“White” crimes committed by blacks
A very tired subject (I know), however there are those out there that do make this crazy distinction.
Just recently, the man pictured above (left) was charged with the crime of arson:
A D.C. man was arrested and charged yesterday in connection with nearly 50 fires intentionally set in the District, Maryland and Virginia over two years, including one in Northeast that killed an elderly woman.
Federal authorities charged Thomas A. Sweatt, 50, of the 500 block of Lebaum Street SE, with 11 arson-related charges in connection with three fires in the District and two fires in Maryland. More charges are pending from the 49 cases attributed to him since March 2003…more
And let’s not forget the D.C. sniper incident. Everybody and their momma expected some white, confederate flag waving, Bush-supporting neo-nazi. To the surprise of the world, the culprits were not one, but two black guys that went on this insane rampage.
When the news hit the airwaves that the snipers were black, the reaction of many blacks in my circle was “Why…did they have to be black?” (again, for the racially sensitive among us, NO I am not saying that all blacks felt this way–however I think we can all agree that this feeling was not a remote one).
Bottom line: A crime is a crime PERIOD. I think both sides have been guilty of this dangerous assumption. Our prisons contain numbers of inmates who are there because of “assumption”.
Another case for the need for absolutes in our society (where right is “Right” and wrong is “Wrong”).
I have a small side-step to your main topic–my concern is the way that the info is reported once
it is found that it is a black person that committed the crime.
For instance, a black child, still in high school was accused of molesting (4) children that attended
his mother’s daycare while she was away. Anyway, this happened in Lakeland,FL, not the best
place for a black person to do anything negative really, let alone something like sex crime.
But, to get to the point, this was blared all over the news just based on allegations–no charges
yet filed and to top it off, they just had to pick him up at school in front of his peers…..
Comment by Shontell | April 29, 2005