Chris Lane (shown), Delbert Belton, Richard Daughenbaugh, Jason Taylor Paul, David Santucci. Names not familiar? How about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman? Of course, everyone “knows” Trayvon Martin was the poor “black teen” victim of “white Hispanic” George Zimmerman, also variously described as a “vigilante” and a “racial profiler.”
For the better part of a year, the so-called mainstream media rolled out a non-stop saturation campaign to cast young Trayvon as the latest iconic martyr in America’s supposedly endless stream of systemic racial oppression.
For its September 2013 issue, Ebony magazine has produced a “We Are Trayvon” cover story, featuring a series of covers of famous African-American men and their sons wearing hoodies.
“To be 17, black and male, specifically, is tantamount to a crime, so said the actions of a certain George Zimmerman, Trayvon’s killer,” Ebony’s editors wrote. “After an emotional trial in the state of Florida, so too, it seems, said a jury of Zimmerman’s peers.”
The magazine trumpeted its righteous cause with the headline, “JUSTICE FOR TRAYVON: EBONY Takes a Stand.” According to Ebony, apparently, “justice” in the case could be served only with the conviction of George Zimmerman for murder.
The writers and editors at Ebony, like reporters and commentators in much of the MSM and left-leaning blogosphere, are determined to find racism at the heart of the Martin/Zimmerman case, regardless of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Conversely, they are just as determined to remain blind to black racism that expresses itself in vicious, unprovoked attacks on white victims. And it’s not only the usual “progressive” media types that practice this double standard; national and local politicians and police spokesmen have also adopted the hypocritical practice of selective blindness and politically correct self-censorship when it comes to black perpetrators and white/Asian/Hispanic victims.
Of the victims mentioned at the top of our story, Chris Lane is probably the best known, owing largely to the fact that he was a foreigner, an Australian, here on a college baseball scholarship. The 22-year-old student athlete was gunned down while jogging in Duncan, Oklahoma. Due to considerable public outcry over President Obama’s weighing in with inflammatory statements on the Trayvon Martin case while ignoring the Chris Lane murder, the Obama White House felt compelled to issue a belated condolence to Lane’s family.
Three youths, two black and one biracial, have been charged with Lane’s murder. The MSM talking heads rushed to proclaim that there was no evidence of racial motive involved in the killing; the young hoodlums murdered Lane simply because they were “bored.” That is still the official narrative, even though tweets on the Twitter account of James Francis Edwards, one of the alleged killers, would seem to offer a serious challenge to that thesis.
Edwards wrote in one tweet, “90% of white ppl are nasty. #HATE THEM.”
In another, Edwards claimed, “Ayeee I knocced out 5 woods since Zimmerman court!:)”
“Woods” is a racial epithet for white people, and it appears that Edwards was also referencing his participation in “The Knockout Game,” a savage new “sport” in which young black males target white people — usually the elderly, women, or weak-looking men — for extremely violent attacks, attempting to knock them out. Many of the contestants even boast of their exploits in postings on social media.
In a recent commentary, radio talk-show host/columnist Bob Siegel took the MSM hypocrisy to task in the Lane murder case. “Motive may be irrelevant when it comes to cold blooded murder,” he appropriately noted. “Murder is murder and should be met with the same penalty whatever the reason, whether it is hate, racism or boredom.”
Siegel continued:
However, because many outspoken leaders take special interest in hate crime, some consistency is in order. Hence Edwards’ tweets should not be ignored. This time, nobody has to pretend to read minds. One of the assailants has been crystal clear about his hate for white people. This may not prove a motive; indeed, these teens may very well have committed a heinous act out of simple boredom, just as they claimed.
But there is at least evidence of a racist motive.
Ironically, Prosecutor Jason Hicks disagrees. According to the Oklahoman, Hicks does not view the tweets as evidence of racial motive.
“At this time we don’t have any evidence … to suggest that Lane was killed because of his nationality or because of his race. There’s just not anything in there that they targeted him because of one of those two factors.”
That’s an astonishing statement from a prosecutor who has actual words from the suspect at his disposal. Could this be a cautious bow to political correctness in the birth pangs of a high profile case?
Certainly those tweets provide more evidence than we had in the Zimmerman-Martin situation. The facts suggesting a racist motive for George Zimmerman were nonexistent and may never have entered our national conversation had NBC News not edited a 911 tape to make it sound as if Zimmerman targeted Martin because he was black.
