In an earlier post we suggested Black Lives Matter (BLM), and its many liberal champions, lose credibility for sincerity (if that is what they are after) when they glom on to incidents involving police shootings of black people and, in knee-jerk fashion (if not purpose to agitate), charge racism with little time given for facts to emerge in due coarse. That has been true of recent high-profile incidents where black men were shot by police but evidence emerged that was exculpatory. BLM’s motto ought to be “strike while the iron is hot, let not facts cool ardor”
Media liberals give immediate credibility to any claim of police racism by sensationally propagating the accusations, but in the case of exoneration, it seems to us, do not give the same level of reportage. Unsupported accusations and lies get transmitted to the extent that they become “true” no matter what. The false narrative that goes out of endemic racism in police departments creates a dangerous situation, both in terms of aggravating resentment (Dallas) and policies or effects, such as the Ferguson effect, whereby police are skittish about enforcing law and order to the extent that crime goes up.
Our Senior Editor DLH prepared this report and commentary about liberal knee-jerk responses to accusations of racism. While no one died in the incidents commented on, the matters received much attention. Don wrote the report and commentary in timely fashion but events transpired in the political scene such that it did not get posted. We do so now as it is still timely evidence of the ridiculousness of rushes to judgement and breathless irresponsible reporting.
Monday, May 2, Iowa City, Iowa; A 19-year-old black student at the University of Iowa reported to police that he had been attacked and brutally beaten outside a popular Iowa City lounge by three white men in their early twenties, shouting racial slurs.
Marcus Owens, University of Iowa freshman from Naperville, Illinois said that he was assaulted the previous Saturday night outside the Eden Lounge while he was on his cell phone. According to Owens a white man approached him, yelled at him, and struck him multiple times. When he tried to defend himself, two other men joined in the attack “while shouting racial epithets”.
Based on his account, Iowa City police opened an investigation into the incident, regarding it as a hate crime.
According to Owens’ uncle, as reported by the Naperville Sun newspaper, the attack was unprovoked and the uncle, Darrell Owens, wanted the world to know it was a hate crime. The family told reporters that Marcus is one of the “nicest kids” and they were shocked that he would be attacked.
On learning of the attack, Univ. of Iowa students immediately took to social media to express concern about safety and question why they had to learn of the alleged hate crime from a television station. They demanded more information about the incident and how it was handled.
Campus police, on the following Wednesday, issued a “crime alert”.
University president Bruce Harreld issued a message to students, faculty, staff and parents and he and the dean of students met with Marcus and his family.
Harreld apologized for a breach of U of I protocol regarding notification to all concerned parties.
**INVESTIGATION COMPLETED; “VICTIM” LIED
Following a two-week investigation Iowa City police announced that a black U of I student from Naperville, Il, lied about being the victim of a hate crime and was actually an aggressor during several drunken fights that began inside a bar.
Marcus Owens had told police that he was attacked by three white men who hurled racial slurs and beat him, inflicting severe injuries.Owens’ claim stoked safety concerns and was reported to have exposed minority students’ distrust of university leaders.
The investigation, which included surveillance video evidence, showed that Owens was not a victim but was, himself, an aggressor in what amounted to a series of drunken brawls sparked by a disagreement between students from different fraternities.
***MARCUS AND FAMILY APOLOGIZE…SORT OF
In a letter of apology from Owens and his family, the student said that “his account was ‘inconsistent’ partly due to alcohol ‘being involved’ “. (The 2 week investigation by the Iowa City Police found that Owens was “heavily intoxicated” and was an “instigator ” during several altercations that began inside the Eden Lounge.)
Although the Owens family’s letter noted that Marcus’s account of the incident was “inconsistent” with the findings of the investigation, they attributed it “partly due to alcohol being involved”.
They did offer their”deepest apologies” to Marcus’s friends, the Iowa City community, the University of Iowa, and the Iowa City Police Dept. for the “misunderstandings and anxiety stemming from Marcus’s involvement in a violent incident…”.
In their letter of “deep apology”, however, the family said, “just as we have learned many life changing lessons, we hope, too, that the community will continue to examine the many issues raised by this unfortunate incident”. (Note: The family, according to newspaper accounts, didn’t spell out exactly what the “many issues” were that the “unfortunate incident” raised.)
NO CHARGES AGAINST “VICTIM” WILL BE FILED
Police, it’s reported, “praised Owens and his family for issuing the apology”!?!!? (punctuation ours). They also said that Owens would not face charges for filing a false report, fighting, or underage drinking; nor would they seek restitution to recover the costs of their investigation.
