THE FOLLOWING WAS FORWARDED TO ME FROM KATHY BELT. SHE POSTED SAME ON HER FACEBOOK PAGE. I WISH I HAD GOTTEN TO IT EARLIER BUT THIS IS DEFINITELY A CASE OF BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. WHERE IS THE RAGE OF HOLDER, OBAMA, SHARPTON, AND RACE MONGERS OVER THIS? I am from the St. Louis area. I wrote this for my own wall, but wanted to share it with you. I think that its incredible when you compare the response to two incidents, both in our area. I appreciate everything you are doing. Happy Thanksgiving. Lately, I keep thinking about the shootings in Kirkwood back in 2008, when Cookie Thornton (a black man) killed 5 white people (2 of which were cops) and severely wounded 2 others. The first innocent person he shot was my friends father, Sgt. Bill Biggs of the Kirkwood PD. Thorntons family not only refused to offer any apologies or condolences, but they actually defended the actions of the degenerate murderer. Thornton lived in Meacham Park and many of the residents of Meacham Park celebrated what Thornton had done, just as they did after Kevin Johnson shot and killed Sergeant William McEntee of the Kirkwood PD. The response of the people in the St. Louis area was peaceful. There were no riots, no one was calling for attacks on black people in retaliation, no fires, no looting, no one had to be afraid for their safety. This was a premeditated mass murder perpetrated against people that had done nothing wrong. And the response was to try to heal the community and find a way to go forward. Whats happening in Ferguson is a response to a cop defending himself against a criminal who was attacking him. And this is the response we see? Can anyone understand why there are stereotypes out there and how things like whats happening in Ferguson now reinforce those stereotypes? This small faction of thugs is pretending like they represent their whole race. They dont, but with all of the attention that they are getting, and the longer that some attempt to even justify their behavior, you are being painted with the same brush in the eyes of the country. When the world hears how “you can only take so much” or “you can only poke a sleeping dog for so long” it makes it sound like you support the violence. Do you? These animals are setting you back by decades, reinforcing stereotypes and driving racial divides even deeper. How do people not see this? For some reason, some people see the riots as a white/black issue. I dont get that AT ALL. I see it as a right/wrong issue and it has nothing at all to do with race. When I condemn the actions of these people, I am not condemning a race, I am condemning criminality and violence, regardless of who is doing it. But that isnt apparently how many of you see it. When I am criticizing rioters, I am asked if I am criticizing all black people. Uhhh, no, because all black people arent rioters and all rioters arent black people. But if YOU are seeing it that way, you must realize that the rest of the country is likely seeing it that way as well and that means that they are equating this group of thugs with all black citizens. I wish more in the community would stand up and be adamant about how they dont speak for you, dont represent you and how repulsive you find this behavior to be. Stop saying how you can understand where they are coming from. You want to talk about real race issues, do it, but dont give these idiots any credibility whatsoever. I honestly dont see how its possible to sit back and say nothing while a town literally burns to the ground. If there had been people calling for white-on-black crime and behavior like this after the Kirkwood shootings, I wouldnt have been silent. I would have made it clear that those people didnt speak for all of us and that the actions of Cookie Thornton had no impact on how I saw everyone that happens to look like him. How is this a difficult concept to grasp in this day and age? You can disagree with the verdict and still boldly condemn whats happening. You can still assert that theres a problem between races and at the same time vehemently condemn the criminal element thats making you look bad, making people see you in a bad light. The grand jury decision, the death of Michael Brown and racism are completely separate from the riots. This is going to impact how cops are going to handle future interactions with black citizens. If you had a group of a couple hundred white folks burning your cars, throwing bricks at your head, throwing bottles of flaming kerosene at you, throwing urine on you, etc., would it change your future interactions with white people? Do you have any idea what impression this is leaving on the next generation? Children seeing this on TV, being scared by it, are going to grow up one day and theyre going to respond to YOUR children differently because of this. Any sympathy or support for these rioters is setting all of us back and refusing to loudly condemn this is going to negatively impact this generation and generations to come. Why, in this country, do we let small groups be our voice instead of standing up and speaking for ourselves? I don’t let anyone speak for me. Not politicians, not feminists, not Republicans, not even other Christians. Stand up and scream from the rooftops that this is crap and it doesn’t reflect who you are. The people I consider my friends are better than what we are seeing on TV. - (mychal-massie/premium/)
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:38:43 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015