Utash: We Can Only Hope
Sometimes the 24-hour news cycle gets extended.
Sometimes it's a 48-hour or 72-hour news cycle. And, on occasion, a story manages to stay in the public's consciousness for a week or more.
News stories anymore are like pieces of pasta thrown against the wall. Only some stick.
The Stephen Utash beating has beat the 24-hour news cycle, by far. Now the question is, Will it matter?
The Utash story is right out of a novel or a made-for-TV movie.
White suburbanite hits a young black boy with his pickup truck, in the city. The suburbanite stops to check on the condition of the boy and is then beaten senseless, perhaps to death (that's a part of the story that has yet to be resolved), by a mob of black men.
It's a story that almost had to happen, to provide the most recent litmus test of where we are as a society, particularly when it comes to violence and race relations.
The elements are all there, and if they weren't, the story wouldn't work as well. It would be a flawed test.
The driver was white, the hit boy was black. That's the only way this can work. Any other combo would either not tell us anything we don't already suspect, or it would be less newsworthy.
The white man is beaten by a mob of black men. Again, reverse it, and it's just another example of what so many people already suspect, and what so many other people vigorously try to defend.
The person who intervened and got the mob to stop beating the white man was a black female nurse. Author, author!
The white man lies in a medically-induced coma as the suspects are rounded up. Score another for the fiction writer.
Oh, and whites and blacks come together in churches around town and try to pray the violence away. Money is being raised for the white man's medical bills. Not bad, not bad at all.
And Detroiters did it all by themselves. They didn't need anyone to zoom into town to rally the troops.
The author did a bang up job on this one.
Ah, but it's all true.
Steve Utash
The Utash beating has a shot---an actual, legitimate shot---at bringing white and black folks together in an effort to take a collective look in the proverbial mirror.
Thankfully, the words "vigilante justice" have been rinsed off this story, revealing it to be what it really is---senseless, animal-like violence that wasn't advocating for anyone or anything, other than an opportunity to take something out on a poor man. A chance to get your licks in, for whatever reason.
Unlike others, though, I'm not convinced that the mob saw a white man and decided to go to town. Maybe we will never know for sure. Maybe the five (so far) suspects that have been arrested---four have been arraigned---will start chirping, even against each other. Maybe a motive will trickle out.
Maybe had the driver been black, he would have been beaten, too---once identified as the man who hit the boy. Again, we may never know. But we may, eventually.
The fact that no one in the beating mob---according to witnesses' recounting of the incident---appeared to show any concern for the boy's physical condition before they started whaling on Utash, is the most damning piece of this horrible crime.
And that's why the vigilante label doesn't fit and has been ripped off, rightly so.
You can't have vigilante justice if you don't know what the heck you're justifying.
The facts, of course, weren't all in when the mob sprang into action. They didn't know---or didn't care---that the child stepped off the curb into oncoming traffic. The boy was 10 years old---certainly old enough to know not to step into the street without looking both ways.
But that's another discussion entirely.
It's terrible, but often it takes something terrible to finally drum something into people's heads.
We can only hope that Steve Utash---and let's hope he survives and regains his wits---evolves into a turning point of sorts. He will not only be a man but a landmark.
Then again, the beating of Vincent Chin didn't necessarily change anything.
But that's the thing about hope. You're willing to throw the history books out the window and say, "Maybe THIS time."
Maybe this time.
Sometimes it's a 48-hour or 72-hour news cycle. And, on occasion, a story manages to stay in the public's consciousness for a week or more.
News stories anymore are like pieces of pasta thrown against the wall. Only some stick.
The Stephen Utash beating has beat the 24-hour news cycle, by far. Now the question is, Will it matter?
The Utash story is right out of a novel or a made-for-TV movie.
White suburbanite hits a young black boy with his pickup truck, in the city. The suburbanite stops to check on the condition of the boy and is then beaten senseless, perhaps to death (that's a part of the story that has yet to be resolved), by a mob of black men.
It's a story that almost had to happen, to provide the most recent litmus test of where we are as a society, particularly when it comes to violence and race relations.
The elements are all there, and if they weren't, the story wouldn't work as well. It would be a flawed test.
The driver was white, the hit boy was black. That's the only way this can work. Any other combo would either not tell us anything we don't already suspect, or it would be less newsworthy.
The white man is beaten by a mob of black men. Again, reverse it, and it's just another example of what so many people already suspect, and what so many other people vigorously try to defend.
The person who intervened and got the mob to stop beating the white man was a black female nurse. Author, author!
The white man lies in a medically-induced coma as the suspects are rounded up. Score another for the fiction writer.
Oh, and whites and blacks come together in churches around town and try to pray the violence away. Money is being raised for the white man's medical bills. Not bad, not bad at all.
And Detroiters did it all by themselves. They didn't need anyone to zoom into town to rally the troops.
The author did a bang up job on this one.
Ah, but it's all true.
Steve Utash
The Utash beating has a shot---an actual, legitimate shot---at bringing white and black folks together in an effort to take a collective look in the proverbial mirror.
Thankfully, the words "vigilante justice" have been rinsed off this story, revealing it to be what it really is---senseless, animal-like violence that wasn't advocating for anyone or anything, other than an opportunity to take something out on a poor man. A chance to get your licks in, for whatever reason.
Unlike others, though, I'm not convinced that the mob saw a white man and decided to go to town. Maybe we will never know for sure. Maybe the five (so far) suspects that have been arrested---four have been arraigned---will start chirping, even against each other. Maybe a motive will trickle out.
Maybe had the driver been black, he would have been beaten, too---once identified as the man who hit the boy. Again, we may never know. But we may, eventually.
The fact that no one in the beating mob---according to witnesses' recounting of the incident---appeared to show any concern for the boy's physical condition before they started whaling on Utash, is the most damning piece of this horrible crime.
And that's why the vigilante label doesn't fit and has been ripped off, rightly so.
You can't have vigilante justice if you don't know what the heck you're justifying.
The facts, of course, weren't all in when the mob sprang into action. They didn't know---or didn't care---that the child stepped off the curb into oncoming traffic. The boy was 10 years old---certainly old enough to know not to step into the street without looking both ways.
But that's another discussion entirely.
It's terrible, but often it takes something terrible to finally drum something into people's heads.
We can only hope that Steve Utash---and let's hope he survives and regains his wits---evolves into a turning point of sorts. He will not only be a man but a landmark.
Then again, the beating of Vincent Chin didn't necessarily change anything.
But that's the thing about hope. You're willing to throw the history books out the window and say, "Maybe THIS time."
Maybe this time.
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