Dear Editor,

Can you imagine what would have happened to a black man who showed up at US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s rally acting “suspiciously” around the metal detectors?

It is no secret to any conscious American why the 20-year-old shooter of former President Trump was not stopped, although police and security deemed him to be acting “suspiciously” around the metal detectors at the entrance of the July 13 Trump event in Butler, Pennsylvania.

There is a reason that the 20-year-old Crooks was reportedly not interrogated for identification. He was not chased, not followed, not heavily surveilled as he climbed to the roof of a building and aimed an AR-15-styled rifle only about 130 yards away from where former President Trump was speaking.

It is evident by only a brief review of recent American history that the reason Crooks was not stopped at the gate and caught before he pulled the trigger was because he was white.

There is no question that had Crooks been a black man he would have been commanded to show identification. Had he not concurred, he would have been wrestled to the ground and likely shot dead or choked to death like D’Vontaye Mitchell, who was killed by hotel security June 30 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Unlike Trayvon Martin, 17, out for Skittles and ice tea in Florida; Tamir Rice, 12, with a toy gun in Ohio; or Airforce Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, in his own apartment in Georgia, among dozens of other household names, Crooks was somehow given the benefit of the doubt, allowed to slide on by.

It ultimately ended with Crooks shooting and wounding Trump in an assassination attempt, killing firefighter husband and father Cory Compechello and critically injuring two other people before he was killed by a police sniper.

As authorities now intensely investigate, the debacle has been described as an “epic failure” of security, mainly the Secret Service. But we all know what it really was: The failure of security was catastrophic because Crooks was white.

Americans have witnessed this all-too-familiar scenario many times before. When thousands of predominately white Confederate flag-waving Trump supporters headed for Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, none of the federal law enforcement agencies responded with the appropriate level of force, resulting in the violent attack and insurrection.

Clearly, had those rioters been black, the Capitol Police and other security agencies would have been prepared in advance with military force, dogs, and high-powered rifles. They were unprepared for the destruction that occurred that day for the same reason they were unprepared for the attack on Trump’s life. They have yet to become fully sensitised to the danger of the loan-white-male syndrome. The spirits of racism and white supremacy in America have trained authorities that the black man should be treated as a threat and the white man should be given a pass.

Fortunately, the would-be Trump assassin did not succeed, although a family man took the bullet and died. Trump, shot across the top of his right ear, escaped serious injury and was given a hero’s welcome at the Republican National Convention. In an iconic photo seen around the world, he pumped his fist seconds after the shooting, shouting to the crowd, “fight, fight, fight!”

But fight for what?

Ironically, it has been Trump himself who has been a ringleader in fanning the fumes of racism and white supremacy in America.

And most recently, during the CNN debate against President Joe Biden, he referred to “black jobs”, apparently espousing a stereotype that he has yet to explain.

Thankfully, Trump survived the assassination attempt. But the fact is that the so-far-unrepentant former president was nearly killed by the same evil that he has helped to perpetuate.

Hazel Trice Edney

Editor-in-chief

Trice Edney News Wire