Former Florida Rep. Allen West had some harsh words for nationally known civil rights activists like the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton, who have remained silent on a video showing black teens beating a white boy on a school bus.
“Three 15-year-old black teens beat up a 13-year-old white kid because he told school officials they tried to sell him drugs,” Mr. West said, earlier this week, Sunshine State News reported. “Do you hear anything from Sharpton, Jackson, NAACP. Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, liberal media or Hollywood? Cat got your tongues, or is it that pathetic hypocrisy revealing itself once again? Ya’ll just make me sick.”
Breitbart News caught up with Mr. Jackson at Chicago’s annual Bud Billiken Back-to-School Parade on Saturday to let him explain why he chose to fight for justice for Trayvon Martin and not the boy who was beaten.
“It’s hard to make a comparison,” he told Breitbart. “In one case a man was unarmed, killed by another man. Last year a hundred and thirty five blacks were killed, black men, unarmed, killed by vigilantes, police, killed by security guards, so whether it’s the case of Oakland, Calif., or the case in New York, it’s just too much of it. Wherever it occurs, it must always be discouraged; there must be a deterrent from it occurring. We must urge people to live in civilized ways.”
Surveillance video of the July 9 attack on a Pinellas County school bus shows three black teenage boys, all age 15, beating a white boy. The boy suffered a broken arm and two black eyes. The three 15-year-olds, identified in Sunshine State News as Joshua Reddin, Julian McKnight and Lloyd Khemradj, were later caught by police and charged with aggravated battery.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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