Injustice Isn't Color Blind

Well this is going to be controversial, I imagine, but try though I might, I just can’t let it go. On August 24th at 2nd & 24th street, in Manhattan, Michael Enright, a 21 year old film student who’d been following American soldiers in Afghanistan recently, hopped in a cab and asked the driver if he was Muslim. Allegedly, after the driver affirmed he was a Muslim, Enright became verbally abusive and then attacked him with a knife. The cab driver sustained serious injuries and is still in the hospital. Michael Enright is being charged with second-degree attempted murder as a hate crime, first-degree assault as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon. If he is convicted of attempted murder, as a hate crime, it would carry a 25 year prison sentence, alone.

What happened to Ahmed Sharif, the cab driver is a tragedy and I don’t think the possibility of his assailant going to jail for 25 years is too extreme, if Enright is not mentally imbalanced. What I think is also a tragedy, however, is the possibility that he will do this time because he is white. A white guy attacking a Muslim guy in our present political atmosphere means that this white boy is going to the slaughter as an “example” and is not receiving true justice.

I believe justice is blind, but do you think this would be as widely reported if it were a Muslim who’d attacked a white driver? Quite unlikely.

Justice should be done for all, and I know that the internment camps where we put Japanese Americans in during World War 2 is wrong; I know that crimes committed more often by people of color are more harshly penalized than “white” crime, and that is wrong. These things anger me as much as anything!

We also need to be sensitive to some people’s inclination to be hateful towards anyone who resembles our enemies, and make it clear we won’t tolerate it. But two wrongs don’t make a right, and demonizing this kid (if he in fact is just messed up or suffering psychological damage as a result of his time in Afghanistan) isn’t the proper response as a society. It’s why the United States has a Republic and not a democracy, this smells of mob mentality.

I am saying stop making an example of people and let’s treat them as innocent until proven guilty…..remember that?