Tuskegee Airmen Robbed

“That area also is near where a 93-year-old veteran who was part of the Tuskegee Airmen — black World War II pilots — was the victim of crimes twice within a few minutes Sunday, being robbed and then having his car stolen.”

So, one of the few remaining members of the most prolific squadron in WWII gets robbed twice… and it’s only mentioned in passing, like some throw-away sidenote? No. Just stop. Stop kicking the hornet’s nest for just one second and think about how absolutely contradictory this is becoming.

The very second a white-on-black shooting happens, you will jump on it like some half-starved, salivating wolf. You know it will generate clicks, viewership, ratings, ad revenue, and honestly it’s beginning to feel like you’re completely indifferent to what consequences any premature scoop or the absence of the minutest of detail could incur if you’re jumping the gun a little too fast. You’re making us ill-informed– just like the protesters who showed up to this one, and all because it fits a narrative and by god there still has to be some meat on these bones to pick.

… But the robbery of a man I would gladly defend to my dying breath gets what… two sentences, like some sidelong “oh by the way, yeah that happened” that surely didn’t deserve national attention or the unmitigated might of journalistic endeavor as this young man’s death certainly will? You will fill an article rehashing every racially charged thing that has happened in the past year in St. Louis, but you won’t spend longer than a couple of taps of the keyboard to shine a spotlight on an old man– of the same race?

Were there protests for him? Were there news vans parked outside his home to make sure that we will have that image emblazoned in our minds for weeks to come?

This is why fewer and fewer are taking you (the media and Black Lives Matter) and your role in the national narrative on race seriously. You will report on this, seemingly on a daily basis, but you won’t cram homicide rates in Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans, or Detroit down our collective throats? You will report on anything that could be construed as race-related, but an article that mentions how black-on-black crime rates have been in epidemic proportions for years might see the light of day once in a blue moon?

If your creed is to shine a light on the problems that face blacks in this country, then shine it on ALL of their problems. Even the ones that are self-inflicted. Since it honestly seems like you’re not afraid of inciting a few more riots, what the harm in actually showing both sides of the same coin?

A Tuskegee Airman, an actual bonafide hero, will not receive the BlackLivesMatter chant, nor its political clout, nor its anger. And that tells me everything I need to know about the movement and the way you in the media are playing them.