White Boy Kills Four, Injures Many, Gets Probation

Sixteen-year-old Ethan Couch,  while driving his wealthy dad’s truck home from a party he had attended, and with a blood alcohol level 3 times above the legal limit,  slammed into a group of people on the side of the road,  killing them instantly and also injuring several passengers  who were in the vehicle he was driving. One of them will be paralyzed for life.
 
What a tragedy!
 
But it isn’t the only tragedy in this tale of death.
 
The trial judge’s ruling labeled Couch a victim  also.  She didn’t say that in so many words, but by  accepting the crackpot defense that the 16-year-old suffered from something creatively described by his defense  team as Affluenza – he was a victim of his parent’s wealth  and a parenting style that set no boundaries.
 
This  white, filthy-rich boy has been sentenced to 10 years probation.  No juvenile facility detention time.  Instead he will spend one year in a fancy Newport Beach rehab center in California with a $450,000  tab the Couch family will pay.
 
Yeah, I called him a white boy and I’m only a few  sentences away from giving him the label Trayvon Martin gave  to Zimmerman when the now dead teenager reported to his  friend via cell phone that a “creepy-ass cracker” was following him.
 
But hey, this pampered and spoiled youngun doesn’t deserve to be labeled – it is the Judge who handed down this twisted  and wicked sentence.
 
So, let it be said that I have labeled the Judge  a  creepy-ass cracker.
 
You’re right that I’m mad and I’m outraged!
 
Juveniles who look like me, whose parents don’t earn  $450,000 in a lifetime, serve time for crimes like  selling drugs – not for killing and injuring others – in a  facility that’s akin to a jail – no horseback riding or gourmet cooking classes like Newport provides.
 
Somewhere in my early childhood, like other American  kids,  I was sold a faulty bill of goods that taught me to  place my right hand across the left side of my chest and  face the stars and stripes waving on the elementary  schoolyard flag pole.
 
I was made to pledge my allegiance to a country that was  “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and  justice for all.””
 
Ha ha for that one.
 
How many black boys committing  much less of a serious  crime can provide a defense based upon poverty?  None.
 
So how come this white boy can get probation based on  affluence?
 
That the black boys are poor and come from dysfunctional families has absolutely no bearing on their case, otherwise  juvenile facilities would be closed down – there would be no  inmates.
 
The fact that young black boys never learned right from  wrong due to being a product of their environment, like  Couch’s rich-boy defense,  doesn’t fly anywhere in  our  American society.
 
Next time we’re asked to sing the wonderful lyrics,  “America, America, God shed His grace on thee,  And crown thy good with brotherhood  from sea to shining sea,”  let’s take a thoughtful pause and remember that from  sea to shining sea there are a lot more George Zimmermans  who have earned the right  to be called a creepy-ass cracker.