Saturday, December 14, 2013

 

Detecting Irony is Not This Guy's Strong Suit

Will Wright at The Grio pens an opinion piece yesterday that is rife with unrecognized irony. It's title is: ‘Knockout game’ gives white America new reason to profile black men  

Here is an example of the unrecognized irony. Mr. Wright goes through the low lights of white police on black victim crime in New York City:

Let’s fast forward to 1997 to Abner Louima, who was sodomized with a toilet plunger handle in a police precinct or Amadou Diallo who in 1999 died in a hail of 41 shots fired by members of the now defunct “Street Crimes Unit.” Or Sean Bell, shot dead in a hail of police bullets on his wedding day. Let’s land on 2010 where stop-and-frisk became standard police policy in New York.
Then he later writes this, regarding the serial, sporadic one punch assaults:
Like so many instances of irrational bad behavior by a mindless few, the impact paints young black people with an overly broad and negative brush.
But isn't that just what he did to white NY policemen, brought out a few instances of irrational bad behavior which he then uses to condemn all whites? Well, yes, it is. Here's another:

Now the so-called “knockout game” has created a new game – “red light, green light,” where whites stop in their tracks and head in another direction as a group of young black men approach, albeit without violent intent or concern to harm another human being.

But how is the white person on the street supposed to know that the young black men approaching have no violent intent? Generally, out on the streets, people play the odds with their safety involving people they don't know. Menacing looking people of any race are to be avoided of course but what about normal looking guys of one race or another? Does one ignore the criminal stats in deciding what the odds are that this group is invisibly menacing? The crime statistics indicate that anyone of any race is more likely to meet violence at the hands of young black men than any other group selected for a subset of race, age and gender, despite the fact that young black men are a mere 4.6% of the population of America. I'll get back to this disturbing statistic below.

Then Mr. Wright talks about movies.

The fact of the matter is, most black people have an incredible sense of control, compassion and sense of ethical fortitude. If not, every reminder of slavery from Birth of a Nation to Mandingo to Roots to 12 Years A Slave would have kindled mass insurrection based on the sheer inhumanity perpetrated on black people in America and manifested in the media.

This "sheer inhumanity perpetrated on black people in America" by whites during the 256 year history of slavery here was undoubtedly horrible generally, but does Mr. Wright not know that slavery and the inhumanity that necessarily follows it was a world wide phenomenon from the beginning of human civilization through the 18th Century and well into the 19th Century? Wasn't just in America, Will. But thanks, black Americans, for not rioting and committing mass murder every time you see a movie about slavery. We appreciate it. That's setting the bar pretty low, however, for American black's incredible control, compassion and sense of ethical fortitude. And don't get me wrong, I have know many black men whose ethical fortitude blew mine away.

Then there is this.

As I sat around the Thanksgiving Day table with my many young nephews, all between ages of 12  and 23, I prayed that some irrational, self-righteous vigilante pumped up on stories would not take it upon themselves to cause them harm just because they might be together with their friends walking toward them in a group.

This is the part about crime statistics again. Mr. Wright is misdirecting his prayers. The number of white, self-righteous vigilantes harming young blacks is at most 500 per year. Each one may a horrible tragedy but all of them taken together is an incredibly rare event in a nation of 313 plus million, of which 13.8 million are black young men, about 4 per 100,000 black young men. It is 13 times more likely that Mr. Wright's young nephews will be the victim of violence perpetrated by another black. That's what I'd be praying never happens. But then, ironically, I'm not blinded to reality by my irrational antipathy to whites.

Labels:


Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?