Fat Al for a Pal

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There are a number of individuals who oppose racial harmony. The Reverend Al Sharpton is one of them.

Can you blame him? If racial harmony were to break out, then Sharpton would be out of a job. Racial strife is Fat Al's meal ticket. [N.B. This isn't just an African-American thing. Plenty of people from diverse other groups would be similarly challenged in their livelihood if there were racial, religious and ethnic concord in America.].

Fat Al was on Long Island yesterday, fomenting trouble in the John White case. John White is an African-American resident of Long Island. It seems that on 9 August 2006, some white youths whose blood alcohol content was not necessarily zero showed up in front of White's house, apparently angry with White's son Aaron. John White went out and confronted them. John White's gun discharged, killing Daniel Cicciaro Jr. John White was convicted of manslaughter and now awaits sentencing.

White's defense was that he is a product of the segregated South during the era of Jim Crow laws, and he instinctively reacted to the white youths outside his home as though they were a lynch mob, and therefore had not formed the mens rea to commit the crime. Shades of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

I consider Fred Brewington, who was one of White's attorneys, to be a very able counsel (though he does push towards the left of the political spectrum). Many of Brewington's cases are employment discrimination cases, and his clients are not all necessarily African-American. I attached no negativity to White's case on account of Brewington's handling it; as contrasted with all of Lynne Stewart's clients. Throughout the trial I kept an open mind, and even after White's conviction, was waiting to see how matters developed on the promised appeal before passing any judgment of my own.

But Sharpton's involvement in the case (and, more specifically, John White's embrace of Sharpton) has put to rest all doubts I had heretofore been willing to tentatively accord John White.

The right to keep and bear arms carries the responsibility to discharge those arms prudently and justly. John White did not do this. John White could have called the police when the gang appeared at his door, but did not. This may well have been a factor in the jury's deliberations.

Another undeveloped theme in the trial was the white youths' dispute with John White's son Aaron. He supposedly had threatened to rape a white girl (other than color, how does this really differ from his father's claim of a lynch mob?). He arrived to testify in court under escort by bodyguards, and wearing a bulletproof vest. Query: Was he any better than his father's defense painted the white youth gang?

My take on it: This case exemplifies the worst of Long Island. Cicciaro and his surviving cronies are nothing to write home about, and certainly do not make the roads any safer with their ethanol-powered temperaments. Though Cicciaro's death was tragic and unnecessary, it cannot be said that he was not cruising for a bruising. Aaron White's presence in society is not a particularly stabilizing force. And John White got a little too trigger happy.

And on this latter score, the verdict, I believe, was appropriate.