Where Should the National Discussion on Race Really Be?

By Leland C. Abraham, Esq.

The country has been mesmerized by the events in Cambridge, Massachusetts involving a distinguished Harvard professor, Henry Gates, and a police officer. According to reports, Gates had a rather heated exchange with the officer and he was subsequently arrested on the porch of his own home. The question immediately became, “If he were a white professor, would this have happened?” While it is a legitimate question, I am of the opinion that this is not the right case for the national discussion on race to ensue.

While I am not sure if the same incident would have happened if Professor Gates were white, I am quite certain that if he were not a Harvard professor the media would not have made it such a big story. There is clearly a problem between the black community, law enforcement and the legal system. A case more deserving of the national discussion on race is that of Walter Currie, Jr. Currie is a 15 year old high school student in Poplar Bluff, Missouri who had an altercation with two white students. On June 13 of this year, after an exchange with the two white students, Currie was doused with gasoline and the students set him on fire.

The two white students initially claimed self-defense. They were charged with assault and taken into custody. They were later released and as of the writing of this article, they were still free individuals. Walter is recovering from burns to most of his body from this horrific act. As if this were not enough, one of the white teenagers who perpetrated this act claimed that some months before this incident, Currie struck a relative of the white teenager in the face. While there was no police report taken at the time of this alleged incident, the police notified Currie and his family on July 6, that he will be arrested and charged with assault once he has completed his treatment.

There are many problems that I, as an attorney, have with this fact pattern. The first issue is that they are going to charge Currie with an incident that may or may not have happened some months ago without the aid of a police report or credible eyewitnesses. Currie denies having any part of striking someone in the face. The police then inform him of such news while he is recovering from an act that had he been white and the perpetrators been black, would have most certainly ended up with a charge of attempted murder. Not only that, but he is to be charged with assault. If you missed it before, that is the exact same charge as the white kids who doused him with gasoline and set him on fire were charged with. This means that you could potentially have a young man who may or may not have hit someone in the face and whose life was in extreme danger have the same punishment as the people who tried to kill him. When questioned by the parents of Currie, the prosecutor on the case said that he felt fully justified in this course of action.

Currie’s mother has stated several times that she doesn’t understand how there can be as much evil in the world as to set another human being on fire. While the world proves itself to be more evil than any of us could have imagined, it most certainly never crossed Mrs. Currie’s mind that the institution that is supposed to protect her son from such an act as this is seeking to give him the same punishment as those who tried to take his life for an incident in which there is no credible evidence of its occurrence.

While I am happy that the media has finally taken notice that there is a problem with law enforcement and the black community, the Gates incident is just not the right case to have the national discussion. While I am happy that president Obama engaged both parties in a “Beer Summit,” the country suffers because the media is fixated on that rather than on cases like Currie’s. I can only hope that now that Gates has the country’s attention, he would use the spotlight to shed some light on some of these cases of clear racial discrimination that the media is sleeping on.

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