Was the murderous attack on Chris Lane a “payback” inspired by the Martin/Zimmerman trial, and the “racial injustice” anger exploited by the likes of Ebony, Oprah, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and their sympathetic MSM choir? During the trial, remember, there were numerous death threats for Zimmerman and calls for black-on-white violence by black activists and thugs on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.
Was the recent beating death of Richard Daughenbaugh, age 40, by a mob of black teens in Des Moines, Iowa, another case that should be laid at the feet of the racial arsonists?
Daughenbaugh, a construction worker and father of six, reportedly was at a popular downtown fishing spot when he was attacked. Other fishermen tried to come to his aid but were also attacked by the mob. Colin Flaherty at WorldNetDaily reported on the crime and the typical media response:
The Des Moines Register picks up the narrative with a sterile account that understates the violence and ignores the race of the attackers:
“The suspects allegedly beat Daughenbaugh using no weapons other than their own bodies while others in the group tried to stop anyone from helping, police said,” the paper reported. “A woman fishing nearby tried to step in and stop the assault and was struck, police said. Her companion was attacked as he jumped in to defend her. And when the woman tried to call 911, two women from the group allegedly grabbed her phone and threw it. She eventually retrieved it and called 911.”
Translation: Several people beat Daughenbaugh. Several people beat the fishermen who tried to help. And several people beat the witnesses who tried to dial 911. And lots of others watched and cheered.
Richard Daughenbaugh died soon after.
Three teens, all black, have been charged in the murder. Another three teens, including two black girls, have also been charged as accessories. Police investigators expect to charge still more members of the mob.
Flaherty is the author of White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Racial Violence and How the Media Ignore It, an exposé of what Flaherty calls a “nationwide epidemic of black mob violence.” The book claims to document more than 500 cases in more than 100 American cities. One of the cases Flaherty profiles, from Iowa, would appear to be particularly relevant to the Daughenbaugh slaying.
At the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, in August 2010, a large mob of 30-40 black juveniles rampaged through the fair, assaulting white people. Some of the victims were severely injured. Police who responded to the melee were also attacked. A police report on the incident notes that some of the black assailants roaming the fairgrounds were “openly calling it ‘Beat Whitey Night.’”
Was the Daughenbaugh murder another “Beat Whitey Night” event? Were any of his alleged attackers involved in that earlier mayhem? Considering the known facts and circumstances in the Daughenbaugh case, those would seem to be reasonable questions that would occur to any journalist worthy of the name. But that appears to be a no-go zone.
Eighty-eight-year-old Veteran Survived WWII; Beaten to Death by Punks
No racist tweets or Facebook posts have been reported in connection with the brutal murder of 88-year-old World War II veteran Delbert “Shorty” Belton, in Spokane, Washington. Belton, who survived the fierce Battle of Okinawa (where he took a bullet in his leg), was murdered in mid-afternoon in the parking lot of the Eagles Lodge in Spokane. Two black teens have been charged with his death; both have histories of violent crime.
“They used those great big heavy flashlights,” Belton’s daughter-in-law, Bobbie Belton, told reporters. “The doctors said he was bleeding from all parts of his face.”
Lillian Duncan, a close friend, said he was “totally unrecognizable,” and “beat to a pulp.” Because of the severity of his beating, the Belton family chose to make his funeral a closed-casket affair.
This correspondent attended the graveside memorial for Delbert Belton at Spokane’s Greenwood Memorial Terrace on August 29. Hundreds of people gathered to pay respects; a military honor guard provided a 21-gun salute and flag-folding ceremony; dozens of Patriot Guard motorcyclists came in procession.
The Rev. Homer Todd delivered a moving tribute to Belton describing him as a “patriot” who had shown bravery during the grim days of the Great Depression, in battle on the islands of the Pacific, and as he faced the challenges of old age and losing his wife.
“There is evidence on his knuckles that he was brave as he faced the overwhelming odds of those who robbed him of his money and his life,” Todd told the memorial attendees.
Belton was only a few years younger than my parents, both of whom also served in World War II, in the European theater of the war (my father in the 82nd Airborne, my mother in the Army Nurse Corps). The ranks of these veterans are rapidly thinning, as the remaining survivors are now in their upper 80s and 90s.
