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Racist Small Town Hoodlums Getting Away with Murder

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:10:00 GMT

Brandon Piekarsky entering court before his acquittal on third-degree murder charges. Piekarsky's level of involvement in the killing is unclear, as he wasn't believed to have helped in the beating.

On July 12th, in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, a group of white teenagers were walking home when they came across a young Hispanic man in the park with a teenage girl. One of them yelled out, "Isn't it a little late for you to be out? Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here."

The Mexican man, whose name was Luis Ramirez, became enraged and screamed back at them and began calling for backup. Eighteen-year-old Brian Scully then traded punches with Ramirez, with no one ever agreeing on how the fight actually got started. Derrick Donchak, then 19, jumped on top of the badly-beaten Ramirez and, with a piece of metal between his knuckles, began pummeling Ramirez's face. Miraculously, Ramirez was able to recover and the boys ran off, hurling more racial slurs back as they ran. This enraged Ramirez, who chased after them until a quick blow to the head from Colin Walsh, a 17-year-old component of the all-white group, wiped him out. While Ramirez was down, Scully (it is said by witnesses) kicked Ramirez in the head, causing him to foam at the mouth and convulse. He died as a result of that brutal blow.

At the boys' trial, no one seemed to dispute these facts (except which boy did what.) Nonetheless, the jury acquitted the accused of third degree murder and various other charges while convicting them of simple assault. The defendants and their families emerged from the courtroom triumphant, while legal observers say this was on obvious miscarriage of justice:

"There's been a complete failure of justice," said Gladys Limon, staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who attended the trial and informed Ramirez's family of the verdict. "It's just outrageous and very difficult to understand how any juror could have had reasonable doubt."

She said the evidence "clearly established that Luis Ramirez was brutally beaten."

Prosecutors cast Ramirez as the victim of a gang of drunken white teens motivated by a dislike of their small coal town's burgeoning Hispanic population. But the jury evidently sided with defense attorneys, who called Ramirez the aggressor and characterized the brawl as a street fight that ended tragically. [New York Daily News]
As Avery Friedman argues persuasively in the video from CNN yesterday, this was a pretty clear-cut case of jury nullification: the weight of evidence against the accused was so powerful that it's clear the all-white jury -- like similar juries in the South during the Civil Rights struggle -- was not going to convict two young white men of murdering a Mexican. Even if, as Friedman says, "the only reason he is dead is because he was Mexican." [Crooks and Liars]

Now, some activists are putting pressure on the state's Democratic Governor, Ed Rendell, to speak out about the hate crime. They believe the worst is still to come from a town that is almost 100% Caucasian and only 1% Hispanic...

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Miss March Missing Something... Oh Yeah, Nudity

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Have you heard that there's a new movie called Miss March by two guys from the Whitest Kids You Know? We sure as hell didn't.

Apparently, it's about the war between abstinence and promiscuous, rampant, glorious sex...

In an interview with The Knoxville News-Sentinel, of all sources, writer/co-director/star Zach Cregger discusses his B-comedy's place in the debate. Creger, playing Eugene, a guy about to give in to his hot girlfriend's demands that they have sex on prom night, ends up falling down a flight of stairs and cracking his head open. He winds up in a coma for four years, emerging only to find out that his girlfriend is now the Playboy centerfold for the month of March. Somehow, this leads to a road trip to the Playboy Mansion... and a rendezvous with sexual destiny:

"It's basically about what I was like in my youth," says the 27-year-old Cregger, who wrote, co-directed and stars in the teen comedy, in theaters Friday. "He is very pro-abstinence, very polarized on the topic of sex. He's very puritanical."
"There is a message in the movie," says Cregger, who is single but in a committed relationship, "but it's not about not waiting."

Tucker "has an equally unrealistic view about sex," Cregger says. "He wants to have sex with as many people as possible before marriage."

Then what is Cregger's movie trying to say? "There's so many different ways to look at sex, all equally as unhealthy," he says. "There is a middle ground, and you have to let some of these things go sometimes."

Cregger says "Miss March" also shines a bit of light on subjects rarely talked about. For instance, "sometimes," he says, "guys are afraid of sex."

You can read the rest of the story here and check out the trailer here. Miss March opens tomorrow in select cities.

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Chris Rock is Spending Inauguration Day in the Whitest Place in America

Colleen Kane — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:49:00 GMT

On this historic day, Chris Rock won't be in Washington, D.C., but promoting a film at Sundance in Utah, or as he puts it, "the whitest place in America." Here's his explanation about why it's hard to make fun of Barack Obama.

ln an interview with CNN, Rock compares Barack to stars like Will Smith or Brad Pitt. "There's no Brad Pitt jokes. You know, what are you going to say? 'Ooh, you used to have sex with Jennifer Anniston. Now you have sex with Angelina Jolie. You're such a loser.' What do you say? 'Ooh, your movies are big. You make $20 million.' There's nothing to say about Brad Pitt.

Likewise, with Obama, "It's like 'Ooh, you're young and virile and you've got a beautiful wife and kids. You're the first African-American president.' You know, what do you say?"

About the excitement of today, he puts it well: "It'll be a cool day. It's weird. I've never watched an inauguration. I've never watched anyone get sworn in. You know, it's like Election Day and then you look up and somebody else is the president two months later. It was never like, "I can't wait till tomorrow. Oh my god! They're going to swear in Jimmy Carter!"

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If You Don't Know by Now: Stuff White People Like

Nicole Pasulka — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:35:00 GMT

Um, so, are you done with Friday? What about Saturday and Sunday, any plans? If you can spare the rest of the week, go ahead and click on the link to Stuff White People Like. But it might be a good idea to bring some canned goods and a gas stove because once you get there you won't leave for a very long time. You will, however, learn so much about that wacky race of people we call "white."

Did you know they always to stand at concerts? And they really like coffee. What about assists? We know you've noticed how much white people love to pass. Finally, we've discovered why.

Go forth, seek the knowledge, but blame us when everything in your fridge rots and moss grows over the hood of your car.