Round-up

1. A South African politician has been in hot water recently for rushing to a meeting using his cavalcade's flashing blue lights to speed through traffic, even though the lights should only be used for an emergency. This incident was filmed by another motorist. Now the politician, caught red-handed and red-faced, is accusing the driver of racism.

This is one of the most blatant examples I have ever seen of someone using the "racist" label for absolutely no reason other than that is is easy when no other defense for their actions is available. There was nothing REMOTELY racist about this incident. And this guy agrees with me.

2. Here's a letter to the Indianapolis Star in which a reader rightly takes issue with a previous article there in which the writer attempted to blame the O.J. Simpson trial and Hurricane Katrina on racism. The letter rightly puts the journalist in his place.

And one thing I would add: he mentions New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin - this is the man who, soon after the disaster, said he had a desire to remake New Orleans as a "chocolate city", and this comment went largely ignored by the mainstream media, despite its obviously racist connotations. Now why might that be?

3. And finally, an article about Nelson in New Zealand; it is largely another opinion piece on the state of racism in the area/country, etc, but at one point it cites the most recent example:

Now it has happened again. In a brief but shameful attack that, courtesy of security camera footage has been repeatedly seen by television viewers and Internet users, two Nelson men attacked three Korean teenagers who were sitting outside a dairy near their school, Nelson College, in mid-March. That no major physical damage occurred could be due to the fact that the frightened victims ran, rather than fought back. The assault was over in seconds but, because of the blanket coverage it has been given around New Zealand, it has left another lasting stain on Nelson's good name as a safe, friendly city.

Excuse me, but I missed the racism. That's not to say this attack WASN'T racist; it well could have been; in fact it seems likely. But there is also the possibility that it was a random attack and that the victims this time happened to be Korean. The article suggests that the attackers don't have a previous history of this kind of thing, and CERTAINLY it doesn't say anywhere that they have a history of racism. Either way, the attack was violent and thuggish and they should be convicted, but why is it that if the victims happen to be foreign or black we assume it is racist?

Another bit caught my eye:

However, though what the pair did was despicable, this was not a case for the most severe sentences to be applied. They pleaded guilty and did not have an extensive background of this type of offending. It can be assumed that, had the element of racial violence not been present, an assault of this nature would have brought a lesser penalty.

As we see here, for some reason the authorities now deem racist violence (or perceived racist violence, in this case) as somehow worse and worthy of a harsher sentence than "normal" violence. IT IS NOT. Both should be punished equally harshly.