Mondello apologized to Stewart for having been one of the people who killed his son. But hardly a whisper was raised about this in the media, which means that news people are more interested in maintaining Sharpton as a purveyor of racial division rather than healing. But all of these incidents, when looked at more than superficially, force us to reckon with the complexities of our society, the give and take, push and resistance, that mark the movement from murk to clarity. At the Police Academy, the torture of Abner Louima and the death of Amadou Diallo have created the desire to do a much better job, however remarkable the overall performance of the police has been as crime has declined for the last five or six years. It is too bad that some things come about this way, but there is, quite often, a sacrificial element to the expansion of civilization.
Society often cleanses itself in the blood of martyrs.
That Diallo could be a martyr without his killers' being murderers is probably too complex a concept for the purveyors of racial division to recognize. All rights reserved.