UPDATE: Why isn't this called a hate crime?
Black on white crime?
A video that I posted here showing mostly black kids attacking a white kid has been made private. Lt. Jason Johansson of the Police Department announced that eight kids have been charged with murder. When he was asked whether they would also be charged with a hate crime, he said, according to the New York Times:
At the news conference on Tuesday, Lieutenant Johansson was asked whether those charged with murder could also face hate crime charges because Jonathan was white and many of the students in the videos were Black. Lieutenant Johansson said that so far there was no evidence that indicated the beating was a hate crime. [My emphasis.]
A better question would have been, why not?
Original post:
A white kid, Jonathan Lewis, Jr., appears from the video to have been attacked by a gang of black kids. It’s hardly mentioned in any news story that I’ve seen.
Here’s a case where “what-aboutism” is truly justified. If a black kid had been beaten to death by a gang of white kids, all hell would have broken loose. Marches. Burnings. Condemnations galore—in Congress, from the White House podium, from the New York Times and Washington Post editorial boards and columnists, from MSNBC and CNN, from race hustlers like Al Sharpton, from woke college professors who blame “white privilege” and “systemic racism.”
As of this writing, no arrests. Even though some assailants are easily identified from the video and, presumably, by eye witnesses. (Can’t even find a mention in a search of the New York Times website.)
The school is predominantly black, so it is fair and reasonable to ask if racism was involved in this attack on a white student. A brave student who had come to the defense of another student—someone smaller, who was robbed and tossed into a trash can.
Why aren’t those punks in handcuffs? And if they were, would they be prosecuted for murder, or released without bail? Would the school not expel them?
It’s scary, but I think we know the answers.
Dennis Byrne is a retired journalist and author who variously was an op-ed columnist, editorial board member, assistant financial editor, science and technology reporter, special projects writer and urban affairs and transportation reporter for the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Daily News. You can reach him at dennis@dennisbyrne.net.