Back in 2007, pro-wrestler Chris Benoit was discovered dead, along with his wife and his son. Immediately afterward, the WWE broke all storylines for one night, and put together an entire tribute show for Chris Benoit and his family, where there were some great matches, but most notably an array of tear-filled, emotional outpourings of interviews of Benoit’s fellow wrestlers sharing touching stories and memories of their fallen comrade.
Days later, it was revealed that it wasn’t an attack on the family by a second party that ended up with the Benoit family dead; it was Chris Benoit himself, who had murdered his wife and his son, before hanging himself. Suddenly, all of the RIPs to Chris Benoit were rescinded, the WWE did everything they could to break association with Chris Benoit, and wrestlers everywhere expressed emotions of betrayal, disappointment and disgusted sadness at the guy they all thought they once knew.
It wasn’t really “rest in peace” anymore, as much as it was “good riddance, you fucking murderer.”
Recently, a player on the Kansas City Chefs, Jovan Belcher, murdered his girlfriend and mother of their three-month old child, and then killed himself. This has all been confirmed and is all fact at this point – Jovan Belcher was a murderer before he killed himself.
So why the fuck are so many people bidding him to rest in peace? The guy is a fucking murderer, and fellow football players, and people all over twitter are wishing him the same farewell, reserved for people who live their lives honorably, or at least without committing murder?
There’s one thing in common I’ve noticed with the people that are typically foolishly bidding restful adieu to their “brother,” and yes, let’s just get this out on the table and out of the way here – it is a race thing.
This is almost exactly like the Michael Vick situation, where it was concretely established that Michael Vick was a criminal, for cruelly and illegally forcing pit bulls to fight to the death for gambling purposes. He was appropriately sentenced, and sent to prison for committing a severe crime. As a result, he is generally detested and is a hated individual for his atrocities against dogs – except to large chunks of the black community. Despite the fact that they know he was a dog murderer, he still has a tremendous amount of support from black communities, and I honestly cannot fathom why that is.
People in Atlanta turned out in droves whenever the Eagles come to town, and despite him playing for the bad guys now, people still brandish signs declaring their love for him still, even though they all know he bred dogs to fight to the death for sport. Even other black NFL players would scribble “Free Vick” on their eye black, or notorious degenerate DeAngelo Hall once scoring a touchdown, and amidst celebrating, removed his jersey to show a shirt saying “FREE MIKE VICK.”
And the same is kind of going on now, with the difference now is that because of shit like Twitter, the outpouring from the black community is so much more well known, wishing Jovan Belcher to rest in peace despite the fact that killed his baby’s mamabefore offing himself like a coward.
If it’s not obvious, I guess I don’t get black people. Is there such a persecution or martyr complex among black people, that they’re completely willing to overlook the fact that a guy has just either committed murder or other highly inhumane and illegal activities, just because of the color of his skin? Is this one of those situations where they preemptively defend a guy for being black before the onslaught of criticisms for the guy’s actions, and not skin color, come to light?
I’m trying to look at the scenarios objectively, and not base it on skin colors. I’d feel the same way about Jovan Belcher or Mike Vick, if they were white, Asian, Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Russian. If Hines Ward killed people, I’d think he deserved to die without wishes of resting in peace. If Chan Ho Park beat dogs to death and sold them to Brazilians, I’d want his head on a stake. I honestly get flabbergasted when some people are incapable of doing such as well.
Jovan Belcher doesn’t deserve to rest in peace for his crime. He should rot in hell, and then be reincarnated as a guy that has to clean Wal-Mart bathrooms, before anything he ever loves is taken and destroyed in front of him before he’s killed again and gets to repeat the denigrating process for eternity. And it has nothing to do with the color of his skin, but the consequence of his actions.
