FIREBLIND.COM

I was trying to avoid it, but it’s gotten too crazy for me not to lend my worthless opinion to the situation.

As you may or may not have heard, there was an incident in Palmdale, CA in mid-September, in which several black-skinned high school students were arrested over an incident involving spilled cake. Here’s a list of what seem to be the undisputed facts:

• Some amount of cake was dropped on the ground during a birthday party
• A security guard ordered one of the students to pick the cake up.
• A scuffle of some kind ensued, during which three students were placed into handcuffs and arrested by (white-skinned) security staff
• Pleajhai Mervin, the female student at the center of the ordeal, was expelled from school
• Mervin’s mother was later arrested for an alleged attack on various school staff members

According to most media reports, the claim has been made that Mervin suffered a broken arm/wrist, and that one of the other students arrested did as well. Moreover, the media reports claim that Mervin was “beaten” or “assaulted”, that the white-skinned security guard threw her down on a table, and while placing her in handcuffs made racist remarks, including calling her a nappy head. Her mother was later supposedly arrested basically for making a fuss.

Here’s a video of the arrest taking place. Note that this is the longest footage of the incident that I’ve seen. It’s possible that more footage is out there.

A police investigation into the case disputes the allegations of assault, and comes to the defense of the security guard. The report essentially states that the students assaulted the security guard, and that Mervin’s mother did in fact physically assault school staff (including pushing the principal, forearming a vice principal, and pushing another security guard). There are also reports that the doctor who treated Mervin’s wrist has stated that she did not break or fracture it.

It seems to me that when you compare the allegations and the police report, and after watching the video, that the allegations of assault and abuse are overinflated if not false. Then again, I wasn’t there and I don’t have any more facts than what have been reported on.

And that’s the reason I’m writing this. Very soon after the incident happened, black-skinned “civil rights” groups began to agitate against what they perceived as a(nother) grave injustice perpetrated by white-skinned security guards against defenseless and innocent teens. They did this based solely on the word of individuals in agreement with Mervin. A small rally was held at a civic building to demand justice.

Once Al Sharpton got involved, all hell broke loose. In listening to talk-radio and more “independent” media sources, the white-skinned backlash was just as animated as the protests, if not moreso. The problem was that their outrage seemed to stem more from the fact that black-skinned people were getting “uppity” rather than because of the merits of the actual case.

In both cases, I’m greatly disappointed. It’s very disappointing that in this day and age–a time of technological and scientific progress unseen in the history of mankind–that dark skinned Americans still have to put up with as much racist crap as they do. On the other hand, I think it’s unfortunate that black-skinned “activists” saw fit to cause such a stink before all the facts of the incident had come out. In both cases, each community has basically caused the other to roll their collective eyes and utter a “not this sh*t again”. What ever happened to restraint and common decency? A little of it might go a long way in patching up the terrible state of race relations in this country.

By the way, sorry if the “black-skinned” and “white-skinned” terminology is pissing you off. I’m trying to be better at using this terminology, as I think it cuts through a lot of the crap that we associate with the terms “black” or “African-American” and “white”. When one says “black students”, a lot of people will already create an impression based on some phantom black student that they “know”, who probably wears his pants really baggy, turns his hat to the side, and enjoys long walks in the park and holding up liquor stores. Similarly, some people will hear “white security” guard and conjure up notions of all the racist cops and security guards who want nothing more than to put “coloreds” in their place. Are their black-skinned people who are criminals? Of course. Are there white-skinned security guards that abuse their power? Absolutely.

I feel that in training myself to use terms like “black-skinned” or “white-skinned”, I can improve my own ability to consider people of different skin color as being only that: people who happen to be wrapped in the same shell as myself with slightly lighter or darker pigmentation. It annoys me to no end that humans make up so many stupid ways to divide themselves from one another. Black-skinned Americans don’t dial in for a conference call each morning to learn what new things their culture is going to turn out for the day, and similarly, white-skinned Americans don’t get memos about how to better oppress minorities. People are people, and it sucks that we’re so good at making stuff up about imaginary groups that don’t exist.

One final thing before I go: in looking around for opinions on this, I was surprised to find such a large number of blogs written about this incident. Like me, they don’t actually know anything about what really happened, but man, are people jumping to conclusions all over the place. In any event, if you’re interested in reading up on some of the more interesting (to me) voices that I came across, check out these blogs.