Dunbar Village assault examined by Clarence Page; counterprotests held on Friday

Somebody else from the Chicago Tribune is picking up on the web movement.  This time it's columnist Clarence Page.  Page focuses on a Chicago resident who staged a counter protest to Friday's hate crime rally.  See Focus on hate crime is far too narrow .

Some of the highlights from Page's column. 

• Shane Johnson, 32, a social worker by day and Weblogger on the side, staged a nearby dissent with a few sympathizers. He supported the prosecution of hate crimes, he said, but thinks Sharpton's definition of "hate" is too narrow.

• I share Johnson's outrage. Why, I often have wondered, do we black folks get so much more agitated about white-on-black insults than the black-on-black assaults that constantly terrorize certain neighborhoods?

• Sharpton wants tough federal prosecution of hate-related crimes, like the hanging of nooses. Fine, says Johnson. But Johnson also asks why national black leaders have paid so little attention to a more recent campaign in the black netroots: the beating and rape of a 35-year-old Haitian woman and the beating and sexual assault of her 12-year-old son by up to 10 assailants in West Palm Beach, Fla.

• Instead, civil rights leaders and those of us whom they purport to represent often seem to be too benumbed by black-inflicted terrors that we have given up trying to fight. As another mother at Dunbar Village told an Associated Press reporter: "So a lady was raped? Big deal. There's too much other crime happening here."

I truly believe that were it not for the internet movement, the Dunbar Village case would be nowhere in the public consciousness.  Through the efforts of What About Our Daughters and the Afrosphere, the light continues to shine on the horrors committed in West Palm Beach.  

That Page has picked up on the story is huge for those of us who want to take a more wholistic approach to the deliverance of our people.  We as a people need to look at the conditions of Dunbar Village and the condition of the perpetrators that would allow them to commit such a crime. 

Residents in project complexes throughout the country are living in fear. Who's advocating on their behalf?  Well black bloggers are, and Clarence Page has furthered the cause.