Oh, look what just happened again.

Yesterday, when writing about the supposedly "radical" idea that the US legal system in inherently racist, I referred to the Oscar Grant murder case. Oscar Grant, a black man, was a passenger on San Francisco's BART transit system who had been accused of being involved in a fight on the train. BART police officers responding to the incident violently restrained Grant, and once they had him restrained, lying face-down on the ground with another officer kneeling on his neck, Officer Johannes Mehserle, a white man, drew his service weapon and shot Grant in the back. For the crime of shooting an unarmed, restrained man in the back, Officer Mehserle was convicted of "involuntary manslaughter" and sentenced to two years in prison, minus time served.

I cited this case as an example of racism in the legal system. One can only imagine the sentence if a black man shot an unarmed and restrained white man in the back. I said at the time that it was kind of a cheap shot, but wait a minute, look what just happened again:

Trayvon "Trey" Martin, 17, of Miami was visiting relatives living in a gated community in Sanford, Florida. He had just left a local 7-11 after buying a snack and was on his way home around 7:00 PM on February 26. George Zimmerman, a 26-year-old member of the local neighborhood watch, saw Martin and called police to report a suspicious man in the community. He tailed Martin in his car. He had a loaded pistol on him. The police told Zimmerman they would handle it.

For some reason, Zimmerman didn't obey. Minutes later, a number of local residents called police to report a fight. A gunshot was heard. Martin died 70 yards from the house he was staying in. Zimmerman was arrested and then released. He was carrying the pistol legally and has claimed that he was acting in self-defense.

...

"Zimmerman, an adult, had a gun. Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old, had Skittles. No way you can say self-defense," said the family's attorney, Benjamin Crump.

We'll see what, if anything, eventually happens to Mr. Zimmerman. But don't get any radical ideas about racism existing or anything.

"Radical"

So the latest garbage to spew from the twitching undead corpse of the Breatbart defamation empire is an effort to "vet President Obama." On the theory that after spending two years as a US Senator and presumptive presidential candidate, six months as the primary target of the Clinton political machine, six months as a major party nominee for President, three months as President-Elect, and two years as actual President of the United States, no one before has ever thought to look into his background.

Their latest revelation is that once, twenty years ago, when he was a student at Harvard, he introduced Harvard professor Derrick Bell at a rally on campus. I don't really have any substantive response to any of that, Breitbart didn't even deserve substantive responses back when he was still alive, but I was struck by a passage in this article from the Heritage Institute. The author has discovered that that self-same Professor Derrick Bell, or at least someone with the self-same name as Professor Derrick Bell, visited the White House in January 2010. In his post he describes Prof. Bell and his views several times as "controversial," but doesn't explain any of those views until the final paragraph, which includes this statement:

Bell is widely credited with pioneering the field of Critical Race Theory, a radical school of legal thought that holds that the American legal and political systems are inherently racist.

"Radical."

Hmm.

Is the US legal system inherently racist? Well, consider this:

• What percentage of prison inmates in the US are African-American?
• What percentage of death-row inmates in the US are African-American?
• What percentage of white cops caught on video murdering African-American men are convicted? Okay, cheap shot, but come on.
• How do the sentences given to white and black defendants accused of similar crimes compare?
• How do the conviction rates of white and black defendants accused of similar crimes compare?

Is the US political system inherently racist? Well, consider this:

• What percentage of Senators are African-American? Oh, I know this one: Zero.
• What percentage of all Congressional representatives are African-American? 7.7%
• How many African-American senators have there ever been in the history of the United States? Six.
• What percentage of US Presidents have been African-American? 2.2%
• What percentage of US Supreme Court justices have been African-American? 1.8%

And yet it's considered radical to suggest that the US legal and political systems are inherently racist? Really? I thought it was common knowledge that the US legal and political systems were inherently racist.

But I guess not in ConservaWorld.