I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. - Thomas Jefferson

Friday, April 09, 2004

Here’s the latest gang problem that will undoubtedly somehow be blamed on white racism.

A teenager was dragged under a car, run over twice and killed in an altercation between six rival gang members outside a high school, authorities and witnesses said.

Police said Thursday’s fight might have started because one gang entered another gang’s territory looking for girls.

Parent Audrey Gover was dropping off her daughter and witnessed the fight.

She said some of the men then climbed into a red Chevrolet Monte Carlo to leave when 18-year-old Michael Hinojosa jumped in front of the car. The vehicle lurched forward, trapping him under the front bumper, Gover told the San Antonio Express-News. Hinojosa’s friends got into a second car and chased the Monte Carlo.

Hinojosa was dragged screaming the length of three football fields.

He fell from the bumper, and the driver sped away, rolling over him. The pursuing car also ran over Hinojosa. The young man was pronounced dead at a hospital.

If it wasn’t for mean old fascist white racists denying opportunities to minorities then these kids never would have run over each other and drug each other to death over girls.  Note, however, the virtual lack of media attention this dragging death is going to get, as compared to the James Byrd dragging death.  See, back then it was KKK members dragging a black man to death—a great story—but this one is just gang members, so there’s really no obvious way for self-loathing white liberals to blame it on other white folks. 

Update: The black dragging victim’s name was James Byrd.  Robert Byrd is, as we all know, a former member of the Klan and current Senate Democrat.  It was an honest mistake.

Thursday, May 15, 2003

This story proves, yet again, that in this day and age there is nothing so benign that it cannot be considered an offense by some bleeding heart idiot.

Fans are eagerly awaiting “The Matrix Reloaded”—but it’s made some people very unhappy. The villains in the flick are a pair of white-skinned, white-haired, red-eyed twins, and groups representing albinos say the movie unfairly stereotypes pigment-challenged individuals.

“FOR THE LAST 40 years filmmakers have used albino characters as villains, and they’re almost always vicious, inhuman characters, depicted as freaks,” says dermatologist Vail Reese. (Read his comments on skinema.com.)

Dr. Jim Haefemeyer of the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation tells The Scoop that the group has sent letters to movie-maker Warner Bros., but that the studio has not responded. 

“They’re not albinos,” a Warner Bros. rep snapped to the Scoop. “They have dark eyebrows and black lips.”

When The Scoop helpfully pointed out that dozens of publications—from Variety to Time magazine—had identified the villainous twins as albinos, the spokeswoman said, “We don’t call them albinos. They’re dead. That’s why they’re pale.”

They also have dreadlocks.  Perhaps rastafarians should sue Warner Bros. for reparations.

Thursday, February 20, 2003

The first rock concert I ever went to in my life was in 1984.  It was Whitesnake playing at the Capitol Theater in Aberdeen, Scotland.  I was 14 years old.  The opening band that night was a new group out of LA called Great White.  They reached the apex of their popularity in 1988 and were, as far as I knew, upholstering car seats to pay their bills. Little did I know.

A pyrotechnic display during a rock concert late Thursday ignited the stage and spread inside a packed nightclub near Providence, causing concertgoers to bottleneck the exits as they fled for their lives.

At least 40 people with a range of injuries—mostly burns—were taken to Kent Hospital, a few miles from The Station nightclub in the Providence suburb of West Warwick, according to a spokesman.

The 1980s heavy rock band “Great White” was performing at The Station in the Providence suburb of West Warwick when the fire broke out.

I don’t know which is more surprising, that there was a small club that actually allowed pyrotechnics, or that in 2003 there are still people willing to pay actual money to go see Great White in concert.

Update: This is a much bigger deal than it appeared last night.  Apparently 60 people have died, either by burning to death or smoke inhalation.  And this was in a club with less than 300 people in it!  Absolutely tragic.