Ted Denison, a fellow veteran, Eagles Lodge member, and friend of Belton expressed the grief and disbelief of many in America: “He put his life on the line for our country to come home and 60 years later get beaten to death? That’s not right.”
Another Eagles Lodge friend, who asked not to be identified, told The New American that Belton was a very generous soul who was always ready to help anyone in need. “If those boys had simply asked him for money, he would have given it to them,” the friend said. “That’s the kind of guy he was. They didn’t have to kill him like that.”
When we asked if he thought there may have been any racial motives involved in the killing, this friend was quick to say: “No! The police have said it was a robbery gone wrong; it wouldn’t have mattered what color he was. It was just one of those tragic things.”
That may turn out to be true; however, the rapid, emphatic, automatic response seemed like a programmed reaction of self-censorship resulting from the internalization of repeated official announcements and media reports regarding the case, rather than a reasoned, thoughtful response.
The recent murder of David Santucci may be even more instructive in this sense. The 27-year-old white male had just started his new job as a nurse at Methodist Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He was shot to death while walking on the sidewalk in what is considered a “safe area” of the downtown district.
Two black males, Mario Patterson, 23, and Dondre Johnson, 19, were charged with first-degree murder in the perpetration of robbery. A black female, Jerrica Norfleet, 23, was charged with accessory after the fact, first-degree murder.
The authorities are insisting on treating the crime as a robbery, even though, according to a family member, Santucci’s assailants did not take his wallet, cellphone, car keys, or anything else.
Also, according to Miguel De Diago, Santucci’s brother-in-law, witnesses say the alleged killers drove past Santucci, stopped, and then backed up. Mario Patterson then, allegedly, got out of the car, walked toward Santucci, shot him, then ran back to the car, jumped in the driver’s seat and sped off. That sounds more like an execution than a robbery.
De Diago says that Mario Patterson’s Facebook page (which has since been removed) had numerous photos of Trayvon Martin. Does that prove that this murder was a “Justice for Trayvon” revenge killing? No, but in the context of the ongoing racial agitation over the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case, it should strike any reasonable person as odd that public officials and media representatives insist on such a one-sided narrative.
Racists of any color who attempt to exploit crimes to stir up interracial strife are deserving of contempt by all. However, denial of a difficult truth is also contemptible. Young black people are saturated in a popular youth culture that glorifies “gangsta” violence and that teaches them all whites are “oppressors.” And when some of them lash out at the “nasty” white people they’ve been taught to hate, the MSM progressives insist that the only racial connection involved in the epidemic of black-on-white crimes is one fabricated by white racists.
A “National Dialogue on Race” or Demagogue Monologue?
Where’s the “national dialogue on race” the “progressives” claim to want? In reality, it is a demagogue monologue, with anyone criticizing President Obama’s policies, or anyone making reference to the social pathologies afflicting black American society, automatically subjected to charges of racism.
Isa Hopkins at Salon.com adopted the Marxist rhetoric of “white oppression” to further enflame young black people in a recent posting. “George Zimmerman, neighborhood watchman and wannabe cop, placed a bet on his whiteness,” Hopkins railed; “when he shot and killed a young, unarmed black teenager because they always get away, he spoke with an oppressor’s voice, and for his service the oppressor’s justice absolved him.”
Was Mario Patterson channeling Isa Hopkins — or Al Sharpton, Russell Simmons, or Jesse Jackson — when he (allegedly) shot David Santucci to death? Was black teen Mychal King doing the same when he (admittedly) stabbed to death 22-year-old white male Jason Taylor Paul, as Paul rode his bicycle home from work in Clearwater, Florida?
Those kinds of questions continue to fester and mount, as the incidents multiply. Trying to shut down the “national conversation” on this important issue by shouting down as racist anyone who asks the politically incorrect questions is a sure way to enflame racial tensions. People may be cowed into meek submission for a time, but eventually they will say “Enough!” Pressure will build to an explosive stage and beget a counterattack of white-on-black racial violence. That, undoubtedly, is what many of the racial arsonists are hoping, because it will validate their Marxist thesis that American society is dominated by “oppressor’s justice.” And if the racial conflict becomes widespread enough and violent enough, it will also provide the excuse they seek to implement their plans for even greater police state measures than we are already experiencing, including that most coveted “progressive” dream of civilian gun confiscation.
That is the direction these crimes are taking us; perhaps that is the plan.
Photo of Chris Lane: AP Images
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