(ThyBlackMan.com) Ashley DePew is a 23-year old White woman who lives and works in St. Louis. On the evening of November 17th, Ms. DePew was being a Good Samaritan – driving to a local bar to pick up a friend of hers who had had too much to drink. On her way into The Trophy Room to retrieve that friend, a Black assailant decided to make Ms. DePew a “knockgame game” victim. The knockout game is a popular yet fictional urban myth in which young Black men randomly select unsuspecting White people and try to knock them out with a suckerpunch to the head or face just because. According to Ms. DePew’s police report, a Black thug walked up to her and punched her in the face.
Ms. DePew required facial reconstruction surgery for her injuries. That much is true. Here’s the falsity: the man who administered the beating which necessitated that surgery was her own boyfriend, a 25-year old man named Justin Simms. Mr. Simms isn’t Black, either. Ms. DePew deliberately invoked this racially-charged urban legend in order to
protect her boyfriend from the police and her parents for that assault. She didn’t care about the predictable domino effect her accusation would manifest. How did such a dubious claim based on razor-thin evidence go viral as a news story so quickly and so successfully?
This isn’t the first time a deceitful White individual in America purposefully blamed a Black man to conceal his/her own crime. And it won’t be the last. That’s standard operating procedure here, people.
A writer named Amanda Marcotte just wrote a brilliant story on the DePew farce. Her piece is entitled “Alleged Victim of the ‘Knockout Game’ Was Actually a Victim of Domestic Violence”. It deserves a few moments of your time. In her article, Ms. Marcotte cites the name Charles Stuart. You say you don’t know who he is? Please allow me to remind you. On October 23rd, 1989, Charles “Chuck” Stuart and his pregnant wife Carol were on their way home.
This well-to-do couple was driving through the Roxbury section of Boston; having just left attending childbirth classes at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. According to Mr. Stuart’s police statement, a gravel-voiced Black man with a gun carjacked them, demanded that they drive to nearby Mission Hill, robbed them both, then shot them. Mr. Stuart was wounded in the stomach – while Mrs. Stuart was wounded in the head. Mr. Stuart managed to drive away and call 911 on his car phone.
Hours later, Mrs. Stuart died. Two weeks later, their infant son, Christopher – delivered just before Mrs. Stuart’s death via caesarean section and two months premature – also died. Those of you who remember this tragedy also recall the total police state the city of Boston became in the days and weeks following this crime. Young Black men from the age of late teens to early thirties were routinely rounded up and harassed by the Boston Police Department. Long simmering racial tensions re-emerged. Boston P.D.’s exhaustive investigation into the Stuart murder case soon produced a prime suspect – a Black man named Willie Bennett. Mr. Bennett, you see, perfectly matched Mr. Stuart’s description.
Mr. Bennett was well on his way to being wrongfully convicted when the real murderer was revealed. The killer was Mr. Stuart himself; assisted by his brother, Matthew. Mr. Stuart didn’t want to be a father, didn’t want his wife to stop working as an attorney, and didn’t want to stop seeing his mistress Deborah Allen. So he shot his wife, shot himself, and helped his brother steal their valuables. Months later, Mr. Stuart took his own life. But he had already invoked the S.O.P.: blame a Black man.
Blame a Black man is the prime directive of the Fox News Channel. Isn’t that what the Grand Old Party does on a daily basis to President Obama? Blame a black man happens all too frequently in newspapers nationwide, in the blogosphere, on right wing talk radio, and at local town hall meetings. This S.O.P. is unjust and unfair.
If tomorrow morning came, and all White Americans suddenly awoke to discover they were suddenly Black – and vice versa – I would still be saying the very same thing even as a White man. What would you say?
The true knockout game occurs when members of the media fail to do their due diligence while investigating and reporting stories. Their sheer lack of professionalism and journalistic integrity is laid bare when they scream salacious headlines on the front page and whisper retractions buried deep inside the paper. It’s beside the point that Ms. DePew and her boyfriend now face charges for lying to police. Their true crime puts tax-paying, law-abiding, patriotic Black men like me at risk. But that’s standard operating procedure in America, right?
Staff Writer; Arthur L. Jones, III
This talented brother is a local Minister, weekly featured Democratic Op-Ed columnist, non-profit advisor, and sees the Braves winning it all this fall. Rev. Jones welcomes your comments! Please email him directly at: tcdppress@gmail.com.