“Wave after wave of young men...”
...Gosh. Ms. Washington forgot to point out that were black.
“Forster stepped from the car to confront the rock thrower but was punched by him and several other black males, the police report says.”
The next day, Forster searched Twitter for mention of the attack. One post chilled him. "I feel for the white man who got beat up at the light," wrote one person. "I don't," wrote another, indicating laughter. "(do it for trayvon martin)" Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teen, died after being shot by a community watch captain with white and Hispanic parents, George Zimmerman, in Florida.
Forster and Rostami, both white, suffered a beating at the hands of a crowd of black teenagers.
Was either case racially motivated? Were Forster and Rostami beaten in some kind of warped, vigilante retribution for a killing 750 miles away, a person none of them knew? Was it just bombast? Is a beating funny, ever? Here's why their story is in the paper today. We cannot allow such callousness to continue unremarked, from the irrational, senseless teenagers who attacked two people just trying to go home, from the police officer whose conduct may have been typical but certainly seems cold, from the tweeting nitwits who think beating a man in Norfolk will change the death of Trayvon Martin. How can we change it if we don't know about it? How can we make it better if we look away? Are we really no better than this?
Michelle Washington is a columnist for The Virginian-Pilot. Email: michelle.washington@pilotonline.com