Another tragic day in A-merry-ca.

As painful as this next subject is to blog about, I can't shy away from it. And if any of you reading this lost a loved one or a friend in that tragic work place shooting today, you might not want to read any more.

I was ready to write post about Negroes in A-merry-ca and when we started killing people after losing our jobs. (You Negroes know you don't care about getting fired). It is, after all, just a job. We are used to getting f&*%%d over in the work place. White folks, on the other hand, not so much. If you fire a white man you damn well better have a good reason, because it is not something he takes lightly. The term going postal has always somewhat of an "oxymoronic" feel to it. All those black folks working at the post office, and I guarantee you that you will never see one of them taking out their co-workers because of a perceived slight or injustice surrounding the workplace.

Then I saw this tragic story in Connecticut, and I thought to myself, wow. Omar Thornton totally shattered all the stereotypes that I bought into when it comes to workplace shootings.
Anyway, I read an article today that made me think that it was not just about him losing his job, but why he lost it. The author (who is black) was lamenting the loss of self control by the younger black generation when they suffer the sting of racism.

"Thornton shot a number of people, and as of this writing, it's not known how many because what once stood at seven killed just rose to nine killed, so we don't know how many were injured in some kind of way. Here's the exact quote from the Hartford Courant regarding Omar Thornton's possible motive for the shooting at Hartford Distributors:
Joanne Hannah, who lives in the Enfield neighborhood where Thornton lived until about a month ago, said her daughter Kristi had dated Thornton for eight years. Thornton, who is black, had complained about being racially harassed at work. Thornton brought his complaints to his superiors, who did nothing about it, she said her daughter told her.

A New Trend: blacks who kill over racism

It seems there's a new and to this blogger, disturbing "small" trend of late where black men are as likely to commit workplace shootings as any white male.

The last person that comes to mind was was porn star Stephen Hill in Van Nuys, California, who, in June, went off and killed one person and stabbed another at the Ultima DVD office. Hill was black, and like Thornton, was about to be fired from his job. In Hill's case, he was called a "wacky guy" and no one mentioned racism. But then, no one who was close to him was interviewed at the time.

This is disturbing because I and my generation (I turn 48 tomorrow) was raised to be hardened and to expect racism, to point it out, but to not react violently to it.

Because racism is a mental illness, people who are racist are to be treated with pity and avoided. That's the way I'm conditioned to think.

Frankly, you just didn't hear of someone black who would open fire and kill anyone over racism. We were instructed that it was a sickness that's "just part of the deal" and something you needed to overcome to be successful.

This small trend says nothing good about the overall mental strength of the next generation of black men. If one who's black and make [sp] expects to be successful in America, reacting violently to racism can't be considered an option." [Article]

Hmmm. OK. Of course one should not react violently to anything. That is not how civilized human beings should act. Right people?

I saw on CNN tonight that Thornton suffered a lot of racial taunts at work, and when he was told that he would be let go he snapped. "I killed the five racist that were bothering me" he allegedly said.

"Holliday said Thornton had been complaining to relatives that in the several years he worked at Hartford Distributors he was confronted with blatant racism.

PICTURES: Hartford Distributors Shooting

Holliday said, "He had some instances of racism at the company. They were hanging nooses in the bathroom and writing stuff like that. They were singling him out because he was the only black person there in that area."

Thornton's family said he had taken pictures of the threats and said they believe he just snapped Tuesday morning.

They said they expressed condolences to the families of the victims, but they said they were mourning, too."

"This all could have been avoided," Holliday said. "He went to the Union a couple of times with issues concerning what was going on, and it was not dealt with appropriately." [Article]

He is not alone, others have killed in the work place with underlying racial motives, but the scope of this carnage and tragedy today was incomprehensible. And let's not forget the families of those poor souls who lost their lives, they did not deserve this, and neither does our country.

Finally, I have to leave you with an other tragic story: I am talking about the one in Northern Louisiana where six children lost their lives after drowning while their family members watched.

Black people, this is not funny anymore; please teach your children how to swim. Schools offer swimming lessons, they can learn at the local Y, and there are various city programs geared to teaching swimming to young children. I can't imagine the horror of watching your own child drown and not being able to do anything about it.

"The two families had come to the area for a cookout, and the teenagers waded into the shallows, about 10 feet from the bank, said Cindy Chadwick, a public information officer for the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Department. About 10 minutes later, the teenagers began coming back to shore when one boy slipped on the slick riverbed and fell into deep water.

“All of sudden, there was nothing underneath him,” Ms. Chadwick said.

The teenagers went to help, but neither they nor the other family members knew how to swim. There was one life jacket on hand, which they threw into the river.

“Family members saw them go in and screamed for help,” Mr. Sanders said. “There were some other citizens along the beach area that came to the rescue.”

The fire department was called around 6:30 p.m., Mr. Sanders said. Dive teams came shortly afterward to recover the bodies of the victims, a search that took hours. " [Article]

Sad, just sad.