ahem.

by Freddie on September 15, 2009

A student on a Belleville West High School bus was beaten for his choice of seat, not because he was white, according to a witness and police.

Freddie deBoer used to blog at lhote.blogspot.com, and may again someday. Now he blogs here.

{ 5 comments }

1 E.D. Kain September 15, 2009 at 8:37 pm

Oh Freddie you’re just not thinking through this enough. He obviously chose a “black” seat. He should have sat in the whites’ section and when he sat in the black section they beat him up. So yeah, it was about the seat – but only because the seat was racist.

Or something.

2 John Cain September 15, 2009 at 11:46 pm

re this, via Conor Friedersdorf, Rush Limbaugh has decided to go full-on race warrior for this incident.

3 Jaybird September 16, 2009 at 6:59 am

I’m glad we have established that there is no reason to believe that the beating was a hate crime.

4 Freddie September 16, 2009 at 7:04 am

Me too.

5 Jaybird September 16, 2009 at 7:56 am

It’s a strange dynamic, though, isn’t it?

We see a kid quietly sit down on a bus… then get punched in the face several times in a row.

The discussion is over whether the assailant was merely bad or evil.

But, much like in hate crime discussions, the “merely bad” can sometimes seem to be overlooked leaving the beating on the bus to be “only” a case of a “bully” punching someone in the face… as opposed to the truly awful crime of a “racist” punching a “victim” in the face.

Comments on this entry are closed.