Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 27, 1993 TAG: 9403180022
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cal Thomas
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Of even greater concern should be the double standard applied in these two trials.
In the Rodney King trial, those who sought to make the videotaped beating of King into a metaphor for the violent oppression of black America said that King's criminal record and even his behavior the night of his arrest were irrelevant. Only the beating mattered, not what may have led to it. Police officers Lawrence Powell and Stacey Koon were guilty and juries had better reach the same conclusion or else.
The ``or else,'' of course, was the torching of South-Central Los Angeles, looting, killing and a federal civil rights trial that gave the mob what it wanted.
But with white victims and black assailants there was a change in judicial polarity. Now, the videotape of truck driver Reginald Denny's assault is said to be irrelevant. We are supposed to ignore what we see on this tape and listen to the spokesman for the Damian Williams family, the African-garbed Don Jackson, who called the trial ``political.''
It is difficult to see how politics played a role in the images we saw of Denny being beaten and assaulted within an inch of his life and the party-like atmosphere as Denny's assailants danced around their victim like hunters who had just felled a prize stag.
The real victim in both the King and Denny trials is black America and the stereotypes that have been perpetuated. Rather than improving race relations, trials like these exacerbate them.
Much of black America has been conditioned to see itself largely as a culture of victims. Self-promoting ``leaders'' use the poor as background props for their performances before the cameras. As many poor blacks have been seduced by their leaders - unelected and elected - into believing they are so oppressed that they will never achieve financial independence and cultural acceptance, many whites take a ``what's the use'' attitude and begin to see the stereotypes as the norm.
This plays into the hands of demagogues and opportunists who want to use the politics of race for their own purposes. As stereotypes are strengthened, we continue moving toward an emphasis on group rights, in which certain racial and gender issues are seen not as unique acts and singular grievances to be righted according to an accepted code of justice, but part of a larger drama that serves the ends of the manipulators.
Television has become the means by which groups shout at each other and make new demands on government. The most powerful means of global communication is the weakest means of real communication between individuals.
One comment by Eddie Edmonds, a firefighter who spent 30 consecutive hours in the streets of Los Angeles battling fires after the April 1993 trial of the police officers who arrested Rodney King, reflects the attitude of at least some whites on the skewing of the justice system because of threats of violence. Said Edmonds of the defendants in the Reginald Denny case, ``Had they used a billy club and not a brick on Denny, it would have come out differently. Let's see if the Feds put them up for a second trial.''
Above all the hype and posturing is the remarkable figure of Denny himself. Denny hugged Williams' mother in court, and he has displayed no anger or a vengeful spirit toward his attackers. Of all the images, the one of Denny turning the other cheek and refusing to be consumed by hate and revenge is the most outstanding and the one that offers the best hope for real healing.
But the message of these trials to the Los Angeles community and the country is mixed. One says that black ``victims'' of white police officers are subject to a different standard of justice. The other says that white victims of black assailants are also subject to a different standard of justice. Neither message is a good one. Neither comes close to real justice.
Los Angeles Times Syndicate
by CNB