| from a cosmic perspective— to be born into circumstances that make it more likely that one will commit crimes and be imprisoned, with negative consequences for the rest of one’s life. If some personified Fate had decreed this, then that would be the perpetrator of the injustice. But, if this is just part of the way the world has evolved, then it is a cosmic injustice— if something as impersonal as the cosmos can be considered capable of being unjust. As noted in Chapter 4, a cosmic injustice is not a social injustice, and proceeding as if society has both the omniscience and the omnipotence to “solve” the “problem” risks anti-social justice, in which others are jeopardized or sacrificed, in hopes of putting some particular segment of the population where they would be “but for” being born into adverse circumstances that they did not choose. It is certainly no benefit to blacks in general to take a sympathetic view of those blacks who commit crimes, since most of the crimes committed by blacks— especially murder— are committed against other blacks. Whatever the injustices of society that might be blamed as “root causes” of crime, the black victims of crime are not responsible for those injustices. Here, especially, “social justice” in theory becomes anti-social justice in practice, sacrificing innocent people’s well-being— or even their lives— because some other individuals are considered not to have been born into circumstances that would have given them as good a chance as others have had |
creating big trouble for others, while enjoying themselves in doing so. An all too common pattern across the country was that in an episode in Milwaukee: Shaina Perry remembers the punch to her face, blood streaming from a cut over her eye, her backpack with her asthma inhaler, debit card and cellphone stolen, and then the laughter… “They just said, ‘Oh, white girl bleeds a lot,’” said Perry, 22, who was attacked at Kilbourn Reservoir Park over the Fourth of July weekend… Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn noted Tuesday that crime is colorblind… “I saw some of my friends on the ground getting beat pretty severely.” Perry needed three stitches to close a cut above her eye. She said she saw a friend getting kicked and when she walked up to ask what was happening, a man punched her in the face. “I heard laughing as they were beating everybody up. They were eating chips like it was a picnic,” said Perry, a restaurant cashier… Most of the 11 people who told the Journal Sentinel they were attacked or witnessed the attacks on their friends said that police did not take their complaints seriously… “About 20 of us stayed to give statements and make sure everyone was accounted for. The police wouldn’t listen to us, they wouldn’t take our names or statements. They told us to leave. It was completely infuriating.” Variations on such episodes of unprovoked violence by young black gangs against white people on beaches, in shopping malls |
