Ben Shapiro - True Allegiance

All Levon needed was the cue.

He’d discussed the cue ahead of time with the reverend. It would come on television, during a press conference Big Jim planned to hold with the mayor in the aftermath of the Kendrick Malone killing. The killing of another young, innocent black man at the hands of the racist white establishment. The police targeting a kid—an unarmed kid, for God’s sake!—just because he happened to be black and happened to be out at night at the wrong time.

That shooting had worked out precisely according to the plan.

Levon had one of his boys give little Kendrick a $20 bill to go and harass the cop. Kendrick, of course, thought it was just a piece of good, clean fun—messing with white cops was a rare joy, made you feel like more of a man. And with all the big boys telling him how he’d be a boss in the neighborhood if he baited the cop, he’d been enthusiastic. He probably looked forward to coming home and telling his buddies how he’d told that cracker ass pig to go to hell—stared right at him and cursed him to his face, made the pig back down. Kendrick knew he was supposed to go for his toy gun. They told him it would be a joke, that the cop wouldn’t do anything, that the cop would pussy out.

Of course, Levon knew better. No cop could sit still when somebody went for the waistband. Police procedure dictated what happened next.

Levon made sure of one other thing, too: the only working camera at the gas station had the right angle. No sound. Stark spotlight on the two main characters. The blood, black in the black-and-white footage, seeping from the poor black boy. O’Sullivan sitting down, stunned. The other cameras, he’d had smashed or deactivated. One angle, one tape, one million replays on nightly news.

The headline writers couldn’t help themselves. “8-YEAR-OLD UNARMED BLACK BOY SHOT DEAD BY WHITE COP,” blared the Free Press . “MURDERER!” screamed the headline on the New York Daily News . CNN headlined the case the entire day, and the next one as well. Over on MSNBC, the talking heads could barely conceal their excitement. On Fox News, a few anchors urged caution while others talked of the legacy of racist policing across the country.

The president of the United States quickly sounded off on the case. He couldn’t help himself; Mark Prescott hijacked his White House press secretary’s gaggle, took to the podium, and told Americans that “the time has come for a great racial conversation in this country. Too many black boys have been murdered merely for the color of their skin. This must end.” He announced that he would be sending his attorney general to Detroit to ensure that the local investigation proceeded according to law. “We’ll ensure that justice is done for the family of Kendrick Malone. This is America, where there’s justice enough for everybody, if we have the bravery to pursue it.”

And now Levon waited.

He waited outside Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, named after the former mayor of the city—a man who’d been a racial pro in his own right. Fitting that old Coleman could make one more sacrifice in the name of racial justice. He’d be doing that tonight, if all went according to plan.

Before them stood an imposing wall, in front of which knelt a statue, the Spirit of Detroit—a twenty-five-foot-tall loincloth-clad man carrying a golden sphere with rays emanating from it in one hand, and a small family in the other hand. Levon had never known what the statue was supposed to mean; it just looked like a constipated Nordic Man to him. On the wall a large inscription from Corinthians read: “NOW THE LORD IS THAT SPIRIT; AND WHERE THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS HERE IS LIBERTY.”

Horseshit , thought Levon.

Behind Levon stood a solid three thousand of his fellow Detroiters, mostly young black men. Levon had sent out his boys to round up the crowd, and they’d had an easy time of it after the media coverage. Facing the crowd, protecting the statue and a platform set up just before it, stood about a hundred cops.

Levon noticed a particular lack of weapons. He smiled to himself.

Media members surrounded the crowd, cameras at the ready, interviewing the odd protester here or there. He knew that a few media members would get hurt tonight—that’s the way it had to be. A couple of reporters getting caught in the melee just showed that the mob was serious. If they were too well behaved, the media would dismiss them. A bit of blood got them hot under the collar. A bit of blood made the story hot. The way the media worked, the only way they’d pay attention was if somebody did something extreme—and then they’d defend the action, blame it on overriding anger at an unfair society. Levon knew a few of the journalists from U of M. They’d done the same thing back in their university days. Made them feel good about themselves, less ensconced in white privilege.

Levon had his men ringing the edges of the crowd, ready to prevent any non-approved persons from getting too close to the media members. No footage of fools, he’d promised the reverend.

And he intended to keep his word. Tonight, Levon intended to be the face on the news. Already, he’d done his best Malcolm X impression—early Malcolm, not that late-stage “Islam means peace” pussy shit—for the networks. “If we don’t get what we want,” he said, “if we don’t get justice for Kendrick, this city is going to burn. We’ve been burning silently for too long. Our poverty burns beneath the surface. Our ignorance burns beneath the surface. We’ve been left for dead in this city, just like black boys have been left for dead all over this country. And this country must pay a price, if there is no justice.”

The sexy blonde with the short skirt seemed turned on at that point. Breathily, she asked, “And what will justice look like?”

So he threw in a line just for good measure: “Justice will be done when people like you live in the mud you’ve made for us. Only then can we lift each other up.”

Her eyelashes fluttered. That shit was magic, Levon knew. He’d learned it at the university, too. White coeds majoring in journalism were a cinch. Just drag them off their civilized perch and let them experience life outside their self-proclaimed white privilege, and they let you know that you’d be doing them a favor.

Levon glanced at his watch. 6:34. The mayor and the reverend were four minutes late. Good. Let the crowd get antsy. Let them get nervous and enraged. They’d need that energy. Bored crowds were the ones that turned the most violent when the gun sounded.

For now, they remained ominously silent. No banners. No signs. Just thousands of strong young black men and women—mostly men—ready to stand together against injustice. That’s what the media would see—and the truth was that many of these young black men were ready to do that. All they knew was that they’d dealt with white asshole cops before, that their neighborhoods were full of crack and booze and poverty, and that somebody needed to fix things. And if nobody understood that, well, it was time to make them understand.

That time was now.

From behind the wall, the mayor emerged. Beside him stood Reverend Crawford, looking as solemn as Judgment Day. He spotted Levon in the crowd; Levon gave him an almost imperceptible nod. The reverend looked away.

The mayor was at the lectern now. Behind him sat Nordic Man, awaiting his words along with the rest of the world.

Mayor Jimmy Burns had a history with the city of Detroit. He’d grown up there, worked at one of the local law firms, become alderman, and then taken over for the last mayor after a corruption beef put him in prison for the duration of his term. He’d tried, with minor success, to push some reforms, most controversially staffing up the police department. That reform had failed when the DOJ consent decree came through. Crime had blasted through the roof under his administration, just as it had under his predecessors.