The word “heroes” has become as loaded and meaningless as so many others used to bolster politics. Cops love the word, pinning medals on their chests to prove it, even if the medals prove nothing more than they need trinkets in addition to paychecks to feel worthy.
Three men in Portland, however, did what heroes do. A racist nutjob yelled at a couple of women for not being as white as his delusion demanded, and they stood up to stop him.
Taliesin Namkai-Meche, 23
Namkai-Meche graduated from Portland’s Reed College in 2016 with a degree in economics. He was interning for the Cadmus Group, a consulting company, at the time of his death.
Ricky John Best, 53
Best was a city employee, army veteran, and father of four, according to The Oregonian.
He served 23 years in the military as a platoon sergeant for Corps maintenance, retiring in 2012.
Micah David-Cole Fletcher, 21
Fetcher was stabbed, but will survive. Mandela Cordeta, 26, said he’s known Fletcher for about 10 years after meeting at an arts camp. Since then, she said, Fletcher has been deeply involved in poetry and music, and currently plays the drums.
Recently, friends said Fletcher had also become very active in marches and protests around Portland, becoming active against what he views as social injustices.
No one paid these three to get involved. They didn’t do it for the medals. Regardless of any other issue one might have with them, they saw people in need of aid and they came to their aid at their own risk. Two died for it.
The person who did this to them is unworthy of mention. Indeed, unworthy of existence, no less recognition. There will be a battle over how to characterize this killer so as to make him as horrible a tool of politics as possible. How many words will be wasted on this nobody?
Instead, we should consider the virtues of three guys who came to help two women. The three who stood up to help are the people who matter here. These are heroes.
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These good people stepped forward when needed. They, and others like them, make the whole damn thing work and help it to be a little better place for us all.
That looks like a Social Justice Warrior who’s actually worthy of the term.
There are those who run away and those who run towards. None of us knows which type we are, until the moment comes.
I hope that, in the midst of their grief, the families of these men can take some small comfort in the knowledge that, when tested, their kinfolk turned out to be the better type of man.
Always a sad thing when people are seriously injured or killed trying to do the right thing. Some number of our colleagues will, of course, seek to excuse the killer’s conduct on the grounds that he was mentally ill, and it will be no great surprise if a court rules to that exact effect.
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I have taught my sons not to do this. The risk of injury and death increases at a huge rate when men step in to protect the feelings of women. If these women went home having suffered a few racial slurs I think that is by far the better outcome than the death of these decent men. What a waste.
Safety for yourself first? Chivalry is dead? It’s a perfectly rational position to take, but I choose otherwise.