A freshman Ivy Leaguer believes an imaginary occurrence was racially/culturally appropriated during Los Angeles’s version of the March 23 “March For Our Lives,” and she manages to botch a few other facts as well.
Writing in The Daily Princetonian, Madeleine Marr is unhappy that the predominantly white crowd at the LA march made use of the phrase “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” … especially since “the concepts implicit in this slogan, of police brutality and antipathy for young black lives, are not a pressing concern” for them.
“This slogan originated after the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.,” Marr writes, “after some accounts contended that Brown had his hands in the air when he was shot by a Ferguson police officer.”
There are two main issues here. First, Michael Brown wasn’t murdered. “Murder” has a specific definition — “the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought.” The officer who shot Brown, Darren Wilson, was cleared of any wrongdoing by local and federal investigators.
Marr is yet another undergraduate continuing the misuse of the term in this case. Following Brown’s shooting and death, The College Fix documented no fewer than 15 student paper accounts which had used “murder” or similar terms (like “execution”) to describe Brown’s death.
Second, to bolster her contention that “some accounts” claimed Brown had his hands up, Marr writes that Officer Wilson’s trial “did not conclusively prove” where Brown’s hands actually were … and links to an early January 2015 CNN story.
Marr ought to sneak a peek at Washington Post/MSNBC (liberal) pundit Jonathan Capehart’s piece (among others) from two months later, making special note of the title: “‘Hands up, don’t shoot’ was built on a lie.”
The Princeton frosh then cleverly segues to how “Hands Up” became — facts aside — a “rallying call” for Black Lives Matter and associated movements. Which also sounds familiar.
Finally, Marr refers to the “shocking number of recent school shootings” of late, and how she saw a youngster at a march carrying a sign reading “When I said I’d rather die than go to math class, I didn’t mean it literally.”
Fortunately for that kid (and despite the author’s hyperbole) the facts show that school shootings are “incredibly rare events.”
MORE: ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ narrative contradicted by autopsy
MORE: College students nationwide protest Ferguson decision
IMAGE: minusequalsplus/Flickr
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