MSNBC's Toure Neblett made an extremely controversial statement on Friday's The Cycle.
"If Adam Lanza had walked into a black public school in this mythical South Brooklyn or in the Southside of Chicago, we would probably not be having a sustained national conversation about guns" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
TOURE NEBLETT: Perhaps we know Wayne LaPierre is wrong about good guys and bad guys and guns. I’m sure many of us find him hard to trust given his obvious use of racial demonization to spread fear that will lead to buying guns. In his recent editorial in the Daily Caller, he spoke of supposedly rampant crime and murder in some place he called South Brooklyn in the days after Hurricane Sandy. Put aside that no reporting bears that out, I live in Brooklyn, and I have for a long time, and there is no place referred to as South Brooklyn. But I think it's safe to say that when he says that, much of the country envisions a place clogged with black people.
So there's no such thing as South Brooklyn? Maybe someone should inform the folks at Wikipedia for they have a full page devoted to it:
South Brooklyn is an historic term for a section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, encompassing areas of Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Gowanus, Park Slope, and Boerum Hill. [...]
It is named for its location, south of the original Village of Brooklyn. In the early 19th century, the area Atlantic Avenue (then Atlantis Street), was farmland and called Red Hook, and the portion south of Hamilton Avenue was Red Hook Point. The somewhat historic name of South Brookyn [sic] has been revived in recent years to foster a closer connection among the constituent communities, though the name has always been popular nomenclature for the neighborhood's locals.
As for no reporting bearing out LaPierre's claim of crime in South Brooklyn following Hurricane Sandy, maybe this MSNBC anchor should have looked at the liberal Huffington Post where he would have found an October 31 article titled - wait for it! - "Hurricane Sandy Looting, Fights Plague South Brooklyn":
Water that had risen six feet high hadn't completely drained away from the streets of Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y., yet looters had already rifled through the remains of vulnerable shops on Mermaid Avenue.
At about 8 a.m. on Tuesday, workers arrived at Mega Aid Pharmacy to find that not only had Hurricane Sandy obliterated the building's interior the night before, but thieves had broken in and gone through more than 10,000 pharmaceutical items. Most of the stolen goods were prescription meds. [...]
Locals said that the police presence in the neighborhood came after looters stole from banks, pharmacies and other shops with valuables. [...]
"It's getting dark, and it's real dangerous out here -- that's why there's a cop on every block," one NYPD officer told HuffPost Crime. "You could get your stuff stolen." [...]
Dena Wells, 39, a resident of Ocean Towers, had had enough after watching the melee.
"People are turning on each other -- they're attacking each other," she said, shaking her head. "Even when there's no disaster, this building is disastrous. But after the hurricane, it just got crazy.
UPDATE: NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announced on Thursday afternoon that 18 individuals were arrested for looting at a Key Foods in Coney Island, and 2 more were arrested in Staten Island, ABC News reported.
For the record, here's what LaPierre wrote Wednesday:
After Hurricane Sandy, we saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia. Looters ran wild in south Brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity. And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.
Notice that he didn't say a word about "murder" as Neblett claimed he did.
But why should that surprise us? Facts aren't important at MSNBC:
NEBLETT: Now if Adam Lanza had walked into a black public school in this mythical South Brooklyn or in the Southside of Chicago, we would probably not be having a sustained national conversation about guns. Adam just smushed the pain of the gun epidemic in America's face, but black people have been living with that pain for so long we're numb to it. We’re rightly outraged by interracial killings, but black on black crime is a far more prevalent problem.
Actually, if white Adam Lanza had walked into a black public school and killed 26 kids and teachers, the discussion wouldn't just be about gun control. It would also be about racism.
As such, what Neblett should have said to make his point more compelling was, "If Adam Lanza were black and walked into a black public school..."
Now there's an interesting discussion: Would the gun control outrage have been as strong?
Reminds one of Matthew McConaughey's closing argument in the fabulous film "A Time To Kill" when he asked the jury to imagine the little girl that had been savagely beaten and raped was white.
For those that didn't see the movie, that's likely the reason the Samuel L. Jackson character charged with killing the white men that raped his daughter ended up being found innocent by a completely white jury.
(HT Mediaite)
