NOT GUILTY!
By
ROBERT HARKINS
I am one of that Boomer generation
who in primordial ages past was enchanted by the daring adventures of the Lone
Ranger—and his faithful Native American friend Tanto. Boomer children,
particularly males thrilled to the powerful strains of Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell Overture, as it set the
pace for their mad gallop across the western plains.
Justice was so simple then. No one died, not really. There were wicked
men of course but they were quickly and painlessly brought to justice. There
were beautiful damsels in distress but
they were always saved just “in the nick of time” still pure and untouched.
In the Lone Ranger’s chivalrous and
imaginary Old West there was always a crime brewing somewhere, a bank robbed, a
cagey crook at work stealing a poor man’s farm, a virgin maiden oppressed by a horny
villain. The bad guy was always easy to recognize. Invariably he was the only
one wearing a store-bought shiny suit; worse still, he sported a pencil thin mustache,
smiled deviously and pretended to be nice. You know the type.
Sometimes the plot would center upon the
plight of an innocent man charged with murder. A wild mob of hairy looking
white guys, one toting a hanging rope, are demanding of the sheriff that Billy
Bob, jailed and charged with a dastardly crime, be set free simply because the
mob believe him to be overripe for hanging. They demand, therefore, that he be hoisted
up to swing from the nearest tree.
The sheriff invariably shouts at the
lynch mob, “You all can’t hang Billy Bob; why he ain’t even had a fair trial
yet!”
To which the guy with the rope
counters logically by his dim lights, “Well, daw gone it, let’s give em”a fair
trial and then hang em!”
In the end the Lone Ranger, his pearl
handled Colt .45 loaded with “silver bullets” symbolic of purity, truth and
justice” saves Billy Bob, rescues the pure maiden unspoiled from the clutches
of her villain and exposes the mustached guy in the suit for the guilty,
low-down, no-good cad that he is.
The ending is a happy one. Justice is
done. Thereupon, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, hiding just out of camera range
wait until someone always asks,
“Say, who was that masked man anyway?
Then again, to the powerful strains
of the William Tell Overture, the
Lone Ranger’s mounts his stallion Silver, rears up and shouts out “Hi-yo
Silver! Away” and off they go.
That’s how it goes in the old-time
movies; justice prevails always. There is no real pain or infamy. There is no
real human suffering; men are “winged”
get flesh wound, but no one really dies.
In real time, however, in an expression of the blunt and merciless power of human hatred, the New Black Panther Party, while calling for “a red sea of white blood” placed a reward for the capture of “White-Hispanic” George Zimmerman dead or alive.
Zimmerman now stands charged with
Second Degree murder for the shooting death of African American, Trayvon
Martin. The prosecutor did not present the constitutional threshold of
“probable cause” to a grand jury. Instead one Andrea Corey, a prosecutor
appointed by the Governor drafted Zimmerman’s indictment for Second Degree
Murder. Ms. Corey and the government that supported her indictment were inspired
not by evidence of guilt but by moral and political cowardice.
Later a gang of twenty angry
African-Americans concerned apparently with the “guilty” Zimmerman’s violation
of Martin’s civil rights screamed out his name as they kicked, beat and
pummeled nearly to death a white guy who happened by.
The white guy, running for his life,
made it to the front porch of his house but not in time to open and close his
front door against an unprincipled, racist mob indifferent to whether he lived
or died. He is now hospitalized in critical condition. The mob knew of course
that he was innocent, that he had nothing whatever to do with Martin’s death. But that was not their point. Their point was that the white guy is white
and they are black and insofar as the “white” Zimmerman was not available for
stomping he would simply have to do—at least for the time being.
The mainstream media cut and pasted a
recorded conversation between Zimmerman and the police dispatcher so as to contrive
a blatant falsehood: that Zimmerman instead of answering the dispatcher’s
question as to Martin’s race, volunteered instead that Martin was “black.” In a
single cut and paste, in a towering act of journalistic mendacity, NBC characterized
Zimmerman as a white racist so vicious and insatiable that he was willing to
take the life of an African-American teenager simply to satisfy his hatred of
all human beings who are black.
Apparently, according to the first
principles of a “critical race theory” conceived in the tormented mind of the late Derick Bell,
President Obama’s mentor, a man may be white for racial purposes even if as it
happens he is not white but Hispanic or for that matter Korean or Hindustani.
Dr. Thomas Sowell writes that,
“An amazing proportion of the media has given us a
painful demonstration of the thinking — and lack of thinking — that prevailed
back in the days of the old Jim Crow South, where complexion counted more than
facts in determining how people were treated.” All these verbal games grow out
of the notion that complexion tells you who is to be blamed and who is not. It
is a dangerous game because race is no game. If the tragic history of the old
Jim Crow South in this country is not enough to show that, the history of
racial and ethnic tragedies is written in blood in countries around the world.
Millions have lost their lives because they looked different, talked
differently, or belonged to a different religion. Thomas Sowell: “Media
gives Zimmerman Jim Crow treatment,”
Orange country Register, April 2012.
In 1992 four police officers arrested
an intoxicated African-American Mr. Rodney King following a late night, high-speed
car chase through crowded streets. A video showed the police officers mercilessly
beating Mr. King during the course of his arrest. The jury returned a verdict
of not guilty. African Americans then began a riot that would last for weeks.
9000 National Guard troops were called in to quell the burning
of buildings and the casual slaughter of American citizens, 54 Americans
of diverse races to be exact.
The torching of buildings and the
mass looting of stores, in political protest of the jury’s verdict, continued
for weeks. “By then 54 people had died and 3,000 businesses were destroyed with
around $1 billion in damages.” Twenty Years After The Los Angeles Riots
latino voices Louis Rodriquez May 1, 2012
Death and destruction
however were not reserved strictly for white people. Thousands of Korean
immigrants, lawful citizens of the United States, once extremely poor but
always ready to work tirelessly lost most of the wealth and property they had won
by their unceasing effort. Some stood armed
upon the rooftops of small stores wherein they sold squid and kimchi, beans,
rice and miso paste. But still many of their stores were burnt to the ground, their
inventory stolen or destroyed.
“More than
2,000 Korean-run businesses were damaged or destroyed, with an estimated $400
million in losses. Two-thirds were not insured.
But the cost went deeper. Many Koreans lost their bearings in the
L.A. riots.
"They felt betrayed. It was overwhelming," said Cho, who
coordinated counseling for thousands. "They said, 'I can tolerate that my
business burns.' But their psychological anger toward this society — that was
more intolerable.
"
Most
were immigrants with little money or education. "They looked at America
like heaven," Cho said.
They did not know whom to blame in the riots'
messy tableau of racial violence and class warfare.
The looters? The police
who failed to protect their shops? The Simi Valley jury that acquitted the
officers of beating Rodney King?
Like their black customers, many Koreans
thought the verdict was unjust. "They were sympathetic," Cho said.
"Then they were destroyed." Sandy Banks Los Angeles Times May1.2012
Justice is not nearly so innocent in
reality as it is in the fantastic stories of a distant childhood. Now many soto voce are engaged in fearful
speculation. What will be their fate, and the fate of this nation should Zimmerman
be found by his jury, “Not Guilty.”
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