If basketball great Lebron James claims police should not have shot girl with a knife before she stabbed the girl in pink, we can shrug our shoulders. If Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett says young people fighting with knives is nothing for police to concern themselves with, we can ignore her. But if Presidential Press Secretary Jen Psaki sees the shooting as evidence of “systematic racism,” we must pay attention. If the official position of the Biden administration is to favor the attacker, not the victim, what does that say about America?
Of course, this official position is not based on moral grounds, even faulty ones. No one really believes we should reserve our sympathy for the 16-year-old swinging the knife, leaving no sympathy for the potential victim. That would be hypocrisy, but at least it would pretend to have a moral basis. No, the White House ignores the girl in pink and squanders its sympathy on the would-be stabber on purely political grounds. If the girl in pink had been stabbed to death, no demonstrations would have disturbed out cities. She would be just another of the thousands of victims of intra-racial violence. But if the knife-wielding teen is shot by police, demonstrations may well occur. The squeakiest wheel gets the grease, and the noisiest crowd gets the attention.
We get more of what we condone and encourage. Currently we are condoning and encouraging assault with a deadly weapon – specifically, assault on minority young people. That is both a sin and a mistake, one for which we all will pay, but minorities will pay most dearly.
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