“Hey Greenfield, why don’t you only write about bad stuff cops do to black people?” Years ago, when video wasn’t yet readily available on smart phones and people’s knowledge of actual interactions between cops and others, particularly black and Hispanic young men on the street, was a cross between ignorance and fantasy, I spent a great deal of time, effort and space here trying to make clear what really happened. People were treated like scum, regularly beaten and occasionally killed, but it was invisible as the police always had an excuse and there was nothing to show they were lying about it.
Times have changed. People went from having no clue to being acutely aware, and then getting overripe and starting to rot. They now see racism everywhere, even when the cops did nothing more than their jobs, and their targets made choices resulting in the outcomes they received.
It’s not that there isn’t racism. There is. But everything isn’t racism.
It’s not that the cops don’t engage in excessive force at times. They do. But every time force is used doesn’t mean it’s excessive.
An UberEats driver named Mohammad Anwar, 66, was killed when two teenaged girls tried to carjack his Honda.
https://twitter.com/Mrtdogg/status/1375721912752611328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1375721912752611328%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2F2021%2F03%2F27%2Fgraphic-video-shows-deadly-uber-eats-carjacking-by-teen-girls%2F
Anwar was a Pakistani immigrant with three grandchildren. Not only could he not be faulted in any version of reality, but even in the world of social justice victimization, there was no excuse to be made for his murder. It wasn’t as if he was a straight white man whom the woke consider expendable as reparations for his inherent role in “systemic racism.” This was a person who should not have been harmed, who should not have been murdered.
Two girls ages 13 and 15 have been charged with felony murder after D.C. police said their attempt to carjack a food delivery driver outside Nationals Park on Tuesday afternoon ended in a crash that fatally injured the man.
The girls — legally too young to drive — were also charged with armed carjacking, according to authorities. A D.C. police spokesman said at least one was armed with a stun device, which was found inside the crashed vehicle.
If it doesn’t jump out at you, I’ll say it: there is no mention of the race of the two teenaged girls. In another time, this might be understandable as the crime compels no mention of race, but we are existing in a time when race is paramount except when it isn’t. If the perpetrators were white and the victim Pakistani, you would already know Anwar’s name because there would have been protests, maybe even a riot, and dozens of op-eds about how this proves white supremacy.
And the fact that the two perps survived would have be shouted from the rooftops as conclusive proof that there are two systems of justice, as it would be assumed that had they been black, the cops would have killed them like dogs in the street, but they survived to be prosecuted only because of their race. Of course, none of this was said because there is no room in the narrative to accommodate that the two girls weren’t white.
Local CBS affiliate WUSA9 reported on this carjacking, this killing, and ends with an ominous statement.
In the last few months, since the beginning of the year, 23 juveniles have been arrested in the city in carjackings. Its gotta stop.
We are deluged with stories of the outrages perpetrated by cops, and many, if not all of them, are either outrageous or wrong. But what we rarely hear now is that crime still happens. People like Anwar die. These aren’t starving kids stealing a loaf of bread to survive, but carjackings. And the two girls were armed with stun guns to make it happen. A planned and executed crime.
Years ago, this might well have been far bigger news, and there would be deep concern about carjackings by juveniles in D.C. Today, this barely exists, and to the extent it does, the focus is almost exclusively on the horrific and needless death of Anwar.
“He was a hardworking immigrant who came to the U.S. in 2014 to build a better life for himself and his family. The loss for his family is immeasurable,” the family said in a statement.
Uber offered its condolences to Anwar’s family in a statement.
Just as we needed to know what the police were doing, how the cops were treating black and Hispanic people in the street because that was the reality that failed to make it onto our television screens, so too do we need to know that teenaged girls with stun guns attempted to carjack Mohommad Anwar and killed him. And like it or not, they were black. This doesn’t make black people more violent or prone to crime, anymore than a crime perpetrated by white guys inherently proves racism.
What it does demonstrate is how we’ve shifted from one lie of omission, that cops are always the good guys serving and protecting, and never beating black kids for no particular reason on the street, to another, that vicious and violent crime doesn’t really happen and black people never commit it.
For years, I’ve sought to explain that there are bad dudes out there. Sometimes, they’re women. Sometimes, they’re black or Hispanic. Sometimes the victims of their crimes are black, Hispanic, white and even Pakistani. This doesn’t have to be a competition of concern between the lives of those who suffer from racism and those who are harmed or murdered. And “systemic racism” does not excuse this crime or the death of Anwar.
Indulging in a fantasy world where malevolent crimes aren’t committed by black people or reacting with a litany of rationalizations twisting this to be the product of “systemic racism” and not the actions of two people, won’t bring Anwar back. His life matters too, even if not a single news outlet could find the room to fit this into the narrative.
Rest in peace, Mohammad Anwar. Rest in peace every person who didn’t need to die.
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This appears to be a typical example of false equivalence. Police are paid to enforce the laws and prevent crime when possible, not to commit criminal acts.
I am not sure what one has to do with the other but rationalizing police misconduct, which is rarely criminally punished, by citing criminal conduct by young blacks makes little sense to me..
