Shawn King: NY Daily News Clown

Shawn King is good for many laughs about what passes for informed journalism at the NY Daily News. Indeed the BLM movement has managed to guilt trip many an institution into paying people to "teach" and write things that sully the reputation (assuming there is one to sully) of the hosting institutions. Today we have Shawn King comparing Tamir Rice to Emmett Till.

On Monday, when I received the news — a full 400 days after Tamir Rice was killed by police — that no charges would be filed against the officers who shot him, I was out with my wife and kids at the Center for Civil and Human Rights. We had just walked past an exhibit on 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was brutally tortured and killed by a racist mob in 1955. Nobody was ever held accountable for his murder, even though everybody knew full well who did it.

Are these two incidents comparable in any way other than it involved to black teens? Lets examine:

Emmett Till was lynched because he made a pass at a white woman in a store. We can all agree that not only is making pass at a woman isn't a crime [yet but that's another discussion] but it doesn't warrant a death sentence in the least bit. Even if the lynch mob was offended that Till would make a pass at a white woman, that woman was in no way, shape or form in any physical danger, real or perceived. She may not have liked Till making the pass at her, but liking or not liking the person who makes a pass at you is not grounds for legal action [yet]. Thus the justice denied Till is a clear case of white's covering for their own.

In the case of Tamir Rice, we have a kid playing with what appears to be a real gun in public. He (or one of his friends) removed the bright orange tip that is supposed to let police and others know that the gun is not real. A concerned person called the police to report a young man walking around and waving a gun in public. One could argue that such a call was unwarranted. That's a matter of opinion. We do know that where Tamir Rice was waving his fake gun around is a place where gun related homicides happen often (Some place called Linndale is clearly a war zone). So police have a reason to be alarmed when a call about a man walking around with a gun comes in. Particularly when said gun waver is in a park where children are present.

In the video we see that the officers arrive and shoot Tamir Rice within seconds. We can certainly argue whether the speed with which they shot Tamir was appropriate. However; as I pointed out in my last post, 50-50 chance of not going home today. I don't know about you, but I'm going home. This brings me to a strong position my mother took with me when I was a child: No. Toy. Guns. Period. My mother in her wisdom understood that a toy gun could be mistaken for a real gun with very real circumstances so she forbade me from having one. Tamir Rice is a victim of those very real probabilities that comes with walking around in public with a very real looking gun. And this is why the comparison to Emmett Till is not only inappropriate but sullies the legacy of Till.

Till did not present a danger, real or perceived to anyone. Rice did. It's very unfortunate but that's the fact. As I've been saying all year long, if black people (and Shawn is not black thank you very much) are concerned with the welfare of their children, particularly the boys, they are going to have to change how they socialize them AND what toys they give them to play with. Those orange tops are there for a reason.

Of course Shawn King is entitled to his opinion on the matter. The Daily News is entitled to run a rag of a paper that's only good for local items of interest and celebrity gossip, but I'll lay odds that while they let this clown write for their paper, they don't let their kids run around in public parks with real looking guns.