The Elephant in the Living Room

I've read a couple of articles recently, this one, and this, which seem to be trying to address the elephant in the living room, which is the fact that Bobby Cutts is African American, and Jessie Davis was not.

The first tells the story of a group placing fliers of an inflammatory nature around Canton. The second addresses the "quota" system of hiring in the police department.

The group placing the fliers says it wanted to "warn" girls about the dangers of inter-racial relationships. Here's my take on relationships: we all belong to the same race--the human one. It's difficult enough to find someone to love without eliminating thousands of possible candidates because they look different. I spend hours writing blog posts to try to warn girls of the dangers of relationships. There are a lot of men out there who will selfishly and callously take advantage of the naivete of insecure girls. Race has nothing to do with it. There are many successful marriages, friendships and other relationships between different-coloured citizens. The haters will hate, and promote their hate, at any available opportunity. Never mind the fact that there are probably very few of us in this country who can trace their heritage back to one specific ethnic group. The human race has spent thousands of years procreating to reach our current numbers, and many, through the years, have gone outside their own cultural group.

I think the members of Bobby's family who have allegedly made comments that they should have been seated in the front of the courtroom for the arraignment need to look outside of racism to find the reason for their seat assignment. Given the volatile nature of some of those family members, I would not have seated them anywhere near the victim's family, had I been arranging things. Their seating had much more to do with the fact that they are family members of the accused, and Jessie's family is related to the victim. No matter how much Bobby's family howls about suffering, theirs is minor, compared to the suffering of Jessie's mother. In case these people have forgotten, Pat's daughter is dead.

Regarding the quota system used to hire police officers, the article states that 18% of the police force is supposed to be African American to reflect the fact that 18% of the population of Canton is African American. How then, do they justify the fact that only 5% of the force has to be women? Surely nigh on 50% of the population of Canton is female? Quota systems of hiring are inherently flawed, when they rely on anything besides quality to select the best applicants. No system is infallible, and, like busing, quotas were perceived as being fair when they were introduced. Anything that fights the Good Old Boy network has to be a good thing. That being said, I am of the opinion that Jessie would have died whether or not Bobby was a cop. He may have been a good cop. I've not delved into his employment history; it's all I can do to keep up with his murder history.

My conclusion here is that crying "race" in this case is the biggest red herring I've seen so far.