Why all this obsession with addressing the radicalization of young men of color? What about the radicalization of young White males who become White supremacists? Why isn’t the FBI and U.S. Attorney Andy Luger going after these guys?
How can they put Black Somali Americans in prison for trying to join a terrorist group, but White supremacist are not guilty of anything when they are actually in a terrorist group? If Blacks trying to join a terrorist group are charged with “attempted murder” and facing life in prison, why not the same approach for White supremacists who join terrorist groups? Why no “attempted murder” charges put on them for trying to join a terrorist group?
From the Star Tribune (Nov. 25, 2015): “A 32-year-old man from Minneapolis, who was later released from custody after police determined he wasn’t at the shooting scene.” This is “good old boy” justice from 150 years ago, that a White supremacist who is connected to a terrorist act gets to go home because he was not at the shooting scene, but seven Black men are facing decades in prison for trying to join a terrorist organization.
These seven Black men were never at any terrorist shooting scene. Why don’t they get released from custody like the White terrorist group member did?
If Arab-looking men started shooting people in Minneapolis, the city would have gone into lock down, it would have been viewed like the Paris attack. Yet when Whites start shooting Blacks nothing is done — no lockdown, no defining it as a terrorist attack. It’s not terrorism, it is “racially motivated.” If Somali American men start shooting people in Minneapolis, do you really think that all they would be charged with is “second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon”?
Andy Luger and County Attorney Mike Freeman need to answer a few questions. How can the White males that actually put bullets inside of five men, be facing less time than the Somali American who did nothing more than try to join a terrorist group? How can you claim to have enough evidence to charge Black men with attempted murder when they shot no one, but then claim you do not have enough to charge Whites with attempted murder when they actually shot people? This is insane.
The system allows charging Blacks for crimes you think they might do, and, at the same time, not charging Whites for crimes they actually did do. The protesting needs to escalate.
Frank Erickson lives in Minneapolis.
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