European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 14, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 14 commentary the stars and stripes thursday May 14, 1992 James j. Kilpatric Kold time Virtues needed to douse racial fires the fires of los Angeles Are out. The troops Are leaving. Now the fault finding begins anew. Liberal voices will be heard in one More chorus of the same old song White society must Bear the blame. We brought it on ourselves. This is nonsense. Rubbish i am sick to death of this drooling a a compassion that lacks every Clement of True compassion. No one is responsible for this appalling spectacle but the Blacks a and Whites a who looted the stores set the fires and killed with senseless abandon. Sociology be damned. Let the academics Wail Over the residual psychological consequences of 19th-Century slavery. This is hokum. Let us talk of grand larceny arson and murder. How Are these crimes to be excused they cannot be excused. They cannot be justified. If individual criminals can be identified from television tape they ought to be rounded up and promptly put to trial. It was the jury a verdict in the police beating Case of Rodney g. King that sparked the rioting. If the verdict had gone the other Way a if the defendants had been found guilty of assault a riot might have erupted out of jubilation rather than despair. The verdict was a Flimsy excuse for a mob to hit the streets. What about the verdict right or wrong we have now heard from a Hundred million second guesses none of whom had Access to the evidence actually put before the California court. Did the state prove its Case a prove it beyond a reasonable doubt i Nave no idea. The jurors saw the famous to tape Frame by Frame. They gave the evidence the kind of scrutiny no one else has Given it. Out of that careful judicial process came the acquittal. This was no Hung jury irreconcilable split Between conviction and acquittal. From the beginning of their deliberations the jurors reportedly were of one mind. The evidence was not enough to overcome their reasonable doubts. The american judicial process is not perfect. It is merely better than any other process yet devised. Yes it is still flawed by racial Bias. I am a reporter. Some 50 years ago 1 was covering trials in police court and hustings court in Richmond a. Blacks were treated unconscionably then. But during my years in Richmond i witnessed a tremendous change in the administration of Justice. The worst abuses were eliminated. Every City in the South to the Best of my knowledge has gone through the same experience. Beyond the South courts function for the most part with an even hand. Apologists for the Black rioters complain that proportionately More Blacks than Whites Are in jail. This is True. Why should this be so the Blunt answer is that William f. Buckley or. >1ww the television optic Blacks commit More crime per capita than Whites. Yes there Are plenty of White robbers muggers skinheads arsonists. No one excuses their conduct. They have no excuses either. How can future outbreaks of mob violence be deterred it May prove impossible to deter them. For the Short haul taxpayers in Urban areas should prepare themselves to pay whatever is necessary to maintain order for order is essential. Without order nothing can be accomplished. This will mean More police More judges More jails. So be it. For the Long haul a and it will be a very Long haul a the Community must rely upon Black leadership. Legislators have yet to address themselves to the Root causes of Black crime. They do not yet understand that most programs of Public welfare have served to make bad matters worse. In my lifetime i have observed the disintegration of the Black family and the Black Community. It never used to be this Way. Most Black children grew up with mothers and fathers who instilled in them the values of a Jude Christian ethic. Black ministers served effectively. Segregated schools were morally indefensible but Black teachers taught Black children to be respectful of their elders. The task of changing attitudes is immense. White society offers Little help. What a Sterling example has been set by Congress what role models we provide How can Whites criticize Black illegitimacy when White entertainers flaunt their own Bastard offspring our intellectual leaders condone pornography. Television screens resound with violence. Movies exploit sexual relations shorn of love. Without a return to the old Virtues the Lawless mobs of May will form again. God help us our social fabric rots. C univ Oral press Syndicate King Case handled poorly by All involved Here Are the tributaries that fed the explosion in los Angeles 1. At almost every official level the handling of it was maladroit. The governor of California should have been prepared for Rabid behaviour so should the mayor of los Angeles and the police chief. It did not augur Well for coordinated activity Between the mayor and the police chief that they had not had a conversation for 13 months. It required the intercession of the National guard summoned by president Bush to put out the fires a leaving some of los Angeles in the description of one reporter looking like Dresden Germany one Day after its destruction in 1945. 2. The remark by Bush that he would have a difficult time explaining the verdict to his grandchildren suggests an uneasy tribunal into which to introduce us to the due processes of Law. Grandchildren really should not be expected to understand the niceties of the Law that built up Over 500 years toward the system we now use perhaps not the Desideratum but with Manifest advantages Over say its Napoleonic counterpart where the defendant is judged to be guilty unless proven innocent. There is no denying the culture Shock to View that famous minute of camcorder film is on the order of an introduction to an a rated sadomasochism tape the smell of lascivious pleasure being taken by a half dozen brutish men in crushing one Motorist. The presumptions on which bitterness fed were All there the victim was Black the defendants White the jurors White. The purpose of a jury trial of course is to present jurors with the Opportunity to weigh the presumptions which begin with the defendants probable guilt. Officially he is not guilty until proven so. But As professor Alan Dershowitz has pointed out his very presence in the defendants Box presumes that there is a very Good Case against him. And there should be otherwise thoroughly innocent people would constantly be standing trial. Nobody it turned out was prepared to grab the National microphone and say twelve men and women listened for seven weeks to testimony and arrived at the conclusion that the four defendants did not break the Law. The Law is let us assume outrageously lenient on overactive police officers and some Effort ought to be made to change the Law. But pending such a change jurors should not be thought dishonourable because they reached an unpopular verdict. Angela Davis was also found not guilty in that general part of California. 3. Inevitably we Are asked to consider the implications of the Black revolt mostly fed by Young men. What it betrays no less an authority than president Francois Mitterrand of France so informed us is the continued weight of racial pressures against Black upward mobility. This explanation has problems because a Black Middle class in America is increasingly conspicuous and members of it were among the victims of the anarchy in los Angeles. Moreover there was another yardstick embarrassingly Handy namely the korean and Central american entrepreneurs heavily victimized by men designated by mayor Tom Bradley As a hoodlums and  suddenly there burst Forth in los Angeles the situation with which new yorkers became familiar during the summer riot resentment by neighbourhood Blacks of korean and jewish merchants who were climbing the traditional rungs from poverty toward affluence leaving behind Blacks whose self helping energies Are diluted and even extinguished by the hostile forces of illegitimate births single Parent upbringing indiscriminate welfare and poverty. If there is a state or a Federal program that will reduce the rate of illegitimacy it has yet to be divulged to us. Maybe that is h. Ross Perot a secret weapon. Meanwhile 4 there is the inevitable Rush to opportune be on the event. The Standard Reading of it is that it will have Hurt democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton. The reasoning Here is that the american people were Given a hard look for two or three Days at the metastasizing problem of a disaffected class and that whenever stability is challenged the voters tend to cling to establishment Arian authority. Meanwhile let us Hope a that Rodney King files a successful lawsuit against the City of los Angeles and that b the destitute merchants file successful lawsuits against the City of los Angeles c Universal press Syndicate