The lynch is black, the MySpace white, together we learn to read and write....

[captainsblog]

There are many times, here and in my subconscious, that I retrieve fond recollections of the first (still) third of my life, all spent on a remote Island off the coast of the mainland USA.

After reading Calvin Trillin's expansion on this story, though? This is not one of those times.

Not mentioned in that NPR summary is the precipitating factor for the violent conflict that led to the manslaughter charges.

The son of the defendant, an admittedly "preppy" African-American resident of an otherwise lily-white Long Island suburb, was chased from a mostly-white party because of allegations that he had threatened a white girl with rape on his MySpace page.

The MySpace page turned out to be fake. Just like the one in Missouri that led to a young girl hanging herself in her own closet with the tacit encouragement of a neighbor's mother.

Hurling n-word epithets all the way to the defendant's home, a posse of wound-up white boys threatened the alleged perpetrator and his family. One of them died of gunshot wounds in the ensuing melee.

If anyone is responsible for that death, it's the reprehensible asshole who posted the fake MySpace page in the first place.

There are days I hate my race. This is one of those days.

Comments

[luckycee.livejournal.com]

Good grief, that's a horrible story.

[headbanger118.livejournal.com]

I date hate my race, as stupidity, rudeness, and plain out evil are equal opportunity qualities. I do think that the poster of any false MySpace page that results in any criminal act should be prosecuted. This is, in my opinion, is the equivalent of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater.