I learned later, in reading a column, that this particular officer was himself a minority, a Hispanic man. In June of last year, New York City s annual Puerto Rican Day parade was the scene of violence against more than 50 women. The New York police, in this case, were accused of not moving aggressively enough to rescue the women and dealing with the perpetrators. Some believed that with the battering the police had taken from racial demagogues in the city, police officers did not relish another political assault accompanying TV videos of the uniformed police night-sticking minorities. The Oklahoma City bombing, which was, in reality, mass murder, resulted in a Clintonian assault on conservative talk show hosts and the Republican House leadership, notwithstanding the lack of any connection whatsoever.
Examples are endless.
Many thoughtful Americans are wondering when and if we are going to get back to considering a violent crime an abominable act regardless of who is the perpetrator or the victim. Columnist Paul Craig Roberts says the assault on white males has been going on for three decades. He compares it to the assault on Jews by German intellectuals during the half century before the rise of Hitler. There are those who note that George W. Bush drew 27 percent of the black vote when he sought re-election as governor of Texas in 1998. Judges and juries have the responsibility of determining, case by case, when a violent crime merits extra punishment for an especially evil motive.