Today at 12:30 there will be a rally in Kogan Plaza for the deceased Sean Bell, who was killed on November 25, 2006, by several NYPD officers. Much has been made of the fact that around 50 shots were fired at Bell, who was shot in his car while attempting to use it as a weapon against the undercover police officers.
Naturally motivated by fraudalent Civil Rights leaders as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, black "student leaders" on campus are planning this rally while all wearing black. Two major proponents of this rally are Richard Fowler and Ogheneruemu Oyiborhoro. In an ad for the event Fowler writes:
"Sean Bell was killed Nov. 25, 2006 outside of a strip club where he was celebrating his bachelor party after officers suspected someone in his party had a gun.
Today as we stand as privileged College students of The George Washington University, I ask you to ask yourself,
“WHAT IS A Black LIFE Worth???”
The question of the worth of a black life is astute and piercing, no doubt, but forgive me for thinking this entire thing is completely ridiculous. If you are willing to look past the glaring ethics questions involved on Bell's side (such as Sharpton giving financial "gifts" to witnesses testifying for Bell) Fowler's gross oversimplification of the story is a trend common in events such as these with fallacious racial undertones.
Sean Bell has been painted by those on his side as an innocent and law-abiding young man with a child and fiancée. In reality Bell had a history of criminal activity, with two arrests for drug dealing and one for firearms possession. The fact that a man with a criminal history found himself in a situation such as this for absolutely no legitimate reason takes a stretch of the imagination, but this of course does not mean Bell was guilty of anything. Bell was holding his bachelor party at a club that was being suspected of prostitution, so there were plain-dressed police officers on the scene investigating. An unnamed police officer testified that he heard one of Bell's friends say "yo, get my gun and kill that dumb white bitch" as the party was leaving and he followed to investigate and alerted his backup team. Once Bell got into his car, fearing a shooting, the officers asked Bell to raise his hands and step out. Instead, he gripped the wheel and accelerated towards the police officers, hitting an unmarked police van. It was during this acceleration that the shots were fired.
Any reasonable individual, when confronted with the facts of the case, can see that it was a terrible and tragic situation, no matter how you look at it. But reason will also lead an individual away from the notion that this was racially motivated in any way. The extent of the evidence comes down to this; a group of black men were shot at and one was killed in a tragic accident by police officers, therefore racism must be the answer. But three of the officers were black or hispanic! Were these self-hating Uncle Toms? This self-aggrandizing racial agenda has reached GW's campus and will not go away anytime soon while the desperate and irrational conception of race relations exists here. I learned long ago not to discuss such issues with folks such as Fowler and OG, since reason and discourse is met with shouting and poster slogans.
It is simply worth noting that this protest is excessive and useless. It is based on an oversimplification of the events and on harmful racial identity that seemingly trumps intelligent and reasonable discourse. Let's hope this all blows over before the stink of massproduced racial unrest permeates the entire campus.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Racial Unrest at GW
Posted by Patrick J. Ford at 10:15 AM
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8 comments:
You are a maniac
We don't have university funding.
As a Black person with knowledge of the case, Patrick makes some good points. A lot of us also forget how hard it is bing a cop. I mean the cops were not racist. Maybe the schema that is set by years of racism (bad neighborhood, Black guys, strip club, etc.) did cause the reaction of the cops, not the NYPD systematically killing Blacks. Sean Bell was a felon, did time and he had been investigated before, so yeah not random. And Black people, let's be real... not every Black man who is shot is a model citizen or a martyr, some are criminals. Yes it is frustrating that there have been too many Blacks shot by police, we need to analyze why Blacks get into such crimes and fix that as opposed to accusing the NYPD, LAPD and what have you of being racist. Also, know all the facts before you start preaching.
The Bell shooting was still an awful tragedy. Maybe a candle-light vigil or some sort of solemn ceremony would do a lot more to heal than a rally where people browbeat and attack others as "racists."
The fact is an innocent man was murdered by the police, and no charges, no matter how harsh were not given. I believe that the black organizations on campus should not focus on the raciest aspects of these events, but how they show the disenfranchisement of the black and low income communities around the country. It is a sad fact that around the country, in different communities, the police use aggressive tactics on innocent and unarmed individuals
By ignoring the issues and casting people with passion on the subject as raciest or divisive, i saw Mr. Ford you are a douche bag.
~The G-Dub Truth
You can name-call if you wish. In the end I want the tragedy to be treaded solemnly and with respect, not as a political event to be used to preach race to people.
I guess that makes me a bad person...
i don't think it comes down to the police themselves. that's looking at the situation to closely. what it comes down to is that the case went to court, with facts highlighting that all police officers in this case were guilty, and all charges were still dismissed. The idea of racism comes into the mix because for years people of color have not had the same level of interest and respect within court cases. People get killed everyday, although not many in as tragic a way as Sean Bell. Justice was not served so the question "What is a Black's life Worth" unfortunately has merit.
This protest was yet another self-aggrandizing display of false-martyrdom by the black community at GW, led by egomaniacs such as OG, Eugene Beckley and Richard Fowler, who hold functions and start "organizations" for no other purpose than creating division and getting their name in the Hatchet.
First, the shooting was not racial, the verdict was not racial. The shooting and the verdict were appalling police work and an insult to justice, to be sure, but there was no reason to falsely inject race into it. Just because African Americans are involved in something does not make it racially motivated, in and of itself. To be sure, there is racism prevalent in much of America today, but we need to reserve our outrage for the real cases, not the fabricated ones.
OG, The BSU, and the "black community" at GW of late have taken to holding these rallies, walking out on SA meetings and complaining to the media that GW is racist - the university is racist, the student body is racist, the student media is racist. Those claims are absurd at a University that is one of the most liberal and accepting in the entire country and in the most African American city in the nation. How can a student body that has repeatedly, over the past decade, elected black students to be student-body president and executive vice president be so racist? This is not a school where African American students are excluded, by any means, from fraternities or sororities or student organizations, they are not excluded from leadership positions, not pushed away socially by the student body, not looked at any differently on campus. We have many, many African American professors and administrators.
I am sure there are bona fide racist students on campus, but just as homophobia or anti-semitism is not accepted by the overwhelming majority of this campus, neither is racism. So these rallies need to stop being held unless there is an actual racial issue on campus, which there has not been lately.
The black community needs to stop perceiving this "it's us versus them" mentality when it does not exist. We're not competing, we're working together, going to school together, partying together, living together, doing everything to make this the best possible college experience for everyone - black, white, Hispanic, gay, straight, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Athiest - for everyone.
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