I wonder if the perpetrators who attacked and chased three Black men yesterday morning in Howard Beach, Queens,, inadvertently saved their lives. The article says that the three Black victims were in the all white (.1% Black) neighborhood to steal a car. I don't know if that is true, because the article has a number of problems, including vagueness about the primary victim's military status, and the amount of time it takes to walk a couple of blocks. Plus it doesn't matter if it is true. As the D.A. keeps repeating, at the time of the incident, they had not committed a crime.

Leaving all of that aside, supposing the victims had managed to attempt a car theft. What if one of the newly "tolerant" residents of Howard Beach had caught them. I say "tolerant", because the supplementary article demonstrates that the residents are anything but. One woman asked, " "But what was he doing here at three in the morning, robbing?", as if the only thing they could have been up to was crime.

(The alleged intent on the part of the three men to commit a crime in Howard Beach is currently under dispute, and, regardless, THEY HAD NOT COMMITTEd A CRIME SIMPLY BY BEING IN HOWARD BEACH). The owners of automobiles that the victims might have tried to steal, might have had weapons. They sure sound like the kind of people who have weapons, even if those weapons, rather than unlicensed firearms, are baseball bats or knives. The three men could have been killed or severely wounded. As it was, they were chased, and terrorized. But so far, all three are alive.

So we can thank the boy whose picture is featured beneath that of the victim's. If he hadn't attacked Glen Moore, and almost killed him, all three of the victims might be dead. The perp does look terrifying. And it's about time the photographs of white perps or alleged perps, were shown with as much frequency as those of alleged Black perps and generic Black perps, were throughout the 80's and 90's (often, they weren't perps at all but simply - in the wrong place at the wrong time).

.1% Black is even a smaller Black population than the mostly white Berkshires, and the tiny city of Pittsfield, which is about 3% Black. Pittsfield is a city with an all white, Christian Administration and a community that still calls new Americans - "foreigners." Queens is part of a city with a wonderfully broad, multi-ethnic city government and a lady in the harbor who welcomes everyone. Queens itself is the most diverse immigrant community in the world. Note however, that most of its diversity does not come from the presence of African-Americans. So what on earth is Howard Beach? Scary as Hell. Narrow places always are.

To top it all off, apparently Mayor Bloomberg felt that he needed to call Al Sharpton, "Late last night, the Rev. Al Sharpton said that he had received a call from Mr. Bloomberg, assuring him that the city "would not tolerate" racial attacks, if this case proved to be one." Why does he need to call Al Sharpton? Or, as Bob Herbert more ably puts it, "How is it possible that Al Sharpton is the most widely known Black leader in the U.S.A.?" It is not necessary at the moment to trot out all of the vile things that Sharpton has said in the service of galvanizing his constituency. Suffice to say that he has used hate and prejudice to cull mis-guided support for his wily platforms.

Mayor Bloomberg should have called a press conference instead, to inform all New Yorkers, especially those feeling the chill of memory from the earlier Howard Beach incident, that he gives a damn about race matters, racial hatred, racial prejudice, and the breeding grounds for such illnesses that still exist in New York. If he wants to call someone - he should call the families of the victims.