What's going on in Ocean View, Virginia?

August 21, 2007

4 female teens to be tried as adults in Ocean View attack

The mob that attacked three men in East Ocean View last month, killing one, was made up of gang members who beat, robbed and stripped the men, according to court testimony Monday.

September 25, 2007

Five will be charged in videotaped attack in Ocean View

Five youths were charged Tuesday with mob assault , a misdemeanor, in the weekend attack on a 13-year-old boy in West Ocean View that was captured on video, police said.

In the first story all 6 assailants were Black, and absolutely nowhere on the internet is the race of the victims revealed. The murdered 19 year-old, however, was a student a South Georgia Technical College.

In the second incident, there's a video tape of the assault, which in itself is newsworthy and seems to trump the media's desire to hide the race of assailants and victims. What disturbs me is that were it a video of a group of white kids beating a Black kid it would make headlines for a month, and the presumption would be that it was a hate crime.

It seems odd that two such crimes would happen in such a short time in the same town.

But what bothers me the most is the continued racist approach that pervades the media and the courts and much of law enforcement, that's it's presumed Blacks will commit crimes, therefore we look no further for motivation. In both of the above incidents the presumption was that the "natural" proclivity for crime among Blacks makes any racist motivation peripheral yet when we see white on Black crimes, racism is automatically assumed.

Which then brings us to Jena, Louisiana.

The media is only now waking up to the fact that America remains mostly segregated, but since the segregation is voluntary and advocated more by many Blacks than whites, it's been ignored and tolerated. But in the sixties civil rights leaders insisted that separation, equal or not, was still wrong. Whites who wanted segregation then, attempted to offer "separate but equal" as an alternative to de-segregation, but the courts ruled it was still wrong. But a lot of people didn't get that memo, because the neighborhoods that were Black then, remain Black today.

In Jena, Louisiana the presumed segregation was practiced as it is in almost every other city. But with that comes the "us v. them" mentality as well. Kids, especially, are vulnerable to acting upon that mindset, not understanding that, practiced overtly, it is indistinguishable from racism. So when the Black kids decided to pull a joke on the white kids by occupying their regular spot during lunch, under a large shade tree. The white kids wanted to one up. The next day the shade tree had numerous nooses hanging from it. In a battle of one up, you go for whatever you know is he "enemy's" sensitive spot and the history of violent racism remains a sensitive spot with most Blacks. But kids are stupid and the white kids didn't get how seriously their "one up" would be taken, just as the Black kids didn't get how easily an "us v. them" one up contest can escalate.

But because of the attitude that violence on the part of Blacks is accepted, the Black kids chose that as their next step, assaulting one of the white kids. Now charged with the crime they committed, Blacks from many parts of the nation are gathering there to protest that the kids are charged with anything, because of the assumption that Blacks can't help being violent.

A large crowd of Uncle Toms from the Liberal plantation are now in Jena, Louisiana, offended that the courts there don't recognize the inability of Blacks to resist violence. They've bought the lie, and are perpetuating the myth, and the media is condescendingly going along and pretending the protestors have legitimacy in their complaint. I can only imagine the anguish many Blacks feel at being portrayed in such a way, at the assumption that Blacks are sub-human and therefore cannot be held responsible for violence they commit.

To those Blacks, I want to say that we all have our idiot cousins. Those that by their actions and thoughts shame us by being of the same family, the same race or even the same religion. Unfortunately your idiot cousins get more press. It doesn't negate the fact, that we are individuals and should be judged as such.

Another bit of irony about the current state of segregation in the US.

In Tulsa you'll find predominantly Black neighborhoods, mixed neighborhoods and predominantly white neighborhoods. We lived in a mixed neighborhood, and got along fine. While looking for a house, we looked in a predominantly Black neighborhood, and found the constant stares and subtle hostility unsettling. Ironically, I've asked friends who are Black and live in white neighborhood if they are ever given a hard time. Without exception their answer is, yes—by their Black friends who still live in the Black section of town.

Posted by Danny Carlton at September 26, 2007 7:32 AM