“Hey Greenfield, why don’t you only write about bad stuff cops do to black people?” Years ago, when video wasn’t yet readily available on smart phones and people’s knowledge of actual interactions between cops and others, particularly black and Hispanic young men on the street, was a cross between ignorance and fantasy, I spent a great deal of time, effort and space here trying to make clear what really happened. People were treated like scum, regularly beaten and occasionally killed, but it was invisible as the police always had an excuse and there was nothing to show they were lying about it.
Times have changed. People went from having no clue to being acutely aware, and then getting overripe and starting to rot. They now see racism everywhere, even when the cops did nothing more than their jobs, and their targets made choices resulting in the outcomes they received.
It’s not that there isn’t racism. There is. But everything isn’t racism.
It’s not that the cops don’t engage in excessive force at times. They do. But every time force is used doesn’t mean it’s excessive.
An UberEats driver named Mohammad Anwar, 66, was killed when two teenaged girls tried to carjack his Honda.
Uber Eats driver killed during armed carjacking in D.C. pic.twitter.com/kFGuhz0xnz
— Tony (@Mrtdogg) March 27, 2021
Anwar was a Pakistani immigrant with three grandchildren. Not only could he not be faulted in any version of reality, but even in the world of social justice victimization, there was no excuse to be made for his murder. It wasn’t as if he was a straight white man whom the woke consider expendable as reparations for his inherent role in “systemic racism.” This was a person who should not have been harmed, who should not have been murdered.
Two girls ages 13 and 15 have been charged with felony murder after D.C. police said their attempt to carjack a food delivery driver outside Nationals Park on Tuesday afternoon ended in a crash that fatally injured the man.
The girls — legally too young to drive — were also charged with armed carjacking, according to authorities. A D.C. police spokesman said at least one was armed with a stun device, which was found inside the crashed vehicle.
If it doesn’t jump out at you, I’ll say it: there is no mention of the race of the two teenaged girls. In another time, this might be understandable as the crime compels no mention of race, but we are existing in a time when race is paramount except when it isn’t. If the perpetrators were white and the victim Pakistani, you would already know Anwar’s name because there would have been protests, maybe even a riot, and dozens of op-eds about how this proves white supremacy.
And the fact that the two perps survived would have be shouted from the rooftops as conclusive proof that there are two systems of justice, as it would be assumed that had they been black, the cops would have killed them like dogs in the street, but they survived to be prosecuted only because of their race. Of course, none of this was said because there is no room in the narrative to accommodate that the two girls weren’t white.
Local CBS affiliate WUSA9 reported on this carjacking, this killing, and ends with an ominous statement.
In the last few months, since the beginning of the year, 23 juveniles have been arrested in the city in carjackings. Its gotta stop.
We are deluged with stories of the outrages perpetrated by cops, and many, if not all of them, are either outrageous or wrong. But what we rarely hear now is that crime still happens. People like Anwar die. These aren’t starving kids stealing a loaf of bread to survive, but carjackings. And the two girls were armed with stun guns to make it happen. A planned and executed crime.
Years ago, this might well have been far bigger news, and there would be deep concern about carjackings by juveniles in D.C. Today, this barely exists, and to the extent it does, the focus is almost exclusively on the horrific and needless death of Anwar.
“He was a hardworking immigrant who came to the U.S. in 2014 to build a better life for himself and his family. The loss for his family is immeasurable,” the family said in a statement.
Uber offered its condolences to Anwar’s family in a statement.
Just as we needed to know what the police were doing, how the cops were treating black and Hispanic people in the street because that was the reality that failed to make it onto our television screens, so too do we need to know that teenaged girls with stun guns attempted to carjack Mohommad Anwar and killed him. And like it or not, they were black. This doesn’t make black people more violent or prone to crime, anymore than a crime perpetrated by white guys inherently proves racism.
What it does demonstrate is how we’ve shifted from one lie of omission, that cops are always the good guys serving and protecting, and never beating black kids for no particular reason on the street, to another, that vicious and violent crime doesn’t really happen and black people never commit it.
For years, I’ve sought to explain that there are bad dudes out there. Sometimes, they’re women. Sometimes, they’re black or Hispanic. Sometimes the victims of their crimes are black, Hispanic, white and even Pakistani. This doesn’t have to be a competition of concern between the lives of those who suffer from racism and those who are harmed or murdered. And “systemic racism” does not excuse this crime or the death of Anwar.
Indulging in a fantasy world where malevolent crimes aren’t committed by black people or reacting with a litany of rationalizations twisting this to be the product of “systemic racism” and not the actions of two people, won’t bring Anwar back. His life matters too, even if not a single news outlet could find the room to fit this into the narrative.
Rest in peace, Mohammad Anwar. Rest in peace every person who didn’t need to die.
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