By Larry Elder
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who spoke at the Republican National Convention, declined to bring murder charges against the three white officers involved in the tragic shooting of Louisville’s Breonna Taylor, a black woman.
Contrary to the public assertion made by a Taylor family lawyer, Cameron, who is black, said the Louisville police did not go to the wrong address when executing a search warrant. Nor was Taylor shot and killed in her bed, as also publicly asserted by the family lawyer. Ben Crump, a spokesman and defense attorney for the Taylor family, falsely claimed the police went to the wrong address. And in a statement full of inaccuracies, Crump, who negotiated a $12 million settlement with Louisville, said, “Taylor and her boyfriend were asleep in their apartment when Louisville policemen burst into the home without warning using a battering ram, in search of a suspect who was already in their custody.”
Cameron carefully, methodically, and with sensitivity to the Taylor family reviewed the evidence and explained why the law and facts did not warrant murder charges, however massive the intensity of the public’s passion for charges. Cameron said: “Evidence shows that officers both knocked and announced their presence at the apartment. The officers’ statements about their announcement are corroborated by an independent witness who was near, in a proximity to apartment four. . . . When officers were unable to get anyone to answer or open the door to apartment four, the decision was made to breach the door.” A man inside the apartment fired, striking an officer, and the officers returned fire, killing Taylor by accident.
The anger over Cameron’s decision was fierce, ugly, and personal. At a press conference arranged by the Taylor family attorney, Tamika Mallory, cofounder of the Women’s March, said: “I thought about the ships that went into Fort Monroe and Jamestown with our people on them over 400 years ago and how there were also black men on those ships that were responsible for bringing our people over here.”
“Daniel Cameron is no different than the sellout Negroes that sold our people into slavery and helped white men to capture our people, to abuse them, and to traffic them while our women were raped, while our men were raped by savages.” Sophia A. Nelson, who often appears as a pundit on CNN, tweeted: “Uncle Tom. Step & fetch Negro. The end.”
But perhaps the viciousness award goes to retired Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Cheryl Dorsey, who said: “Let me say this as a black woman: He does not speak for black folks. He’s skin-folk, but he is not kinfolk. And so just like he thinks they can’t speak for Kentucky because he’s up there with a black face, he does not speak for all of us. This was not a tragedy. This was a murder. He should be ashamed of himself.”
Cameron is also being attacked because he is not only a black Republican but also a black Republican who spoke passionately at the Republican National Convention in support of President Donald Trump. About the opposition to him because he is a black Republican, Cameron once tweeted: “Yesterday, a liberal attorney said I should stop eating ‘coon flakes’ in a Courier Journal interview. I am a proud lifelong Republican, part of a diverse Kentucky GOP ticket, and yes, I support Donald Trump. It’s time to stop telling black Americans what we’re allowed to believe.”
Women’s March co-founder Mallory and Dorsey are exactly why I produced the documentary “Uncle Tom,” which addresses the attacks against black conservatives for the crime of thinking differently.*
“Uncle Tom” asks simple questions: Are blacks free to think for themselves? Black conservatives support low taxes, strong borders, choice in public schools. They want to reevaluate the welfare state on the grounds that it destabilizes the American family, no matter the race. Can a black conservative advocate for school choice and debate its merit without being dismissed as a black conservative “sellout” for supporting choice? Are blacks allowed to hold conservative views without being eviscerated by the Mallorys and the Dorseys as self-loathers, coconuts, Oreos, “Uncle Toms,” and other names unfit for family consumption?
The New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet, who is black, once admitted, “The left, as a rule, does not want to hear thoughtful disagreement.” Well, the black left doesn’t believe that there is such a thing called thoughtful disagreement—at least not thoughtful disagreement with a black conservative.
*The film, now available on iTunes, Amazon Prime and Roku, has received a 9.4 rating on IMDb and a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Larry Elder is an American libertarian talk radio host, author, and attorney who hosts “The Larry Elder Show.” He is also a columnist with Creators Syndicate. He can be reached via Instagram at instagram.com/larryeldershow/ and can be found on Twitter at @larryelder. See also www.LarryElder.com.
