Are all murders by blacks now “random”?

Aditya B. writes:

Someone needs to get a dictionary for these reporters. I don’t think they understand the meaning of the word “random.”

The Daily Mail has a story about a black man who shot a man, described as a “rapper” “execution style,” in broad daylight, with a get-away car at the ready. Based on the reported facts, it appears to have been a carefully planned gangland execution.

Yet the Daily Mail describes the murder as a “random act of violence.”

How the heck could it be random act of violence? Isn’t it a clear example of a premeditated act of violence, aimed at a particular individual whom the killer wanted dead? And isn’t that the opposite of “random?”

Are these reporters sub-literate? Or has some alternative definition of “random” become standard English on both sides of the Pond? An expression which means, well, I don’t exactly know what it means. Just a random way of using “random,” I guess.

LA replies:

As I’ve often discussed, “random” is generally used to described black-on-white violence. In such crimes the perpetrator is not acquainted with the victim beforehand, and this gives the media the cover to call it “random.” In fact, the attacker chose the victim because he was white, because he looked weak and defenseless, or because she was a good-looking woman walking alone, and so on. But as long as the perp didn’t know the victim, the media calls it random, even though these acts were premeditated. They may have been premeditated thirty seconds before the act, but they were still premeditated.

Meanwhile, most black-on-black violence is between people who know each other. Therefore it is not “random.”

So what we have in this article is new: the use of “random” for an execution-style killing of a black victim by a black killer. Why did the Daily Mail do this? Here’s my explanation. “Random” is used so routinely in association with acts of violence by blacks (against whites), that the reporter automatically applied the word “random” to a completely different kind of murder. Somehow, in the machine located inside his skull, the word “random” simply belongs with the phrase “act of violence.” There was no thought involved at all. It’s like when people refer to Nelson Mandela as an “African-American.” They are so accustomed to calling blacks “African-Americans” that they use the term for all blacks, without realizing what they’re saying. I’ve previously mentioned how a liberal woman who had recently visited Norway enthusiastically told me about the many “African-Americans” she saw there.

Applied liberalism largely consists of the mindless use of stock phrases—“racist whites,” “extremist Republicans,” “greedy bankers,” “war against women,” etc. But once such mindlessness becomes a deeply ingrained and socially mandated habit, it doesn’t stop with its original intended purpose of advancing liberal attitudes, but keeps spreading until it becomes a total, all-embracing mindlessness. We thus end up with “random” gangland executions and South African “African-Americans.”

Alternatively there could be a more sinister explanation for the use of “random” in this instance. Perhaps the liberal media want all acts of violence, or least all acts of violence by blacks, to be perceived as random. That way people will not blame any black violence on blacks. Black violence is just something that happens, with no responsible agent to be held accountable for it.

LA continues:

The Daily Mail article when I read it yesterday included the phrase “random act of violence,” or something close to that, as Aditya reports. However, when I looked at the story again today before posting this entry the phrase was no longer there. Evidently the paper had removed it, realizing how ridiculous it was. But the paper left a trail: commenters below the article point out that the murder doesn’t seem like a random act of violence. Obviously they were responding to the article as originally posted. The paper did not think to remove those incriminating comments.

- end of initial entry -

Karl D. writes:

As someone who reads the Daily Mail almost every day I can tell you that many of the reporters and editors there are complete dolts. I agree with everything you said regarding the word “random” and its misuse. But I have seen errors at the Mail that are so egregious that it makes you wonder if they hire middle school students. I am not just talking about spelling errors, but getting wrong everyday common sense things that anyone who has drawn breath for more than twenty years would know!

LA replies:

I’ve noticed the same. Over the last year in particular, it has become an incredibly sloppy paper that seems to be written and edited by idiots.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 11, 2012 11:12 AM | Send