In the small hours of March 3, 1991, Los Angeles police stopped a car containing three men; the two passengers were arrested without hassle, but the driver, Rodney King was not, and acted in a bizarre manner. What happened next was captured on an amateur video, and it shocked the world. While it is true that King had been breaking the speed limit, that he was over the legal alcohol limit, that he was a big man, that he was in violation of his parole, and that he did resist arrest after a fashion, it is difficult to fathom how any unbiased person much less a jury could have concluded that the gratuitous violence meted out to an unarmed and essentially defenceless man by a group of uniformed thugs could have been interpreted as a reasonable and proportionate response.
King was struck no less than fifty-six baton blows in addition to sundry kicks, as well as being tasered. He suffered multiple fractures among his other injuries. There can be no doubt either that if this sustained and brutal assault had not been filmed, King’s injuries would have been rationalised or explained away. As it was, the public outcry forced the State to bring criminal charges against the four officers concerned. If the jury’s failure to convict was both inexplicable and shameful, what happened next was even more so.
The acquittal of officers Briseno, Koon, Powell, and Wind resulted in the Los Angeles riots of 1992. The Army, National Guard and Marines had to be called in to restore order, by which time over fifty people were dead, over three thousand businesses had been sacked, and over a billion dollars damage caused.
The rioting was largely black on white, although Korean shopkeepers in particular were targeted. What part had they played in the original outrage? What part had the overwhelming majority of ordinary white people, many of whom were surely as horrified as the rest of the nation, or the rest of the world?
Time and again the cry of “racism” went up, but what had this to do with race, really? It was not about whites mistreating blacks, it was not even about police brutality, it was about the abuse of lawful authority by one specific group of uniformed thugs.
We have seen this sort of thing countless times both before and since, but when it is white on white or black on black, either it goes unnoticed, or is not reported in the same outraged terms, and certainly does not lead to public disorder on an unprecedented scale. In January 1976, a white Englishman was given a methodical beating in the cells of a Gateshead police station. He died three weeks later. The murder of Liddle Towers resulted in the usual cover up, but in this case it was so outrageous that the Attorney-General himself stepped in, for all the good this did. Two songs were written and recorded specifically about this outrage: the subtle Blue Murder and the direct indictment The Murder Of Liddle Towers. Yet who today has even heard of Liddle Towers?
The country with the worst record of police brutality is arguably Jamaica, certainly in the Western hemisphere. Here, race is most definitely not an issue, anymore than it is, ever has been, in Britain. At the G20 demonstration in Central London last year we witnessed a black police officer viciously assault a white woman half his size, slap her in the face with a gauntletted hand, then whack her twice, gratuitously, on the back of her leg as she was walking away. Incredibly, but perhaps all too predictably, he was acquitted by a corrupt district judge.
At the same demonstration an innocent man was struck even more gratuitously by a police officer, and died as a result. Ian Tomlinson was a newspaper vendor who was on his way home from work; he had taken no part in the protests. As in the case of Nicola Fischer, the assault was caught on video, and just as predictably, the self-styled Independent Police Complaints Commission dragged out the proceedings too long for assault charges to be brought. And there is little or no chance of any more serious charges – which are not time sensitive – being brought against the officer or officers responsible for the death of yet another innocent man.
As stated, police brutality is not and never has been a race issue, but however disgraceful the response to the assault on Rodney King, there were and remain real grievances not only by blacks but by other segments of society against both the police and the system throughout America.
If the above sounds like a long-winded introduction to the subject of the frequent charges of anti-Semitism levelled by Jewish individuals and organisations against especially white Gentiles, Christians, and more latterly Arabs in recent history and history in general, then it is a necessary one. For just as inarticulate blacks target white people in general and even totally innocent Korean shopkeepers, so do inarticulate, confused, and at times powerless people target Jews, all Jews or Jews in general, for the crimes of a few.
Most of the crimes perpetrated by Jews against Gentiles in the modern world are traceable to Zionism, most but not all. Although Zionism is a political/racial ideology, it also attracts supporters from the Jewish religion – those who are unaware of the true nature of Judaism – and from many Christian fundamentalists for whom God’s Chosen People can do no wrong, period. Because Zionism is both an ideology and a relatively broad church, there is no such thing as a typical Zionist, ie Zionists are not recognisable either as Zionists or as Jews by their dress. Jews on the other hand, especially devout Jews, most definitely are recognisable by their dress, and while it is true both that not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews, it is hardly surprising that at times the aforementioned unsophisticated minds confuse the two, and that innocent Jews are sometimes singled out for persecution or assault or even worse.
The same can be said of Moslems and terrorists, especially since 9/11 and the increasing desperation of both those fighting the War on Terror and those fighting against it.
It is not enough for those on the receiving end of unwarranted persecution, or more often for the self-appointed spokesmen of the victims simply to wail and whine about anti-Semitism or some other form of bigotry, intolerance, or hate, and demand more repressive policing and special privileges for their own minority. Especially when at times their public pronouncements increase the hostility towards the innocent victims of social conflict. While only a tiny minority of deranged Moslems have ever done anything but utterly condemn the atrocities of September 11, it is a sad fact that the first reaction of Organised Jewry throughout the world during both the obscenity of Operation Cast Lead and the Gaza Aid Flotilla murders was to rush to the side of the perpetrators and express unconditional support for the atrocities, even to the extent of branding the victims terrorist, including those who were murdered in cold blood by the IDF.
Bigotry, racial, religious or otherwise, is a two-way street, and by their own actions and pronouncements, Jewish leaders are every bit as culpable for anti-Semitism as the unsophisticated “haters” who deface synagogues, scrawl swastikas on Jewish graves, or worse. They are the modern equivalent of the jury who acquitted the assailants of Rodney King against the weight of the evidence, against reason and common decency, a jury that must be considered at least in part morally responsible for the LA riots, and for the social upheaval, including the loss of life, that followed.
About two minutes in: They are forcing us to kill their children!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxkNuHvJmaM&feature=related
[The above was published originally July 21, 2010 by Mathaba.]
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