Issues & Insights
Katie Crampton (WMUK)

Did This Black Life Matter? Not To The Mob

I&I Editorial

Early Tuesday morning, a black man was brutally killed by an act permitted by those in authority and with influence. Where are the protests over his death?

That black man was David Dorn, a 77-year-old retired St. Louis police captain. He was killed by looters during the George Floyd riots, shot to death “exercising law enforcement training that he learned,” says St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden.

Dorn was gunned down after responding to an alarm at a pawn shop that was being looted. The authorities who allowed his death are those elected officials who loosed the rioters by endorsing their rampages and refusing to prosecute them for the crimes, and the media that have approved of the criminal acts, lending them legitimacy.

George Floyd lost his life when a man in and under authority went too far, while other men in and under authority did nothing. It was an ugly act that demands justice. But so does Dorn’s death. Where, then, are the protests on his behalf? Didn’t Dorn’s life matter as much as Floyd’s? Are national politicians going to attend his funeral, as they surely will the Minnesota man’s service? Or was Dorn’s life worth less because of the differences in the way each died?

While Dorn is being honored by the president, his death has been sidelined because it doesn’t fit the Democratic Party-mainstream media narrative that the nation is overflowing with racists, in law enforcement agencies, in the Republican Party, in flyover country, who are out to kill minorities. So it is virtually ignored, and when mentioned, there is no call to avenge his death to go along with it.

If the country continues to accept the Black Lives Matter movement, then we’ve reached a place where the only black lives that matter are those taken by law enforcement officers. This is an outrage.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the leading cause of death for black males from the ages of 1 to 44 is homicide. Given that there were roughly 1,000 deaths last year caused by law enforcement officers — not all of the dead were black men, not all of the killings unjustified — we know that many of the deaths among black males were in no way associated with law enforcement. For the record, all those whose lives were ended too soon by homicides in which officers weren’t involved matter. They’re not just statistics.

On the day before Dorn was killed, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a letter to the editor asking “Where are the protests about black-on-black crime?”

“Over the Memorial Day weekend in St. Louis, there were at least 19 shootings and four deaths. Chicago had 49 shootings with 10 fatalities. Most of these were black-on-black crime,” said a single reader courageous enough to write the truth.

He then asked:

Where was the outrage? Why didn’t the news media splash photos of those dead bodies? Where were the black clergy and minority leaders screaming about brutality, violence, and demanding justice for the deceased and imprisonment for the perpetrators?

Seems like the death of a black man is only newsworthy, only offensive, if the perpetrator is white.

Sure seems racist to me.

He didn’t know that within a few hours, the death of David Dorn would support his observation.

None of this is to minimize the wrongful killing of black males under the flag of authority. But tearing the country apart by being selective over which lives matter has to end. Decent people need to stop paying attention to the agitators and submitting to the Woke bullies, and instead look to the many extraordinary Americans who can bring racial healing, and lead rather than mislead the black community. The usual race-baiters, black and white, who live to disrupt, divide, and destabilize while building personal empires need to be treated as the pariahs they are.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board

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The Issues and Insights Editorial Board has decades of experience in journalism, commentary and public policy.

9 comments

  • The left is no better than rabid animals, they cannot be reasoned with, they attack anything that moves and they just keep going till they die from the disease that has made them mad animals. These people care nothing about the planet, humanity or justice. They care only about power and they gleefully destroy anything in their way. They are sick and we know so many of them. LeBron, Chrissy, Hillary, Alexandria, Ilhan, Keith, Al, Maxine, Nancy, Joe, Rashida, Stephen, Cory, the list goes on. Full of uneducated, hateful, ignorant liars.

  • Tee hee, I caught you being hypocrites! Oh, how I savor these intellectual “gotcha” points as tribes of insane criminals ravage my homeland. Certainly, my craven acceptance of leftist multiculturalism dogma may cause me to lose my life to a mob of retarded cannibals throwing bricks at my head, but this smug feeling makes it all worth it.

  • It is interesting to see the protesters , basically protesting the very people they keep electing, a huge disconnect. Maybe it is time to stop voting for the very people who do not have your best interests in mind.

  • In the past week at least 4 uniformed black police officers have been killed by rioters and terrorists. Why are their names not trumpeted by the media. They were killed for trying to protect their communities and the people and businesses there. When will Antifa and the Soros backed Terrorists finally be taken to task?

  • That whooshing sound you may or may not have heard was THE POINT passing directly over your head.

    Better luck next time, I guess.

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