Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
As it happens, I presaged this Department of Justice (DOJ) decision. This, despite that heartrending video of a white cop, Daniel Pantaleo, choking these infamous last words out of a black man, Eric Garner: I can’t breathe. Here in part is what I wrote in “DOJ: No Charges Warranted in Zimmerman Case,” February 25, 2015:… Read more.
The menace of police officers killing (unarmed) black men has become a tragic feature of American life. Unfortunately, the way black activists react to these killings not only compounds but actually reinforces this feature. Notably, they rush to make martyrs of these dead black men. This perverse ritual invariably has them holding street protests —… Read more.
The U.S. Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation Wednesday into the videotaped police killing of a black man who authorities say had a gun as he wrestled with two white officers on the pavement outside a convenience store. Alton Sterling, 37, was confronted by police on Tuesday after an anonymous caller said he had threatened… Read more.
Jonathan Capehart, the celebrated editorial board member and columnist at the Washington Post, was in the vanguard of those hailing Michael Brown as a Black martyr. Brown, you recall, was the unarmed Black teenager who White officer Darren Wilson shot in Ferguson, Missouri last August, triggering months of (often violent) protests under the galvanizing and… Read more.
A grand jury in Staten Island voted Wednesday not to indict New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, a black man who died after Pantaleo placed him in a chokehold. Garner, 43, died July 17 as he was being arrested for selling untaxed cigarettes. In a video of the arrest,… Read more.
Police Officer Darren Wilson — the suburban St. Louis patrolman who killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown in early August – will not face criminal charges in the controversial shooting death, a grand jury has decided. Wilson, who is white, became a national figure after he shot the black 18-year-old multiple times in broad daylight on… Read more.
[NOTE: In light of the way so much news this weekend focused on preparations for, as well as flare ups in anticipation of, this decision, I’ve decided to reprise this commentary, which I originally published on Thursday, November 20, at 5:18 a.m.] __________________ Ferguson has become a theatre of the absurd – complete with the-sky-is-falling reporters doing more… Read more.
When George Orwell warned of “newspeak,” he envisioned a dystopian state in which a “Big Brother,” like Russian President Vladimir Putin, would use it as a tool to limit and control freedom of thought … and speech. Therefore, I suspect even Orwell would be shocked and disappointed to see newspeak being used instead by members… Read more.
Unsurprisingly, calls for the arrest of Officer Darren Wilson only became more restive yesterday, after lawyers for Michael’s parents released results of an autopsy they commissioned, which show that Wilson shot him at least six times. More importantly, here’s the truly poignant way these lawyers used CNN’s coverage of their release to reinforce his mother’s… Read more.
I took a lot of intra-racial flak for not eulogizing Michael in my original commentary as an innocent victim of yet another racist police shooting. The (my-race-right-or-wrong) guardians of Black pride took exception to my pointing out that this kid would not have been shot if he had cooperated with the arresting officer; that is,… Read more.
