Your media guide to the differences between #Ferguson and #pumpkinfest pic.twitter.com/XfRjlhgei0
— Matt Weinecke (@MattTW) October 19, 2014
Some will brush off what happened in Keene as kids being kids or as representative of a small minority of the white population — fringe behavior. But the black community doesn't have that luxury. When violence happens in the black community, it's seen as symbolic and part of a larger pattern; a disruptive few somehow represent the black community. Black people are lumped into one homogenous category, one that leaves no room for the nuance and complexity of how communities grow and thrive. In the case of New Hampshire, the media wrote off the incident as annual autumnal bacchanalia.
There is a prevailing notion in this country that when an unarmed black person is shot by the police, there must have been a valid reason. In the spirit of fairness, it doesn't even have to be at the hands of the police. Black victims are routinely put on trial in the media with an unspoken but clear suggestion that they deserved what they got.
There are pictures of him making "gang signs"
There is more than a whiff of hypocrisy.