Posted on 08/16/2014 3:12:04 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
ENCINITAS, California — Ferguson, Missouri, and the inexplicable shooting of teenager Michael Brown, represents not only the latest episode of America’s urban war against black men—it will be far from the last.
Still unresolved is another horrifying racial incident in Miami Beach, Florida. Police there have still failed, ignominiously, to clear the air about the street slaying of motorist Raymond Herisse. Herisee, 22, was killed on a South Beach street in his vehicle in a barrage of firepower that entailed more than 100 rounds of ammunition.
Herisse was taken out, reports the Miami Herald, “in a frightening war-like moment that his family likens to being executed by a police firing squad.” [May 25, 2013]. No less than twelve officers were involved in an assault that left the young man with sixteen bullet wounds, slumped in his seat. Four bystanders were seriously wounded.
Again, the Miami Herald: “Two years and multiple lawsuits later, Miami Beach police have yet to produce evidence that Herisse did anything to deserve a death sentence.” Police have claimed that the man was speeding recklessly and hit an officer on bike patrol. No substantiation, including any witness or video footage, has been produced.
Let’s skip past the clichés as in, “If it had been a white victim,” etc. The reality is more repetitive than any cliché. From Mississippi to Los Angeles to St. Louis to Miami, white officers beating or killing black men, in displays of force and brutality that are inconsistent with any forms of social or legal codes, has been—and remains—rampant.
From the odious gang-murder of 14 year-old Emmitt Till in 1955 (he smiled at a white woman) to the shooting of Trayvon Martin (as if we don’t know the real story here) to a million unknown victims of this American slaughter, the life of a black male has never really amounted to much. We white folks fear black men so we acquiesce to a cycle that is infinitely more gruesome than the worst notions of them that we have carried.
What of the mass carnage ongoing in Chicago and so many other urban centers, not to mention the preeminence of black-on-black crimes that plague us? Unforgivable and intolerable—these are the only answers. And shame on the African American community and its many gratuitous “leaders” who offer nothing but steam and publicity stunts while their—and our—children are perishing in our streets and prisons.
But that doesn’t obscure the reality that our police squadrons, armed with military-level arsenals, and our vigilantes, driven by hate and police-like fantasies, remain free to reduce the humanity of any given black male into road kill. You could have just asked the late Rodney King, beaten senseless by LA police in 1991. The media kept on labeling him as “motorist Rodney King.” But he—and Raymond Herisse and Michael Brown were not motorists. They were men.
****
Rabbi Kamin is a freelance writer based in the San Diego suburb of Encinitas, California. He may be contacted via ben.kamin@sdjewishworld.com
Ok, he lists five black men, five, in nearly 60 years. Several of the black men at fault for their own trauma. I deplore what the police sometimes do, but you have to admit, this isn’t many people.
It is disgusting to throw in Emmit Till with Trayvon Martin.
And Michael Brown, IMO.
We need to get the first names of all the victims of the knockout “game”, so we can list them like that.
Too many to list, really.
I've got some free time next week, so I may take a stab at it.
You’ll be busy just with the ones since 2010.
You forgot Abraham, Martin and John............Think I’ll write a song...........Anybody here, seen my old friend,... Feel free to sing along.....The Great OZ has spoken.
Handsome lad for sure.
As usual with a discombobulated liberal venting his pet grievances, there's more than a bit of stretching the historical truth here and mixing apples and oranges. The death of Emmitt Till was clearly motivated by the overt racism of the Jim Crow South. (IIRC, it was not done by police, but I wouldn't be surprised if the police just stood by and let Till's attackers kill him, which was unfortunately not uncommon in that time and place.)
To claim, though, that the Emmitt Till murder ushered in an endless sequence of white police killing young black men occurrences lasting to the present, and to exaggerate the number of such events as in the millions, reveals the author's ignorance. So does conflating several other incidents he mentions with Emmitt Till. The fact is that, in general, interracial relations in the United States have improved dramatically since the Emmitt Till event with fewer and fewer violent confrontations with the passage of time.
And note this bleeding heart's not so subtle confession to being a racist, or what he would describe as "racist" if a "right-winger" had said it: "We white folks fear black men so much..."
I wouldn't be surprised if this Rabbi Ben Kamin was prominent in "Rabbis for Obama."
Kamin is apparently famously (or infamously) liberal.
“....Duke Lacrosse....”
I think you mean Crystal Magnum, the stripper / druggie,but yeah, all the usual Leftist traitors tried to propagandize her as a martyr.
“Anybody here seen my old friend Trayvon?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
I thought I saw him at the QT Market,
looting and burnimg it down.”
"One of those diamond merchants and interlopers", as Rev Al says!
The Bulls would still win titles in the late 90s. Michael and four other guys.
Yeah....and the “protestors”, ie Black Panthers are acting like HAMAS....calling for Darren Wilson’s death.
ahah Rabbis For Obama
I LOVE IT!
You’d think a Rabbi would keep his nose in His own business.
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