Sometimes, after writing a post, I wonder to myself whether it’s clear enough that anyone capable of remembering to breath will understand it. Invariably, the answer is “no,” there is always someone.
At the macro level, the only thing that makes civilization work is the threat of force by the government. Mommy saying “Johnny stop doing that” seven times never makes Johnny stop. When Johnny grows up, become belligerent, and might be carrying a gun, the situation is horrible. Policemen are aggressive by nature. Escalating a tense encounter always, I repeat always, has a chance of death. Society encouraging resistance to “the man” is not helpful at all.
Can we get back to the topic of the post, please?
The “point” here is almost exactly the opposite of what you read through your delusion. There’s no equivalence drawn nor rationalization for police misconduct whatsoever. The point is that concern about one does not preclude concern about the other, or justify denial of the existence of the other.
More than one bad thing can happen at the same time, and no one needs to be as blind (as you apparently are) to deny the reality that crime happens and people are hurt and killed.
“False equivalence” is the go-to defense for some of history’s worst atrocities. Also for crimes by police.
If you believe calling attention to a problem functions as “rationalizing” another problem, even when the person explicitly describes them both as problems, your mindset is the reason these arguments need to be made.
Well said. Too many people see/read/hear what they want to see/read/hear.
“If you believe calling attention to a problem functions as “rationalizing” another problem, even when the person explicitly describes them both as problems, your mindset is the reason these arguments need to be made.”
There is also a very disturbing video of the girls speeding away in the Uber. After killing Anwar, the girls walk around looking for a lost cellphone. They are obviously unconcerned about Mohammad Anwar.
Why do I bother including the video in the post?
Your video is just a snippet of the video I referred to.
Your video is deeply disturbing; the complete one is blood-curdling. I refer to the complete blood-curdling video because people, civilized people, should be able to see it.
If they feel compelled to do so, so be it.
Kelly Link.
“A monster. You and your friends, all of you. Pretty monsters. It’s a stage all girls go through. If you’re lucky you get through it without doing any permanent damage to yourself or anyone else.”
Even for monsters, carjacking, etc., is kinda bad.
You’ve been foreshadowing this post for a while now. What pushed you to come out this time?
There is a huge spectrum between black people are all criminals and black people are either never criminals or never responsible for their actions because of racism. What struck me this time was the nature of the crime, the victim and the deafening silence of the media to acknowledge race where it pounds on race otherwise.
This time, the bullshit was more than I could take. And I really try my best not to feed into the racist black criminality trope.
“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it’s for or against.” ~ Malcolm X
Last time I looked at the AP Style Manual (a few years ago now) it posited that a story should make no mention of race unless it is material to the story. Since then, it appears wokey doctrine has filled in around the margins. Apparently, race is now deemed material to the story if a bad actor is white, and if a suspect beaten or killed by police is a person of color, but not otherwise. So, as with the dead woman drugged, raped and robbed by Spring breakers, the races of the people in the story are only ascertainable in the versions that included photos. This is simply the way “reporting” is done now, and it is apparently considered necessary to rehabilitate the relative public image of people of color.
That’s a significant part of the problem: if it can be used to push the narrative, it’s material (or to be more accurate, mandatory). If puts marginalized people in a negative light, then its inclusion is not permitted as it promotes negative stereotypes. Except whenever race goes unmentioned these days, it’s a deafening silence.
You nailed it, the proverbial saying applies i don’t know if people just don’t want to hear the facts.
Previously ( another piece) I wrote that you have an ongoing theme_ if we can’t be honest about what we know to be true we may never make necessary changes for the good of all of us.
I see this piece as a continuation of that theme.
Do Brown lives matter? Were blacks responsible ? Yes. These two girls have now ruined their lives. If BLM really believed in standing up for blacks; they should start by making sure youth are educated and don’t grow up in a life of crime, and that drugs and their dealers are removed from the streets.
Race is not a problem in this country, unless you make it one. Don’t believe people who tell you it is. All you have to do is, tell yourself, I’m proud of who I am, not what I am.
“America’s most precious ideal is what used to be known as the American Creed: People are not to be judged by where they came from, what social class they come from, or by race, color, or creed. They must be judged as individuals. The prevailing Progressive ideology repudiates that ideal, demanding instead that the state should judge people by their race, social origins, religion, sex, and sexual orientation.”
— Charles Murray
No matter the teen girls race or nationality, they need to be severely punished because all they cared about was their phone and stealing a car.They did not feel any remorse for the man they attacked and killed. I want to say Asian lives matter, TOO.
You’re never going to get people to agree with you on here, but I totally get what you are saying. I mean seriously, if Anwar had been a black man and the 2 girls had been 2 white boys, there would be BLM members threatening to riot if they weren’t tried as adults. We can SAY race doesn’t matter, but it does (when of course we want it to).
There are plenty of people who reject the distorted racism of social justice and remain liberal in their belief that no racism or racist violence is acceptable, regardless of who does it. Just because the hard right and left are the loudest and most prominent voices screaming does not mean that there isn’t a substantial group between the crazed fringes for whom rational liberal values remain intact. There just aren’t too many people willing to say this aloud anymore.