A special needs teen is attacked.
Obama and Palin react:
One has feelings, one not
to the evil it brought.
Dear God, we must pray, we must act!
There were two, very different reactions to the brutal Facebook video showing four African-Americans torturing a white teen with special needs in Chicago.
Obama denied that racial tensions have increased in the Windy City, his home town. He said that “smart phones and the Internet has just made such incidents more visible.”
“What we have seen as surfacing, I think, are a lot of the problems that have been there a long time,”
President Obama Jan 5, 2017
Now contrast this with the article by Sarah Palin , January 6, 2017 in Breitbart:
“The child, yet unborn, spoke with the Father, ‘Lord, how will I survive in the world? I will not be like the other children. My walk may be slower, my speech hard to understand. I may look different. What is to become of me?’
“The Lord replied to the child, ‘My precious one, have no fear. I will give you protectors. They will love you because you are special, not in spite of it. Though your path through life will be difficult, your reward will be greater. You have been blessed with a special ability to love, and those whose lives you touch will be blessed because you are special.’”
– From an embroidered plaque sent anonymously to me when my son Trig was born
Trying to fathom what is shown in the Chicago torture video is just too much. I watched a mere few seconds of it and will watch no more. I cannot watch more. Perhaps my family and I see the torture of an innocent young man with special needs through different eyes and with a greater, undeniable sense of responsibility to help; but this story playing out today is proving unbearable.
It’s time for a screaming wake-up call, America.
My extended family discussed the tragedy last night. We concluded we do not care about arguing the legalities involved in categorizing this as a “hate crime” or not a “hate crime.” Obviously it is a hateful, hate-filled crime centering on politics and race. Proof is on tape. Debating the merits of categorizing the disgusting racist and political taunts vomited up by thugs during their brutal beating of a helpless young man is, to us, a media distraction. I leave it to others to focus on that.
My sister Heather has worked professionally in the public school system with older special needs students for decades. She and her husband have also been raising a beautiful son with autism and disabilities. My sister seems to have seen it all. Because of Heather’s years of experience in this tough arena, she could understandably have grown necessarily less emotionally reactive than others when seeing such a news report. But Heather and the family reacted with more explosive shock and disgust, mixed with such profound sadness, than perhaps expected.
She knows her precious students — and son and nephew — could never defend themselves against attacks from such evil people. That’s such common sense, though, that even the depraved creatures haughtily recording their recent brutality knew their victim was as defenseless.
Heather and family remind the public that this targeted beating by young adults is equivalent to torturing a small child. (And media: quit hiding the alleged perps, especially the reported 24-year-old, behind your deceptively descriptive term “teens”!) We’re curious to hear where our public leaders and influential pop icons are on this.
But President Obama… shush. Just shush with your reaction to this racist attack with claims that race relations have improved under your reign. That is BS. And why, even in this, do you have to make it all about you, all the time? Your suggestion yesterday that there’s some silver lining in this shows how completely out of touch you are. Attacks on the helpless and vulnerable — no matter skin color — are society’s cancer. You still don’t get it. A better reaction is to acknowledge, for one, that your pride and joy hometown of Chicago is a mess.
Further, acknowledge that you’ve helped perpetuate a culture that disrespects innocent life by pretending that babies aren’t really babies, so their lives don’t matter; by mocking special needs children on national television (as the President!); by promoting vile gangsta “artists” and their cultural depravity; and by wasting time and public resources instead of using them to better society by, for instance, creating jobs and expecting able-bodied persons to work for self-respect and responsibility instead of incentivizing a lawless, selfish, hard-hearted entitlement culture. You have no credibility when twisting this into somehow being about your “accomplishments.” You fail by making this about you.
And we all fail as protectors of the innocent when we ignore solutions to create a culture of life.
We fail when we accept the killing of defenseless babies.
We fail when we don’t properly budget public resources to afford obvious funding priorities to assist the disabled and elderly.
We fail when we allow the celebration of gangsta’ thuggery and the twisted media that always demonizes anyone with conservative values.
We fail when we retreat and capitulate to the elitist PC thought police who command that we sit down and shut up about their double standards.
We fail when we don’t hold statisticians and pundits accountable when they fake numbers and scenarios to make all cops — and all non-liberals — look like bullies and racists.
We fail when we don’t support law enforcement, and further burden them by wasting their limited time expecting them to respond and resolve every dispute that mature adults used to be able to handle themselves.
We further fail when we choose politicians in self-preservation mode who ignore basic social issues in favor of just the “safer” fiscal issues. Look, we can’t make America great again by focusing only on bureaucratic ideas to hopefully put more money in people’s pockets. Really, it’s more soul in the American life that will make us great again.
Is it politically incorrect to call on leaders — including black leaders — to proclaim this the wake-up call society needs? If so, so be it. I call on them.
Is it politically incorrect to challenge pop culture “heroes” to join in? If so, so be it. I challenge Colin Kaepernick to take a knee over this one, for this cause is based in reality.
May we all do our part to be protectors of the innocent — as God expects. Then our nation will be blessed, for our lives will be touched by special people with a special ability to love. We’ve missed that for too long.
One question: Which one cares?
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 