The Antwon Rose freedom fighter song? (op-ed)

The archives of this column contain several articles about fatal encounters between white police officers and unarmed black males.  I’ve always analyzed the specifics of each case and followed the details where ever they led. 

Activist-types, on the other hand, focused only on race. 

White symbolized the power structure, black represented the oppressed, and each fatal encounter, regardless of the specifics, was considered state-sponsored-violence against the marginalized.   

Fatal police encounters in Ferguson and Baltimore led to riots, national scrutiny of law enforcement, followed by reduced policing in predominately black areas, a phenomenon labeled “The Ferguson effect”.

Murder rates spiked as a result, and critics asked the activists: Why they didn’t demonstrate against black-on-black crime? 

The activists condemned the critics, insisted black-on-black crime was a racist myth invented to make black communities appear more pathological than white ones, and when asked about the “Ferguson Effect” the activists said: The police need to do their damn jobs.

Now, the 2018 fatal police shooting of Antwon Rose, an unarmed black teenager, in East Pittsburgh had to be a nightmare for activist-types. 

Rose was in a vehicle that conducted a drive-by shooting, a black man was wounded, a white police officer pulled over the vehicle in response to the drive-by. The police officer attempted to arrest the driver, Rose ran from the vehicle to avoid arrest, and the officer fired his weapon.  Rose was shot in the back, afterwards guns were found in the vehicle. This was black-on-black crime and a fatal police shooting all in one incident, actually, within fifteen minutes of each other.

Now, the activist-types accused their critics of diverting public attention from state-sponsored-violence, but the emphasis of the activist on state-sponsored-violence also diverted the public from the specifics of each police encounter.

The specifics in the Rose matter was the vehicle wasn’t pulled over for speeding - it was a felony traffic stop, and Pennsylvania law allows police officers to use deadly force to prevent someone from escaping arrest if that person has committed a forcible felony or was in possession of a deadly weapon. 

The jury acquitted the police officer.

After the verdict was announced, it was reported, “there were tears and gasps in the courtroom and several people broke out into song: Antwon Rose was a freedom fighter, and he taught us how to fight.” 

I didn’t understand the point of singing such nonsense.  I just hoped it wouldn’t be repeated. 

Recently, over 400 activists showed up in Harrisburg to advocate for a change in Pennsylvania’s use-of -force laws.  They want the language in the law that states deadly force may be used to prevent suspects from escaping after a felony to be eliminated and replaced with wording that requires the police to use other tactics before shooting.

A noble pursuit.

But once again it was reported the activist-types sang, “Antwon Rose was a freedom fighter, he taught us how to fight.”

This time I got the point.

The activist-types believe black-on-black crime is a myth, so by mythologizing Antwon Rose as a freedom fighter against the white power structure the drive-by shooting no longer factors into the equation.

Diversion is a tactic, but delusion is a disorder.

First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 5/8/19