I waited almost half a century to do this.
It was beginning in 1993, when I returned to Seattle that I began to change with regard to my traditional Democratic Party views on race.
# I began to notice how many times I was the object of anger, resentment, and hatred from African-Americans, complete strangers who would give me hostile glares or treat me rudely. Being accosted and then grabbed by the collar by a group of black girls in Westlake Plaza...who would not let go. Bus-drivers who would refuse to answer a simple yes/no question or who yelled at me ("What are you waiting for? Get on the bus.").
# In 200- with the Mardi Gras riots in Pioneer Square, which ended with the death of Kristopher Kime, who was trying to help a young women whom a group of young African-Americans was stomping, I could not overcome my disgust with not only the conduct (or non-conduct) by the Seattle Police Department but the knowledge that something like 75% of the victims were white and 90% of the aggressors were black (or do I have the percentages reversed)?
# An article in the P.I. several years again in which a African-American community leader criticized African immigrants as being "aggressive" as an explanation for often strained relations between the two groups. Aggressive because they work really hard? Hard to understand that one
* Watching the local news one night five years ago and hearing the African-American principal and assistant principal of a South End high school state to the jury that were deliberating over the accusations of rape at the same school, "You know, this may be hard for you to believe, but we are victims as well." The rape victim's mother was sobbing.
# The Duke lacross team rape allegations, which riveted the attention of Americans, who were in the end exonerated completely.
# The denunciation as racists of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Geraldine Ferraro in 2008.
# The local ouster of several teachers in the Seattle Public Schools, some of whom used a common racial epithet among African-Americans to try to combat their students use of homophobic epithets ("How would you like it if someone called you a n-----. Well, that's how homosexuals feel when you call them f-----."
# The deaths in the past five years of James Paroline, the "traffic circle gardener" in Rainier Beach; the beating to death Tuba Man, one afternoon, across from the Seattle Center, by a group of young black juveniles;Manish Melwani by Elijah Hall; Denny Vega; the Lakewood cops shot and killed by Maurice Clemmons; Dien Huyhn, a Vietnamese Buddhist/scientist whose skull was fractured by blows from a hammer just outside his home in Tacoma: these wre nor random acts of urban violence.
They were the actions of individuals who had grown up in a community where violence was the norm.
The local media, the City government, and the police refused to investigate any of these as possible "hate crimes."
Have there been any white-on-black beatings or killings in the past five years?
If a black person had been either beaten or killed by a non-black, it would have in all likelihood prompted protests and media attention locally and nationally.
* * * * *
No, not all African-Americans are criminals. Far from it. I never said or intended to say that. And, yes, there are criminals of every race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic group, etc.
But the much higher rates of criminality compared to other groups at the income parity has to be addressed. Even the liberal NPR has stated that one in nine black men under 30 is incarcerated or has been in the past (I know some will say that these are largely for petty drug possession. I don't really know).
When all is said and done, 93% of African-American murders are by African-Americans. Violence hits hardest that same community.
What I am saying is that other approaches to the phenomenon of violence within the African-American community need to at least be discussed.
Yes, after all this, I will bury the hatchet and no longer speak publicly on this. But I will have "said it," not just "thought it."
It was beginning in 1993, when I returned to Seattle that I began to change with regard to my traditional Democratic Party views on race.
# I began to notice how many times I was the object of anger, resentment, and hatred from African-Americans, complete strangers who would give me hostile glares or treat me rudely. Being accosted and then grabbed by the collar by a group of black girls in Westlake Plaza...who would not let go. Bus-drivers who would refuse to answer a simple yes/no question or who yelled at me ("What are you waiting for? Get on the bus.").
# In 200- with the Mardi Gras riots in Pioneer Square, which ended with the death of Kristopher Kime, who was trying to help a young women whom a group of young African-Americans was stomping, I could not overcome my disgust with not only the conduct (or non-conduct) by the Seattle Police Department but the knowledge that something like 75% of the victims were white and 90% of the aggressors were black (or do I have the percentages reversed)?
# An article in the P.I. several years again in which a African-American community leader criticized African immigrants as being "aggressive" as an explanation for often strained relations between the two groups. Aggressive because they work really hard? Hard to understand that one
* Watching the local news one night five years ago and hearing the African-American principal and assistant principal of a South End high school state to the jury that were deliberating over the accusations of rape at the same school, "You know, this may be hard for you to believe, but we are victims as well." The rape victim's mother was sobbing.
# The Duke lacross team rape allegations, which riveted the attention of Americans, who were in the end exonerated completely.
# The denunciation as racists of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Geraldine Ferraro in 2008.
# The local ouster of several teachers in the Seattle Public Schools, some of whom used a common racial epithet among African-Americans to try to combat their students use of homophobic epithets ("How would you like it if someone called you a n-----. Well, that's how homosexuals feel when you call them f-----."
# The deaths in the past five years of James Paroline, the "traffic circle gardener" in Rainier Beach; the beating to death Tuba Man, one afternoon, across from the Seattle Center, by a group of young black juveniles;Manish Melwani by Elijah Hall; Denny Vega; the Lakewood cops shot and killed by Maurice Clemmons; Dien Huyhn, a Vietnamese Buddhist/scientist whose skull was fractured by blows from a hammer just outside his home in Tacoma: these wre nor random acts of urban violence.
They were the actions of individuals who had grown up in a community where violence was the norm.
The local media, the City government, and the police refused to investigate any of these as possible "hate crimes."
Have there been any white-on-black beatings or killings in the past five years?
If a black person had been either beaten or killed by a non-black, it would have in all likelihood prompted protests and media attention locally and nationally.
* * * * *
No, not all African-Americans are criminals. Far from it. I never said or intended to say that. And, yes, there are criminals of every race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic group, etc.
But the much higher rates of criminality compared to other groups at the income parity has to be addressed. Even the liberal NPR has stated that one in nine black men under 30 is incarcerated or has been in the past (I know some will say that these are largely for petty drug possession. I don't really know).
When all is said and done, 93% of African-American murders are by African-Americans. Violence hits hardest that same community.
What I am saying is that other approaches to the phenomenon of violence within the African-American community need to at least be discussed.
Yes, after all this, I will bury the hatchet and no longer speak publicly on this. But I will have "said it," not just "thought it."
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