The face of race relations today?
Unable to continue their policy of complicity under the withering scrutiny of the international press, the Mobile Police have finally, grudgingly, begin a cursory investigation into the mob beating of Matthew Owens. The facts of the incident are clear- so clear, in fact, that the police have had no choice but to start arresting the guilty, starting with one Terry Rawls. The arrests will continue, but the police have already expressed their intention of only going after three more people. The other 17 or so members of the mob that savagely beat the unarmed man with full paint cans, sticks, pipes, chairs and bricks have been given a pass, it seems, because in the opinion of the Mobile Police the melee constitutes a “dispute with neighbors.”
20 adults, many of whom got into their cars and drove with the pre-meditated intention of engaging in violence, picked up weapons and attacked an unarmed man en-masse, beating him unconscious and leaving him with severe head injuries.
That is not a “dispute”; that is a violent mob.
Witnesses claim one of those attackers screamed, “That’s justice for Trayvon” as she drove away.
What the hell is happening here? What the hell is going on with race relations in the U.S.? What has happened to a nation whose leader exercises implied consent of racially-motivated violence? Is lawlessness suddenly acceptable because it’s an election year?
In August of 1963 Martin Luther King stood before 200,000 supporters and delivered a speech that changed the course of human history. During that speech he admonished:
…there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
What happened? Has his Dream, with the implied consent of black leaders, been forever deferred by his own people?
The racial tensions we’re witnessing today have been manufactured. The outrage surrounding the Trayvon Martin shooting, the issuance of a bounty on his shooter with the tacit approval of the U.S. Attorney General, and now the police sanctioned mob violence in Mobile are not isolated events.
We are witnessing the birth of the new populism: call it “neo-nihilism”. Exit bread and circuses, enter vitriol and violence. God save us all.
You know what’s really pathetic – yesterday, on the anniversary of the L.A. riots, RevRearEnd Al Sharpton had the utter gall to come out and make some sort of a phony self-serving “plea” for peace after all the shit he’s stirred up over the Travon Martin shooting
All of the blood Sharpton has on his hands and NOW he’s trying to wash them. Sharpton needs to get on his knees and beg for forgiveness from Matthew Owens should this young man recover. Sharpton’s got a lot to answer for if and when he stands before God.