BhamMama said:
Like has been stated before, we have no idea of their upbringing so we don't know about neighborhoods they lived in etc.
But I can tell you from my experience of living in a city (metro area only) that is 73.5% Black and 24.1% White, that if somone starts yelling racial slurs, either way, you pick up your kids and go in the house. If you can't do that, drive to a police station, if you can't do that, call 911 just in case shots get fired. I've personally seen a guy get out of a car and walk down the street with a sawed off shotgun, then I ran and laid down in the floor.
There are lots of gangs here and they move their 'territories' around it seems. These are Black, White and Hispanic gangs involved. Alabama had the third-highest number of arrests in a national two-week sweep of criminal Latino gangs, the largest of which is MS-13. We also have a large Neo Confederate gang running around.
Now this doesn't happen in everyones neighborhood, but I can't afford to live in theirs, so live here instead. I'm also not stating that this is just black neighborhoods, mine is pretty diverse. But the facts remain that the majority of inner city neighborhoods are poor and our below poverty percentages are fairly high. With a large minority population it is pretty fair to say that a lot of those poor, inner city people will be black.
It's also pretty fair to say that I see children outside who think that guns, gangs and drugs are more fun than school, church or family. Your house gets 'tagged', music at all hours, fights in the streets, male and female, though males are more apt to have a gun. Mothers are in the streets urging their daughters to beat they azz'z, little kids will tell you they can do what they want to your face.
So who's to say she didn't grow up this way? Underprivileged, under educated, under-paid, decades use of the welfare system, drug abuse and Lord knows what goes on in gangs. Even if most try to get out of that life and better themselves they are so called 'blacklisted' 'uncle toms' 'sell outs' Is it any wonder our youth is so different than we were? That doesn't excuse, in any form, fashion or way, to use the race card, but it explains why perhaps they may have thought of it. Add in that dummy Nifong, and those like him, that just don't get it and use people for his own ends and you'll see this repeated time and again.
Then again, who's to say it's not a race card and it was the first sure fire way they could think of to get police out there?
And yes, we are wanting to move. And no, we can't afford to right now. We are involved in a project that has us tied up in them buying houses and such right now...been three years and I dream of not living here. I love my city but there are only a few shining beacons of racial togetherness.
Her upbringing matters not. That is, unless she is indicted for making false accusations (fat chance), and needs to victimize herself, yet again, by blaming her surroundings and parents.
What matters is this: Can Nifong can get a conviction with the evidence available to him? He can.
Other than Bakersfield, Ca. and a few other counties in America, the State would not have a chance for conviction. But in Durham, Nifong would have excellent odds, because, given that the defendant(s) would be white, a jury there would almost assuredly be heavily weighted with black citizens. And jury decisions are heavily influenced by race there.
Yes, race matters. And in Durham, it matters a ton.
Of course, pre 1970, white juries convicted many innocent blacks. Payback was inevitable. And around we go.
Race based verdicts should not be a surprise to anyone with a sense for America today. Race plays heavily everywhere. That's just fact. And in Durham, this truism is magnified manyfold.
Illuminating the underside of things, Durham's demographics reflects a community of heavily educated citizens, which includes many Duke, U of North Carolina and Wake Forest graduates. However, basically, the highly educated demographic is not chosen to sit on juries. For the prosecutors office there knows that if you have a white defendant(s), you pick black jurors with the lowest education level possible, and vice-versa.
Should anyone think I am joshing (lived in the RTP area, well know this to be true), just examine the courtroom make-up of the Michael Peterson murder trial. To wit, black jurors had ten seats, and the Judge was black as well.
Next, examine the education level of those jurors. You will find that in a community that is a bastion of higher education, and that has a huge, well-to-do contingent of highly educated people, none of those jurors had a college degree, not one.
As regards the most basic of demographics, Durham is 45% black. However, in the Peterson trial, black jury representation was near twice that and colege level education was zip.
Anyone think that was an accident?
Anyone think this jury representation was an abnormality there?
It's just the way it is in Durham.
Plus, prosecutors in NC consider putting innocent people in prison to be sport. Durham is no exception.
Should this "investigation" proceed to trial, a venue challenge would be certain . The player(s) better start praying that if this goes to trial, it is granted.
