Posted on 07/25/2010 2:49:14 PM PDT by scottfactor
For committing an act of pure decency, three black women are being ostracized by many other black people. • On the night of June 29, Delores Keen, Renee Roundtree and Rose Dodson rushed outside Keen's apartment after they heard gunshots. They discovered two Tampa police officers, David Curtis and Jeffrey Kocab, lying together on the ground. The officers had been shot. Dontae Morris, a 24-year-old black ex-convict, would be charged in the shootings.
Roundtree checked the officers' pulses, and Keen dialed 911. The three women stayed with the dying officers until others arrived. The Hillsborough County Commission honored the women for trying to help the officers.
Since their identities were made public, the woman have been criticized by fellow blacks almost everywhere they go, walking down the street, at local social clubs and in stores.
Their sin, considered by many to be perhaps the worst in American black culture, was helping "the enemy" — the police. You are guilty of helping the enemy in two main ways: You give the police, or another authority, information about a black person who has committed or is suspected of having committed a crime, which is "snitching." Or, as is the case with the three women, you physically aid and comfort police in distress, which is treated the same as snitching.
By trying to help the officers, Keen, Roundtree and Dodson showed, in the eyes of many, that they are not "authentically black." They are traitors to their race.
"I even had an ex-friend call and say, 'That was f----- up. You turned my boy in,' " Roundtree told the St. Petersburg Times of a response to her attempt to help the officers.
The snitching ethos, or code of silence, runs so deep that many blacks who snitch or assist morally struggle with their decisions. Many apologize, while others, having acted, offer history and background as to why blacks see the police as the enemy.
"I expected it," Dodson told the Times, rationalizing the criticism against her. "I don't want to say black folks, but I've got to say black folks — some have faith in the cops and some of them have been harassed for so long, been profiled, that they don't want nothing to do (with the police).
"When they hear someone was helping them, they wonder why. But they don't understand. They weren't in the situation. I don't believe anyone would have been so coldhearted that they would have walked away."
Dodson is being charitable in my estimation. The code of silence has coarsened black culture, especially in low-income communities, both rural and urban. It has created an acceptance of deception, divided loyalties, made pseudo-enemies, pitted neighbors against neighbors and turned criminals such as Dontae Morris into folk heroes.
One of the ugliest public displays of the snitching ethos occurred last year when Anderson Cooper interviewed rapper Cam'ron for 60 Minutes. Cooper asked Cam'ron what he would do if he knew he was living next door to a serial killer. Cam'ron said he would move away rather than snitch on the killer.
Law enforcement officials agree that the code of silence is the main reason they have not solved the murders of, among others, Tupac Shakur, the Notorious B.I.G. and Run-DMC's Jam Master Jay.
In an article for New York magazine, writer Stanley Crouch, who has been condemned for advocating snitching, nicely summed up the lunacy of the code of silence: "The greatest threat to black life and limb is not the police; it's criminals in our community."
He is right. Black criminals victimize their own people. And we help them. If we do not call the police, we deserve the mayhem and dysfunction we suffer. When we conceal the identity of a murderer, we endanger everyone. When we turn our backs on drug deals near our homes, we cheapen the rule of law and destroy social values. In addition to its self-destructiveness, the snitching ethos alienates us from others, putting us at odds with normal behavior.
Would a decent person walk away and refuse to assist a mortally wounded fellow human being — a police officer? Would a decent person condemn someone for helping a police officer?
Blacks have only themselves to blame for giving other people good reasons to hold them in contempt. The code of silence is corrosive in every way.
Very, very true. I can't believe Bill Maxwell, a first class black victimologist, wrote this. Maybe common sense is breaking out among blacks, since the biggest killer of blacks is...other blacks. It's an entire ethnic group living in servitude to their thug population.
Whites have an abundant number of thugs, but we hate them. Blacks have got to start hating their own thugs too.
So tragicly true.
White tax attorney?
“By trying to help the officers, Keen, Roundtree and Dodson showed, in the eyes of many, that they are not ‘authentically black.’”
Attacking an act of kindness certainly does nothing for the public image of such people.
“Why do you think all the nations of Africa have been such shining examples of progress?”
Don’t forget Haiti.
Bill makes sense about once every five years...
Nope. She's black, too. And an outspoken critic of the Kenyan (that's what she calls him.)
“The Leningrad Times?”
Saint Petersburg, Russia was formerly known as Leningrad while under communist rule, from 1924–1991. As a lifelong resident of the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, I have always referred to the St. Petersburg Times as the “Leningrad Times” or “Pravda West”. It properly reflects the fact that this newspaper/bird cage liner has never met a tax it didn’t like, and promotes the socialist policies of the Poynter Institute that owns it.
In short, they suck...but that’s just my humble opinion.
I wish the black communities would all adopt the words of the black man in New York who helped stop the terrorist bombing. He said “If you see something, say something.” Too many are still following the “Stop Snitching” nonsense. And that group is certified idiots.
Therein lies the root of the decay of black culture. Sure, many years ago, there was the danger of black people being charged for crimes they didn't commit, but it didn't happen to ALL black people. Sadly, though, there developed an attitude toward the police that made it impossible for the officers to HELP black people when they're victimized by their own, or anyone else, for that matter.
The attitude gravitated to education, so now if young black people truly WANT a good education, they're made to feel as if they're traitors to their race. This keeps a large number of blacks in abject poverty, thus vulnerable to their own criminals who they're loathe to 'betray'.
Sadly, some poor whites have the same attitudes in this regard.
That’s true. I actually recall reading something else good by him...hey, maybe it was about five years ago!
bttt
What irritates me worst about the code of omerta as practiced in the hood are the complaints of the African American community about open air drug markets, prostitution and other vice rampant in their neighborhoods.
Here in Pittsburgh, black leaders will complain that the city wouldn’t allow the kinds of shenanigans that go on in Homewood and Larimer to go on in Squirrel Hill (an affluent mostly white community here) for a minute.
But obviously if they insist on not snitching on their miscreant neighbors, the city can’t do anything about it. The folks in Squirrel Hill would confront it and call the police and snitch.
I do not understand why blacks overwhelmingly supported and continue that suopport when Obamma has pushed abortion to the top of his list.
He is pushing homosexuality too.
A couple issues many blacks do not agree with.
Still they side with him simply because he is black.
I have lost faith in the goodness of blacks.
Mooslimes also take a pragmatic approach. Their overwhelming hatred for all people other than themselves drives them to support the party of homosexuality, special rights for certain minorities who are "Christian", etc. The 'rat party is a vehicle for them all to coalesce around in order to achieve their higher goals.
RushLake,
Please tell your son CPL RushLake, USMC. that we pray for him and all our military each and every day.
Tell him he is a hero and thanks.
Terrific. It is refreshing to meet people who are not caught in the expected way to be.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.