Strong Children or Broken Men

Thoughts In the Wake of the Karmelo Anthony Verdict and Sentence

“It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

~Frederick Douglass

Everyone is weighing in on the Karmelo Anthony verdict and I wasn’t going to add my voice to the melée. But it got me thinking about something no one seems to be talking about. I started to write it as a Note here on Substack, but I had more to say than I thought, so here I am with this Post.

I survey the spectacle playing out across our country and all over the internet following the Karmelo Anthony conviction, and I feel nothing but deep sadness. I do genuinely feel terribly sorry for Anthony. He threw his promising life away for nothing, and took Austin Metcalf’s from him. Why does a boy carry a knife to a track meet? Why does he reach for it so quickly, at the first hint of conflict—a conflict he might have walked away from, had he known how. Well, he didn’t, and he took a young man’s life. He will have to live with that forever. It’s a tragedy. But, he had no right to do what he did.

Those shrieking racism and injustice over the verdict and sentencing—including elected representatives in the government—are doing young black men like Anthony, nay, all young men in this culture an injustice. They’re teaching them neither accountability, nor honor. They’re not expecting from them self respect and self control. Quite the contrary, they’re teaching them that the crimes they may commit, especially the emotional, bestial, out of control crimes, will always be justified, excused, even rewarded. Whether that’s because of “systemic racism,” or “white privilege,” or fatuous and dangerous ideas like “words are violence” (which is simply a justification for actual violence), they are not responsible, and any penalty they face for their actions can only be unjust persecution motivated by racism. What kind of mentality develops in a young person who’s told their bad behavior is justified, and if punished for it they’re the victim? I think I can imagine. The word ‘despair’ comes to mind.

Whether a young man is black, white or other, it is the duty of their parents, teachers, coaches, ministers, to teach them the kind of self respect and responsibility to behave in ways that demonstrate respect for their families, for their own futures; that inspire them to conduct themselves with restraint—especially in moments of high emotion, to manage conflict in a mature way. When they make mistakes, catastrophic ones, there are consequences, not excuses. This has very little, if anything, to do with race, and when people make it about that, regardless of the circumstances and facts of the case, it’s irresponsible. It sends the message that very little is expected of young men, and when they live up to those low expectations, their failure is someone else’s fault. So, act out, fail, dishonor yourself and your name, and, when you’re caught at it and punished, it’s because the system is racist, the jury had no black faces in it, the game is rigged against you.

Karmelo Anthony will sit in prison for at least seventeen years, perhaps believing that he’s the one who’s been wronged; that he’s the victim. Worst of all, he’s being taught a heavy, soul crushing cynicism by the very people who should be helping him find grace by coming to accept the terrible wrong he committed, endure his time of imprisonment by atoning and learning how to be a better man when he is released. Karmelo Anthony has something Austin Metcalf no longer has: a life ahead of him. Those using him to excuse their rage, or who are playing race politics with this tragedy for their own venal ends, to stoke further conflict, lawlessness and inhumanity—I guarantee you, these people are not practicing what is preached to them on Sundays. They are not using strong love—the kind of love that expects the highest and best from Karmelo and from other young men like him. Men prepared to be adults in a free society. Those who howl Anthony’s victimhood, excusing his crime, are sentencing him to something far worse than the imprisonment awaiting him; they’re condemning him to cynicism and powerlessness, a place of such darkness that will make true rehabilitation and the possibility of redemption impossible. The “adults,” the so-called leaders who are exploiting this horrific tragedy will be entirely to blame for that. And I guarantee you—once Karmelo is behind bars, they won’t give him another thought.