The dead black teen Sharpton et al. aren’t talking about
Friday, June 15, 2012 at 8:12AM 
Stephen King, 18, is one of two men charged in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Antwand Covington. (Photo: Metro Nashville Police Dept./News Release via Facebook)On Saturday night, Antwand Covington headed to a Sweet 16 party on Wesleyville Street in Nashville. At 17, the black teenager, like millions of other teens across the nation, was just going out for some weekend fun.
Antwand got to the party, but he didn’t get to have a good time. Almost as soon as he got there, someone pulled a gun. A bullet hit Antwand. Friends took him to the hospital, but he didn’t survive.
The best the suspect could do after the cops rounded him up was to tell them he didn’t mean to shoot Antwand—the actual target was someone else.
Two 18 year old men who are also black face criminal homicide charges.
MSNBC didn’t cover Covington’s death. Nor did USA Today, The New York Times or any other major outlet. Al Sharpton didn’t show up to level race-based accusations. The New Black Panther Party didn’t make a hate speech.
President Barack Obama didn’t take to the podium to tell the nation that if he’d had a son, he would’ve looked like Antwand.
Advocates for good nutrition and exercise for youth won’t show up to talk about what happened to the Nashville teen.
An article published in 2010 at New American Media addressed a crisis that has grown worse with time, quoting an editorial written by Chicago Sun-Times columnist John W. Fountain who said, “[Y]oung black men have become their own worst enemy.”
Fountain wrote:
“The Tuskegee Institute in Alabama recorded 3,446 lynchings of blacks from 1882 to 1968 — the toll of 86 years…The toll of Blacks murdered in Chicago alone over 18 years, from 1991 to 2009: nearly 9,500, and counting.”
The NAM article also said, “In Philadelphia from 2006 to 2009 there were 1,196 Black men killed by other Black men, according to Police Department statistics.”
Antwand had a Facebook page listing more than 1,200 ‘friends.’ He liked the TV show Family Guy, the L.A. Lakers Basketball team, and cooking and fishing. He was a recent graduate of Hillsboro High School. At a vigil where friends and family gathered on Monday, they said Antwand was “well-liked.”
His nickname was “Twan.”
(Commentary by Kay B. Day/June 15, 2012)
Reader Comments (6)
Thank you for letting us know about this. It is almost criminal the way the mainstream press ignores true crime when it doesn't fit their agenda. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have shown their true color many times over and if there isn't anyway they can make the green then they don't make the comment.
If you look at those numbers, it's almost like self-inflicted genocide. Just once I'd like to hear leaders tell young people of all races and creeds--Don't kill. Those 10 commandments make a lot of sense sometimes. Thank you for commenting.--Best, Kay
Yes Kay it would be wonderful to hear leaders tell all young people - Don't kill, rob, rape, bully etc. It would also be so wonderful to just see people as people and not have to identify them as black, white, yellow, red. That is so hard to do when there are people like Sharpton, Jackson and Obama who want to divide people for their own agenda. Yes Kay those 10 commandments make a lot of sense. Thanks for your efforts in trying to bring light into a sometimes dark world.
Terence, we can hope some of these so-called "leaders" will step up to the plate and say something that really matters. best, Kay
his funeral was today n they got to shooting at the funeral whats with the world
You're not serious, are you? I'll have to check that out. I hope that didn't happen. Thank you for sharing that--best, KBD