Letter to the editor on racist double standards
(to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -- I have a decent track record of my letters actually getting printed, so we'll see)
Dear Editor:
During Michael Vick's trial for dog-fighting, your letters page was filled with vituperation from readers against Vick and against anyone who questioned the hype surrounding his case. One reader called Vick "subhuman" and even compared him to Jeffrey Dahmer.
I wonder if these same people will now expend even one-tenth of that moral indignation for the sake of 14-year old Martin Lee Anderson. Anderson was sadistically beaten to death last year by Florida boot camp guards, and an all-white jury just acquitted his thuggish assailants, despite unmistakable and horrifying videographic evidence. Can Vick's critics spare so much as one word on Anderson's behalf? Will they even lift a finger for the teenagers in Jena, Louisiana, who face prison time for having the temerity to retaliate against racist death threats?
Or could it be that some of white America puts a higher value on the lives of dogs than on the lives of young black men?
JOHN LACNY
Overbrook
Comments
"Sadistically beaten to death" is a terrible way to describe what happened. The video does not show much beating, and none of the medical witnesses suggest Martin's death was caused by trauma. He died of asphyxiation caused by a mix of exertion from exercising, stress by being roughly handled, having his airway impeded by the guards, and sickle cell crisis. The guards assumed (because Martin's mother had signed off) that no inmates there had sickle cell, and they were used to kids faking sick to get out of exercise. They were unprofessional and uncompassionate and working in dehumanizing situation. You can't fairly call them sadistic murderers though.
About Jena, are you saying the beating of Justin Barker was justified? I have not heard anyone suggest he was involved in any of the previous incidents, or that he was attacking the black kids. Is it ok for a bunch of scared and angry kids to gang up on a random jerk and beat him till he stops moving? The attempted manslaughter charges are wrong, especially when none of the white kids involved in the previous incidents were charged, but at least a few of the Jena Six are in the wrong.
It is sick and undeniable though that in the media pets are more important than people, and whites are more important than blacks.
Posted by: Zeb | October 23, 2007 02:30 AM