By: Gregory Kane, BlackAmericaWeb.com
What black folks in America need right now is an unofficial - or even official - Squash-The-Beef Squad, says Gregory Kane.
Squash-the-Beef
(Thursday, September 01, 2011) ... In the early morning hours of June 5, 2010, when the paths of Brown and Tshamba crossed, nobody stepped up to squash the beef. More than anything, that’s what black folks in America need right now: An unofficial - or even official - Squash The Beef Squad. Fact is, we need several hundred. At this precise moment, we’re all upset – and rightly so – about the death of 49-year-old James Anderson down in Mississippi. A couple of deranged, homicidal white boys murdered Anderson, and, judging from how the black blogosphere has reacted, you’d think death-by-hands-of-white-racists was the most common way that young black men get dispatched from this world to the next. It isn’t.
When the manner of death is homicide, most black men, young and otherwise, die at the hands of other black men. And the situations leading to those deaths are much like the one that led to Tyrone Brown’s. Tshamba was out nightclubbing with a lady friend. Brown was out nightclubbing with his sister, Chantay Kangalee, and a lady friend. As Brown, his sister and the lady friend left one nightclub, they came up behind Tshamba’s lady friend. Brown, drunk, either grabbed or patted Tshamba’s lady friend on the behind. She turned around and slapped him. According to Kangalee’s testimony in a Baltimore court earlier this summer, Brown said something like, “My bad, shorty,” apologized and then tried to proceed on his way.
It was at this point that the lady friend, instead of trying to de-escalate the beef, decided to escalate it. According to Kangalee, she turned to Tshamba and asked him what HE planned to do about Brown patting her behind. At that point, Tshamba went into full-blown macho idiocy mode. Tshamba pulled out a handgun and dared Brown to repeat his act. He then ordered Brown to get on the ground. Why? Oh, that’s the most controversial part of this story. At the time, Tshamba was an off-duty Baltimore City cop. Kangalee testified that her brother tried to reason with Tshamba, in an attempt to ratchet down the beef. But Tshamba could not or would not be swayed from his stupid, homicidal course of action. He ended up firing 14 fatal shots into Brown.
Apparently, not one of the many witnesses to this sorry spectacle tried to tone down the beef themselves, or call on-duty cops who hadn’t imbibed as much booze as Tshamba. If they had, one black man’s life could have been saved, and the other wouldn’t be sitting in prison.
That, dear BAW readers, is how most murdered black men die. But are our priorities aimed at getting us to intervene and try to end beefs between black men? Oh no, not us. We’re too busy worried about white racism, mean old Republicans and Tea Partiers. We want to talk about who’s an Uncle Tom, a sellout, a Sambo, a handkerchief head. We want to talk about Willie Lynch and his fictional letter. We want to talk about anything and everything except how to get black men to stop killing each other. And it’s as simple as getting them to end these stupid beefs, before they start, if possible.
Here’s another story of a stupid beef between black men that ended in death, but this one’s more famous. Maybe you’ve heard of it.
In early ...
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles...
When the manner of death is homicide, most black men, young and otherwise, die at the hands of other black men. And the situations leading to those deaths are much like the one that led to Tyrone Brown’s. Tshamba was out nightclubbing with a lady friend. Brown was out nightclubbing with his sister, Chantay Kangalee, and a lady friend. As Brown, his sister and the lady friend left one nightclub, they came up behind Tshamba’s lady friend. Brown, drunk, either grabbed or patted Tshamba’s lady friend on the behind. She turned around and slapped him. According to Kangalee’s testimony in a Baltimore court earlier this summer, Brown said something like, “My bad, shorty,” apologized and then tried to proceed on his way.
It was at this point that the lady friend, instead of trying to de-escalate the beef, decided to escalate it. According to Kangalee, she turned to Tshamba and asked him what HE planned to do about Brown patting her behind. At that point, Tshamba went into full-blown macho idiocy mode. Tshamba pulled out a handgun and dared Brown to repeat his act. He then ordered Brown to get on the ground. Why? Oh, that’s the most controversial part of this story. At the time, Tshamba was an off-duty Baltimore City cop. Kangalee testified that her brother tried to reason with Tshamba, in an attempt to ratchet down the beef. But Tshamba could not or would not be swayed from his stupid, homicidal course of action. He ended up firing 14 fatal shots into Brown.
Apparently, not one of the many witnesses to this sorry spectacle tried to tone down the beef themselves, or call on-duty cops who hadn’t imbibed as much booze as Tshamba. If they had, one black man’s life could have been saved, and the other wouldn’t be sitting in prison.
That, dear BAW readers, is how most murdered black men die. But are our priorities aimed at getting us to intervene and try to end beefs between black men? Oh no, not us. We’re too busy worried about white racism, mean old Republicans and Tea Partiers. We want to talk about who’s an Uncle Tom, a sellout, a Sambo, a handkerchief head. We want to talk about Willie Lynch and his fictional letter. We want to talk about anything and everything except how to get black men to stop killing each other. And it’s as simple as getting them to end these stupid beefs, before they start, if possible.
Here’s another story of a stupid beef between black men that ended in death, but this one’s more famous. Maybe you’ve heard of it.
In early ...
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles...
