Don't Pull the Race Card to Warrant Hostility

Responding to the story on CNN the night before last about the beating of a white handicapped eighteen-year-old by four black youth, I am wondering where the compassion of these attackers was or if it even existed. How is it that they thought it was justified to do this horrific act?

I understand why black people feel they have been trampled on over history; I have even witnessed discrimination in my time. But I ask what does that have to do with someone who never played a part in that discrimination? It is not a black/white issue. This is an issue of human decency!

I realize some may retort, recalling the incident of the black teenage girl that was flipped onto the floor by a white SRO in Chicago, asking me how I can discount that as a racial issue. While the force used by the SRO was, in my mind, excessive for a 105-pound girl, I can understand the adrenaline pump that must have been in place when this SRO was trying to break up the fight that was going on. I don’t believe in my heart that he consciously said, “There’s a black girl causing trouble. I’m going to rough her up.” I believe for most police officers, something like this is not a racial issue. It is a practical matter of trying to restore peace – black or white.

We must not use race to justify retaliation and the continuance of hostility between the races. The sooner we ALL think of each other as just human beings, and teach our youth how to treat other human beings, the sooner peace will come.