Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
White cop shoots Black youth in view of a million witnesses and store security video. Where are the protests?
Granted, the cop was off-duty, in civilian clothes, on personal business in a shopping center. Granted, the youth was busy slashing shoppers with a knife. Still – why isn’t this a racial hate crime?
Maybe Somalis born in African who come to America as refugees don’t count as “African-American” but count as “White” the way Asians do for college admissions, and therefore this kid is not protest-worthy? Or maybe the kid was a White Somali – they have them, you know; they sign up at the same place as Hispanics like that guy in Florida.
Maybe St. Cloud is inconveniently far away if you depend on light rail for transportation to the protest?
It’s just odd.
Joe Doakes
In point of fact, they don’t count as “African-American”.
Speaking of police shooting black men, Charlotte is burning after a seemingly legitimate police shooting (by a black cop nonetheless). Tulsa has a seemingly questionable police shooting yet that city is relatively calm. Oklahoma is solidly red for the 2016 election, North Carolina is still in play. Democrats smartly investing their efforts to sway voters?
We need a new classification for a new time: White black men. Or, black white men. To be able to accommodate this new demographic – light rail to St. Cloud would help get their anger in front of the cameras quicker. The pricetag is immaterial when weighed against ‘inclusion.’
reader15…and to be more specific, Tulsa is a red city while Charlotte is more blue.
Mitch….Fargo Forum has a note on the St Cloud attacker’s brother. Turns out he is in jail as a serial criminal, and they allude to that he may be here illegally.
African-American is such a construct. There was some headline during the Olympics that someone’s gold medal represented the first time an African-American had won that sport. I wondered, but never bothered enough to look up, if an actual African had ever won.
Does someone born in Africa, with dark skin, instantly become an African-American upon entry to the country? How about someone born in Africa with pink skin, does the same rule apply?
A colleague lives near an international family – Dad born and raised in South Africa while Mom is from Minnesota. Their kids were born there and hold dual citizenship. I heard a story that the oldest kid filled out forms in class and marked “African-American” but was scolded because he’s not Black – he’s White as any Norwegian. He supposedly told the teacher “I was born in Africa but now I live in America. None of them have even been to Africa. How come they’re African-American but I’m not?” I suspect he’s going to be a discipline problem in that class.
The Oklahoma shooting seems to be another case where the left (in this case the same lawyer who represented Trayvon Martin’s family after the “honor student” was shot in self-defense when he assaulted someone) pulled out the stops to portray the victim as just an innocent man (sang in the choir, doncha know) with car trouble who was shot when he asked the police for help and even had his hands raised. Lucky for the cop, there was a helicopter overhead that showed a more complete video footage of the encounter than the obscured camera on her car including that he was walking away from the police instead of standing still and reached for something on his side. Also there was apparently PCP found in his vehicle.
Joe Doakes – the “African-American” kid was probably chastised by a teacher who would have supported him 100% if he had said he self-identifies as a female and wanted to use the women’s bathroom. The support only ever goes one way!
@Loren and Joe Doakes: During the 2004 Presidential campaign, didn’t Teresa Heinz-Kerry say something about being African-American, because she was born in Mozambique? And after the wailing and gnashing of teeth, she acknowledged the term “African-American” belonged to blacks, but she was “African American” (no hyphen).
PC types don’t seem to like it when you use the language against them.
if John Kerry had won in 2004 his wife would have become the first African-American First Lady.
JD, my good friend is an Afrikaaner of German decent. He did put down African-American on his citizenship application, and it was duly held up for an additional 6 months after an interview he had to do at INS. His wife had a fit when his son wanted to pull the same stunt on his college application. Not that he needed it, he finished at the top of his class.