Friday, July 31, 2009

Cry Racism Some More

Let me see if I understand this. If you see two black men trying to break into a house you're a racist if you report to the police that two black men are trying to break into a house, even though knowing the race of the perps could be of value to the police in eliminating others as possible suspects.

At least that's apparently what we are to deduce from the experience of Lucia Whalen who, be it noted, did not mention the race of the men she was led to believe were trying to break into a home in her neighborhood:

The woman who dialed 911 to report a possible break-in at the home of black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. said Wednesday she was pained to be wrongly labeled a racist based on words she never said and hoped the recently released recording of the call would put the controversy to rest.

With a trembling voice, Lucia Whalen, 40, said she was out walking to lunch in Gates' Cambridge neighborhood near Harvard University when an elderly woman without a cell phone stopped her because she was concerned there was a possible burglary in progress.

Whalen was vilified as a racist on blogs after a police report said she described the possible burglars as "two black males with backpacks."

Tapes of the call released earlier this week revealed that Whalen did not mention race. When pressed by a dispatcher on whether the men were white, black or Hispanic, she said one of them might have been Hispanic.

"Now that the tapes are out, I hope people can see that I tried to be careful and honest with my words," Whalen said. "It never occurred to me that the way I reported what I saw be analyzed by an entire nation."

Even if Ms Whalen had reported that the men were black, which they were, why would that be racist? And why should the cretins who are subjecting her to threats and ridicule be angry with her? She's just a good person doing her civic duty and now she's being smeared by the lefty blogosphere, which excels at this sort of thing, for reporting the apparent crime.

I remember the much-cited story of Kitty Genovese who was murdered by a man on a city street back in the 1950s, and although dozens of people heard her calls for help, few actually did anything. They didn't want to get involved. I can imagine that from now on no one who witnesses a crime being committed by a black is going to want to get involved by reporting it for fear of being slandered for his/her efforts. Easier to just let society crumble than to suffer the abuse of those small minds who see racism lurking in every cultural crevice and those fetid souls who relish destroying and defaming whoever they can.

RLC