Back when Eliot Morgan and I were co-hosting a radio show on XM, we had an occasional segment: "The black race can't afford you no more!" It apparently was controversial to some of our listeners who complained about us.It featured black criminals who should be abandoned by black people.
If the cops are right--and I say if because I was in Boston when Charles Stuart accused a black man of killing his wife--then Curtis Lavelle Vance needs to added to the list.
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I was talking to a casual acquaintance when I saw the news report that police had tied a suspect to the rape and murder of an Arkansas TV news anchor (Anne Pressly)
I looked it up on my Pocket PC, then I told her, "I'm going to show you his photo."
She said the same thing my mother used to say when a suspect had been identified: "I hope he isn't black."
I then said the same thing I used to say as a youngster, "I hope they catch him!" (Or, "I hope they got the right guy and execute him!")
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The female friend went ballistic once I mentioned that the woman had been raped.
He raped her and killed her too? Hadn't he already harmed her enough by raping her? Did he have to take her life, too? Suddenly, she was on my side. "I don't care about his race. This ain't the 1950s. His black ass needs to be executed!"
My thoughts exactly.
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She clearly is not politically correct. I pointed out that there are so many freaky people, the alleged rapist could have gone online and found a woman looking for whatever kind of non-fatal sex he wanted. She then said he could have gone to a prostitute.
I said, "Perhaps. But the story also says that the alleged rapist and killer is a suspect in a different case. According to a news report, in the other case: "[T]he assailant raped the victim, took her cell phone and $3."
Someone stealing $3 is not thinking ahead and probably doesn't have enough loose cash to pay a hooker.
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She then hoped for prison justice. She mentioned a case in DC from years ago in which a black man had been raping a young black child. She said that people from a halfway house were set loose to find him. Apparently, when they caught him, they did not read him his Miranda rights. They whipped his ass like they were racist white cops reliving the 1950s...
But I'm not into prison justice. Criminals punishing criminals? There has to be something wrong with our criminal justice system if criminals fear their treatment in prison more than they do their actual incarceration.
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A few years ago I absolutely ripped into a very close (non-black) friend. She had attended a meeting in which a couple of black male speakers complained white women clutching their purses, locking their doors or walking faster because of black men. (And I call them "male" because they didn't sound like men.)
My friend agreed with the speakers rather than laughing out loud at what they were saying. Rather proud of herself, she then mentioned to me a recent incident: a couple of young black males were passing by her car. She waited until after they had walked by before she locked the doors.
As I recall, I told her, "You really are an idiot." Well, that was the clean version of what I said. I actually put in the form of a question inappropriate for my blog: "What kind of fucking moron are you?"
After a while she made it clear: Black people may feel bad when they hear people locking their doors when they see a black person. People may also lock their doors when they see a white person get too close, but they will lock their doors faster when someone black approaches.
What really sucks about that point is that I used to make it when I was a young male. Now it sounds like babytalk.
I'm just not into this racial mind-reading (which, by the way, is a reason that I have never fully embraced Shelby Steele, even when his analysis is interesting). After we get through all of the analysis, is there really anything wrong with a woman choosing to defend herself against strangers? By defending herself, I'm not saying for her to go shooting through a black neighborhood.
I am saying: Why would any respectable man counsel a woman to put her defenses down so that she won't possibly offend the feelings of a male stranger, regardless of race?
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I haven't looked at the crime statistics deeply enough to find which race of people has criminals most likely to steal purses. It is certainly a universal thing. Back when I was living in Taiwan there was an "epidemic" of men stealing purses. In case you didn't know, a lot of folks in Taipei get around by using mini-motorcycles. The thieves would ride on their bikes and grab the purses of pedestrians. In a country with most of the people being Chinese and Taiwanese, who are the women to clutch their purses at?
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By the way, help me spread a rumor that a black newsanchor was raped and killed by a white man. I suppose that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would suddenly get interested in the case.
CJL
