The Race Card
Posted on Monday, May 5, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/Editorial/61509/
The year is 2008, and, as such, there is no issue in which race is not a factor.
Even when it makes no sense whatsoever.
Witness the acquittal of three New York City police detectives on charges in connection with the slaying of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man whom the three gunned down in a hail of 50 bullets at Bell’s bachelor party.
We’ll leave it to you to decide whether the acquittal was the correct call. We didn’t listen to all the testimony and didn’t read the appropriate laws. We’ll assume the judge did so and arrived at the correct verdict. Reasonable people might disagree.
But we will take great exception to this comment, delivered moments after the verdict was announced: “ This case was not about justice, ” said Leroy Gadsden, police / community relations committee chairman of the Jamaica Branch NAACP. “ This court, unfortunately, is bankrupt when it comes to justice for people of color. ” We beg to differ. There is nothing in the record indicating race had any bearing in this case. And we don’t quite understand that logic when two of the defendants were African-American. Disagree with the verdict if you want. But leave the race card on the table.
—The Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, Colo.