At the news conference, Capt. Troy Kelsay, however, referred to Owens as a liar, noting that “it became clear (in the course of the investigation)…that the community, not Marcus, was the victim in this event.” The department chose not to press charges, it said, because they wanted to avoid lengthy court proceedings in the case that shook the normally quiet college town.
Owens’ attorney said that his client intends to remain enrolled at the university and “aspires to have a successful academic career”.
It was reported that it was “unclear” whether Owens will face university sanctions, but president Herrald said the school would provide “support and assistance” to all involved. They will investigate whether students violated the code of conduct but the outcome will not be disclosed.
INCIDENT RECALLS SIMILAR EVENT AT MIZZOU, WITH FAR DIFFERENT RESPONSES AND OUTCOMES…AND MEDIA REACTION
Unlike the Iowa incident, it was not a violent confrontation, but rather an incident of a swastika smeared “in excrement” in a dormitory bathroom.
Last year at the Columbia (MO) campus of the University of Missouri, that single incident touched off a firestorm of reaction by students, athletic teams, community activists, and statewide media outlets, resulting in the forced resignations of two top university leaders, the firing of an instructor at the Journalism school, and self-imposed sanctions against the university.
The term “teaching moment” is often employed in relation to such an incident.
The embarrassing role that Missouri’s major newspapers, the once highly regarded University of Missouri School of Journalism, a whole bunch of liberal “journalists”, and the University itself, played in this incident is indeed, a “teaching moment”.
One Kansas City Star columnist, and an instructor in the Mizzou School of Journalism, was so moved by the incident that he penned a column seeming to celebrate a “great epiphany” he experienced because of the incident .
The columnist/journalism instructor, his name, Steve Kraske, shared with his readers his confession to his class that he was a “white privileged, 50’s something…”, admitting that the protests against the “racism” that black students had endured at the university had caused in him a “racial epiphany” (according to the headline attached to his column). No longer, he revealed, was his “head in the sand”. He admitted to his young students that he had been aware of all the racist hurts that blacks growing up in Kansas City endure, but to which he had been insensitive and unmoved.
He told them that the incidents in Ferguson and Baltimore and New York, as well as the plaintive appeals for “respect” and “inclusion” by a leading figure in the school’s protest had awakened him and apparently the scales fell from his eyes.
Later, we’ll visit what we suggest may be the “value” of this columnist’s self-flagellation.
A “HATE CRIME”! NO WAIT, IT’S VANDALISM! NO, WAIT. IT’S ‘TAMPERING’! OR IS IT JUST LYING AND PANDERING?
But to review the chain of extraordinary events, begun by the appearance of a “swastika”, scrawled in “excrement” on the wall of a unisex bathroom in a dormitory inhabited by a diverse body of students:
At first, university officials classified it as a “hate crime”, even though it was originally called in as “vandalism”, and was later reclassified by campus police as “tampering” (because no permanent damage was done).
According to a report in The Federalist, university officials responded immediately. The school’s “Title IX” office was notified, as were representatives of the school’s minority communities. According to The Federalist, “just hours after” learning of the incident, the school’s “residential life” director notified the Jewish students’ organization (our bold face) to alert them to the appearance of the anti-Semitic symbol.
Somehow, though, that interpretation of the symbol of the Nazis’ “extermination” of 6 million Jews was turned into a statement of oppression of the black students by the University of Missouri.
“Leaders” of the black students moved quickly to take advantage of the situation to further their “cause”. And they did not need reality or truth to further their agenda. The news media was only too happy to join them, even at the expense of completely destroying their own credibility and professional reputations.
STUDENT GOV’T HEAD, HEAD: ALERT! KKK ON CAMPUS! OOPS!
The Student Government president, and 2015 Homecoming King, Payton Head, jumped right into the fray with tales of all the racist oppression he has withstood. Twice during his tenure at Mizzou, Head has endured, according to his account, white guys in the back of pickup trucks hurling racial slurs at him. One such occurrence was in his freshman year, the latest was in Sept, 2015.
The more skeptical among us, however, wonder if Mr. Head’s two unsubstantiated accounts are any more accurate than his FaceBook warning post in which he ‘disclosed’ that the Ku Klux Klan was active on the Mizzou campus.
Unfortunately for Mr. Head, that actually was found to be untrue. President Head eventually apologized for his, er, exaggeration (some call it a lie when white people say it).
