I’m sorry but maybe I’m just feeling a bit cynical after the last week of news coverage of our great White American youth. To be fair: only about 10% of the students at Penn State rioted and acted like morons over the firing of Pedophile ring co-conspirator (Yeah I said it, and yes it will turn out to be true) Joe Paterno.
And yes, there weren’t only White students rioting, even in state college there are some brown and tan people milling around. However, the majority of the kids were White – and it has struck me and many friends and colleagues how it has been a week and there have been no arrests of rioting students.
Police have just released photos of a few rioters that are potential suspects. Imagine if students at Grambling rioted, turned over cars and television vans if someone had decided to fire legendary coach Eddie Robinson (Who managed to win just as many games as Paterno without covering for a chicken hawk)? The press would be screaming about how these kids were out of control and the moral decay of Black youth etc etc. So, given that a group of young white college students have more or less received a pass for rioting I shouldn’t be surprised that they can also receive a pass for talking assassinations.
Just a few hours after police caught a crazy man shooting into the White House earlier last week Lauren E. Pierce, president of the College Republicans at the University of Texas Tweeted:
Y’all as tempting as it may be, don’t shoot Obama. We need him to go down in history as the WORST president we’ve EVER had! #2012.”
This has received a smattering of press coverage but again, membership seems to have its privileges.
In the heyday of wire-tapping, library check-out record examining, Patriot Act abusing George W. Bush even a smartass comment like this would’ve gotten Ms. Pierce a visit from some Men in Black. Who would kindly remind her that during the Bush years, even joking about an assault on the president online , or in a personal rant to somebody else is grounds for a one way trip to Gitmo. Of course nothing like that is going to happen to Lauren, which is a shame because the reactions of the UT president and her VP are so obnoxious and glib that you almost wish Mayor Rahm Emanuel would show up at their dorm just to scare the living daylights out of them. Of course that won’t happen, but do you really have to wonder what would happen if her name was L’auren E. Pinkney and she was head of the UT black student alliance under the last president?
This article originally appeared online at Politic365.com.