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From: JP
Date: 2/2/01
Time: 12:44:54 AM
Remote Name: 64.12.105.21
I don't know about that. I will not go so far as the extreme, stating that all us whites are racist, and that all minorities are not, but it seems as if, given prior responses, that you might be overinterpreting the workers' reactions, depending on the mood they may be in at a particular moment and depending upon the facial expression of the one talking to them. I know there are exceptions (there was one really lousy worker I remember at T/W when I was a freshman. She was lazy, always annoyed and well, I just hope she was fired.)
But anyway, I wonder about the question at hand. Your emphasis, perhaps understandably, is based on the premise that we are not guilty of a crime or of a sin, and that we are not guilty of well, of being bystanders.
but just days ago, I saw photos of Diallo's mother, I presume, from a press conference that took place not long after the Justice Department decided not to investigate any further, any civil rights violations. I kept thinking about the predicament she was in, how, after losing her son, she had to endure a reality almost as bad. She had no one to blame. She couldn't blame the cops. They were found not guilty. She can't really blame the government now, since no rights were violated-at least that's the official result. Her son died and there is no retribution and there is no sense that anything wrong happened, officially, that is. She will never have justice. Her son, officially, died in vain. He has now come to symbolize an "accident." The actions of the police officers? "black panic" and the actions of Diallo? those actions that cause police to commit an "accident."
Does it really matter who's fault it is? Does it really matter if we caused racism or if we merely inherited it? I wonder. would it make any difference if the cops were found guilty? I don't know. Would it matter if there were some civil rights abuses and they were found? Another I don't know. I tend to think that it won't matter because the fault is not what is relevant. I keep on thinking that 2 years and 41 shots later, someone died because he visible from the outside, and that somehow, because he reached into his pocket for his wallet, he was perceived to hold a gun. That someone died because there was a mindset that a black outside (or near it) had to be doing something illegitimate.