of white victims were slain by other white people. Of the black victims, 51 percent were in their late teens and twenties.

More recent statistics from 2009, posted on the website of the U.S. Department of Justice show pretty much the same trend. That year, 2,604 blacks were killed by blacks, along with 454 whites, but whites managed to kill each other to the tune of 2,963 victims, while killing 209 black victims.

Nationally by 2010, homicide was the leading cause of death for black young men ages 10-24 and the second leading cause of death for black women ages 15-24.

Overall, between 1974 and 2004, 52 percent of murderers were black, 48 percent were white, while 51 percent of the victims were white and 47 percent were black. If one can spin these statistics to suggest that the killing of Trayvon Martin was racial, be my guest.

Appearing on the Sean Hannity program Monday evening, Zimmerman’s friend, Joe Oliver, calmly defended him saying “he is not a racist.” Oliver is black.

Why Barack Obama felt it necessary to insert himself into the situation before the facts are established was a reminder of an earlier situation in 2009 when he took issue with an incident between Cambridge, Massachusetts police and a black professor who was hauled off to jail for failing to cooperate with them. Always assuming the police are to blame or inferring that Trayvon Martin was killed because he could have looked like Obama’s son, if he had one, is a serious breach of judgment. To say it out loud is even worse.

Finally, lost in all the hasty assumptions and accusations is the fact that Zimmerman was, as previously noted, a neighborhood watch volunteer and this suggests the Sanford, Florida neighborhood had crime problems. Trayvon, we’re learning, had some earlier experiences with the local police, so he was on that evening a subject of concern to Zimmerman who reported his presence to the police and was returning to his car when the shooting occurred.

No one takes any pleasure in the death of Trayvon Martin or any other young black man. It is a tragedy, but it is also one that is repeated far too many times in too many American cities for reasons that cannot be passed off as racism. His death reflects the pathologies that plague too many of America’s black population.

We should be celebrating the black men and women that escape their cultural bondage, embrace middle class values, and ennoble their lives through their personal achievements.

Exploiting his death is a disservice to both America’s black and white population.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Politics 2010 in Black and White

By Alan Caruba

In 2008, Barack Obama would not have been elected to the presidency if white voters had not reached a point since the days of the 1960s Civil Rights movement to think a black man could and should have a shot at the job.

If race played a role in the election, it was usually Obama that made reference to it, lightly touching on the subject to acknowledge and diminish it.

The only Americans permitted to discuss black/white relations these days are its media-designated spokespersons like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. When the NAACP spoke up recently, it was to condemn Tea Party members as racists.

Rather than advance the condition of blacks in America, Obama has done almost nothing. Indeed, one of his administration’s first acts was to defund charter schools in Washington, D.C. where, like most major urban centers, the schools that young blacks attend are universally dismal.

It is, of course, impossible to look at the handsome, young black President without seeing a handsome, young black President. Understandably, he has the support of the vast majority of America’s black population; approximately 9.9 million according to the last census. They are a minority among minorities. There are now more Hispanics than blacks.

It is, however, Obama’s policies, not his skin color, that have created resistance. In a recent statement, Earl G. Graves Sr., chairman and publisher of Black Enterprise, said, “The distress is real and legitimate. First, people of all races and economic backgrounds are continuing to suffer as the result of an economy that continues to struggle.”

Graves, however, gave Obama a pass with the now familiar assertion that Obama “inherited this mess”, but the fact is that Obama sought the presidency and all presidents inherit whatever issues preceded their term in office or occur on their watch. It is the manner in which they address those issues by which we judge their competency.

Graves lamented that, despite Obama’s election as the nation’s first black president, “there are still people who just cannot get past the issue of race. They still can’t bring themselves to respect a black man, even if he is the President of the United States, regardless of his policies and actions.”

To which I say “hogwash.”

The forthcoming midterm elections are all about the Obama administration policies; the profligate borrowing and spending, the bailouts, the takeover of the nation’s healthcare sector, the shutdown of offshore oil drilling, the insults to foreign allies, and the timidity toward foreign enemies.

Having lived in the south at a time when segregation was the norm, I can attest to how far white America has come in rejecting those restrictions, but I would argue that their hopes for America’s black community have fallen well short of expectations.

White Americans are hugely disappointed. Much had to be ignored when some of them voted for Obama. At one point in the campaign he had to disavow Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the twenty years he attended a church devoted to black liberation theology; a church where Rev. Wright could stand in the pulpit and say, “God damn America.”

Much within America’s black community remains dysfunctional. A recent Wall Street Journal commentary about the NAACP, noted that “Blacks are 13% of the population but comprise 38% of prison or jail inmates in the U.S., and black-on-black violent crime is the norm. Blacks commit 52% of all murders and make up 49% of all murder victims—90% of them are killed by other blacks.”

In cities, many of which that have had black mayors, the schools are among the worst. More than 70% of black children are born to single women and, as The Wall Street Journal commentary noted “are more likely to live in poverty, perform poorly in school, to commit crimes and abuse drugs.” This is a failure of the progress many white Americans had wished for.

Obama is no flag-waving black American. He has noticeably been unwilling to salute during the playing of the national anthem. He is demonstrably a socialist in a capitalist nation.

When he selected Van Jones, a black member of the Communist Party, to be his “green jobs czar”, Jones resigned when his communist affiliation was revealed. When Obama lived with his grandparents in Hawaii, a teenage mentor was Frank Marshall Davis, a black newspaper journalist and poet who was widely known in the 1950s to be a communist. His memoirs speak of his affinity with Marxist students and faculty members.

He was elected despite this. It has taken less than two years in office for the backlash to occur.

It may be unfair, but whites hold black politicians to a higher standard of behavior simply because they have risen to positions of power, often as the result of heavily black constituencies.

Charles Rangel (D-NY) is facing ethics charges along with Maxine Waters (D-CA). It was revealed that Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) steered college scholarships to members of her own family. In 2006 Rep. William Jefferson was found to have $90,000 in bribe money in his home freezer and subsequently went to jail. In 1994, Rep. Mel Reynolds was found guilty of having had sex with an underage 16-year-old campaign worker.

When it comes to the Department of Justice, issues of voting rights are front and center. The double standards of DOJ under the leadership of a black Attorney General, Eric Holder, are a cause for concern in the white community.

While on a recent campaign stop in Rhode Island Obama repeated his mantra that the nation’s economic problems are all due to Republicans despite the obvious fact that Democrats have been in control of Congress since 2006. Prior to the 1994 midterm elections, Democrats had controlled Congress for forty years.

At one point Obama said, “We can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”

The ill-conceived and unfortunate back-of-the-bus remark comes from the early days of the Civil Rights struggle for equality when, throughout the South, blacks were required to sit in the back of the bus. Applying it to Republicans was especially offensive. In a recent radio interview he told Hispanic listeners that they must “punish our enemies.”

Like an old time Southern Democrat politician Obama has played the race and ethnicity card reflecting his party’s dependency, not just on blacks, but a hoped-for Hispanic support as well. The rest of his base has shrunk to unions and the nation’s youth.

The midterm elections are expected to make a dramatic change in Congress and, when the dust settles, it will not be because America is led by a black president, but because America is led by an incompetent president, a socialist whose policies will have been soundly rejected.

© Alan Caruba, 2010