OPINION:
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Move over, Charlie Brown. Looks like it’s going to be a Michael Brown Christmas this year.
The smell of roasted chestnuts and sounds of holiday cheer around Rockefeller Center were drowned out by angry protesters throwing their hands in the air shouting, “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” Never mind Michael Brown was actually in a full linebacker rush to sack Officer Darren Wilson when he was shot in the top of the head, according to witnesses and forensic evidence.
Don’t let actual facts ruin a good jingle for this year’s Michael Brown Christmas Special.
Parents and children in the City of Brotherly Love, meanwhile, were furious when their Christmas celebration at 30th Street Train Station was hijacked by a “die-in,” where protesters curl up on the floor and pretend to be dead. Only, unlike the merciful dead, these people don’t shut up. Their chants and bullhorns and noisemakers drowned out the children’s choir on stage that had spent weeks practicing to sing carols for the Christmas tree lighting.
“All these young folks down here, they practice, they put on a good show, and they drown them out with a siren,” said one man, who happened to be black. “Why can’t they protest somewhere else?”
SEE ALSO: Eric Garner case: Obama commends NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio for nonviolent protests
In Philadelphia, brotherly love only goes one way.
The miscreants claiming to want peace and justice also unplugged the Christmas tree lights and sprayed graffiti on presents and decorations, including Santa’s sleigh.
Peace and justice, it turns out, is reserved only for those who steal boxes of cigars, rough up store clerks, jaywalk down the middle of the street and attempt to strip a cop of his service weapon. Then charge at him.
Choir children with sugar plums dancing in their head as they prepare for Christmas? Forget about it.
In Missouri, which is like the Bethlehem of this Messiah story, white students were told they could not participate in a “die-in” protest on the university campus. Sorry, blacks only.
Maybe here in America we really haven’t moved beyond the Jim Crow laws. Oh wait, protesters have never heard of them.
SEE ALSO: Obama, first family light National Christmas Tree as demonstrators gather
But whatever you do this holiday season, don’t make the mistake of dreaming of a white Christmas. And if you accidentally do have that dream, don’t tell anyone. Even your therapist. Because that makes you a racist.
Back in New York City, Darius Rucker, formerly lead singer for popular college band Hootie and the Blowfish, got excoriated over social media for singing ’White Christmas’ during the Rockefeller Square Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony. Mr. Rucker is, of course, black. Which, apparently, made it all the worse.
Don’t ask. Just shut up and sing.
“Hands up! Don’t shoot!” Oh, what fun this is!
• Charles Hurt can be reached at charleshurt@live.com, and on Twitter at @charleshurt.com.
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