Mr. Head, however, definitely has a way with words and bringing to our consciousness the most heartbreaking realities: “You’ve never been spit on walking down 9th street or mis-gendered at Pizza Tree because they called out your birth name”, he writes, signing his post, “Your Nigger/Faggot Missouri Students Association President,
Payton Head.”
We don’t know if Mr. Head was actually HIMself (oops!) was “misgendered”, but it suggests he must know someone who has.
WHAT A STRANGE OCCURRENCE…BUT NOT WORTH FOLLOWING UP ON ?
While there was an incident in which, at the peak of the protests, an online threat against black students and faculty was made by a white Mizzou student, there has been no substantiation that those racial slurs Mr. Head reported were made by students, if they did actually occur.
Perhaps the most bizarre of the entire episode is this:
According to the dorm hall coordinator at the very same dorm in which the “poop swastika” happened, there were several other racially charged incidents.
The most significant of those seems to be an occasion reported only one week before the infamous “Swastika” caper.
An “intoxicated individual” said “bitch ass nigga” to a WHITE resident during THAT RESIDENT’S heated interaction with “multiple” black residents on the same floor as THE INCIDENT. Unclear from the report whether it was directed toward the white student, although he did report that he was offended.
The Title IX investigator suggested in an email that the same student who hurled that offensive epithet may have been responsible for drawing the “poop swastika”. She even added that the ‘accused student’ had also been heard making “anti-semitic remarks to the members of a Jewish family”.
But, of course, neither the race or ethnic background of the suspect are mentioned. When a reporter from the Daily Mail inquired as to the identification of the suspect and/or race, the university refused to provide that information. A spokesperson said that was because the case was “still under investigation”.
“GET SOME MUSCLE OVER HERE”…SHE SHOUTED…
…there’s a journalist trying to take pictures…!!!!!!
Whatever else might be said about this episode, this scene will forever be a sad representation of the quality of journalism education at the University of Missouri…and today’s “journalism” wherever it is taught and “practiced.”
Melissa Click…tomorrow’s Katie Couric?
As demonstrations swept the campus, fueled by the abject fear gripping Mizzou students that there may be convoys of pickup trucks out there, loaded with good ol’ boys preparing to shout racial epithets at them, journalism instructor Melissa Click was there, shielding the protesters from the prying cameras of a student photo journalist attempting to cover the event.
Perhaps the video of Ms. Click will inspire young people who wish to pursue a career in the fourth estate to flock to Mizzou…or maybe not! The fallout from this “historic moment” will be summarized later.
Getting back to our newly enlightened columnist/journalism instructor: Obviously warmed by his “confession” to his journalism class, his realization that he once was blind but now can see (through the eyes of the ‘oppressed’ youngsters before him) and his hopeful and inspirational account of his ‘enlightenment experience’, we wonder how long he will bask in the admiring glow we suspect he thinks he’s earned.
Perhaps some time in the future, sooner rather than later, this “white privileged 50’s something” journalist will reflect upon what really happened in that classroom as he poured out his reservoir of empathy.
It’s our belief that he is likely still unaware of how he unwittingly diminished himself…his professional stature, his life’s accomplishments… all by his admission, unearned, because of his “privilege”. And from that classroom appearance onward, he “instructs” to a class he has divided between students there enjoying their ‘white privilege’ and those “oppressed” and with a future that will likely never fully acknowledge their efforts and accomplishments.
As for Ms. Click. She has been fired but, of course has appealed, and as expected, all those fine academic colleagues of hers are outraged and in protest regarding her well-deserved dismissal (in our opinion).
U of M? Well, having covered themselves with glory over this incident, they’ve won acclimation from the usual, can we say, “suspects”, the media, leftists everywhere, and many “academics” who instruct your boys and girls wherever you send them for an “education.
What Mizzou has also derived from their courageous stand and that of their football team who threatened to not carry out their scholarship obligations,, is a drop in alumni donations of some $2 million, a significant drop in enrollment, necessitating the closing of two dormitories, and a lasting reputation for “all the journalism that fits our agenda”.
But remember “Ferguson”, “Baltimore”, and “New York”! Remember also, the actual facts surrounding each of those…if you are even aware of them. DLH
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NOTE: In the Western world the swastika is synonymous with fascism, but it goes back thousands of years and has been used as a symbol of good fortune in almost every culture in the world. As more evidence emerges of its long pre-Nazi history in Europe, can this ancient sign ever shake off its evil associations? DLH
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Related reports:
Chicago Tribune (regional) : Cops: Iowa student from Naperville lied about being victim of hate crime
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