Feds charge 3 NY men in election bias attacks 1/7/2009 2:59:00 PM
Associated Press/AP Online
By TOM HAYS
NEW YORK - Three white New Yorkers, riled by Barack Obama's victory, spent election night hunting down black people to beat up and yelling insults about the president-elect, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
The men beat a Liberian immigrant teen, pushed a black man to the ground and drove their car over a white man they thought was black, according to the indictment unsealed in Brooklyn.
Ralph Nicoletti, 18, Michael Contreras, 18, and Brian Carranza, 21, were arrested early Wednesday. They were to be arraigned later in the day on charges of conspiracy to interfere with voting rights.
A fourth defendant was expected to separately plead guilty to unspecified charges, according to law enforcement officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the plea deal had not been made public.
The names of the defendants' attorneys were not immediately on record, according to prosecutors.
Before the rampage on Nov. 4, 2008, the teens had gathered at a makeshift clubhouse in their Staten Island neighborhood where they monitored the election results on the Internet.
"Shortly after learning of Barack Obama's victory, (they) decided to find African-Americans to assault in retaliation for an African-American winning the election," prosecutors said in court papers.
Nicoletti drove the group to a black neighborhood, where they stopped a teenage immigrant from Liberia and beat him with a metal pipe and retractable police baton. They later pushed a black man to the ground, demanded a Hispanic man tell them how he voted and "yelled profanities about Obama as they drove past an election night gathering of African-Americans at a hair salon," the court papers said.
Finally, the defendants used their car to run over a white man they mistakenly believed was black, the papers said. The victim was in a coma for several days but survived.
Nicoletti was part of a vigilante crew on Staten Island whose "primary purpose is to defend its members in inter-neighborhood disputes, some of which have resulted in significant violence," the indictment said.
Staten Island prosecutors had previously charged two of the defendants with assault as a hate crime and weapon possession while the FBI investigated the civil rights case.
If convicted of the federal charges, they face up to 10 years in prison.
catsnotkids Wrote:The men beat a Liberian immigrant teen, pushed a black man to the ground and drove their car over a white man they thought was black,
So not only are they racists, but they are stupid and incompetent ones! The Liberian teen could not possibly have voted for Obama, being both underage and not a citizen.
And the white guy they thought was black? WTF?
It would be ironic if the 2 adults they attacked had voted for McCain.
ETA: I'd be curious to know what color this Michael Contreras is...or thinks he is.
CFS -- yeah, I was thinking the same thing -- they even suck at being racist, being totally incompetent at it!
I'm still hoping that this election will be a huge step toward eradicating racism. If Obama does a good job (and I sincerely hope he does!), then all the old arguments about inferiority, lack of intelligence, etc, should (hopefully) quietly fall away, finally!
PrairieGirl Wrote:CFS -- yeah, I was thinking the same thing -- they even suck at being racist, being totally incompetent at it!
I wonder if there's some sort of remedial racist school they could go to.
(Sorry; that's bad!!!)
PrairieGirl Wrote:I'm still hoping that this election will be a huge step toward eradicating racism. If Obama does a good job (and I sincerely hope he does!), then all the old arguments about inferiority, lack of intelligence, etc, should (hopefully) quietly fall away, finally!
If these 3 morons are any indication, it's white people who are exhibiting those traits of lack of intelligence, etc.
Quote: Ralph Nicoletti, 18, Michael Contreras, 18, and Brian Carranza, 21
Quote:…the teens had gathered at a makeshift clubhouse in their Staten Island neighborhood…
Quote:…Nicoletti was part of a vigilante crew on Staten Island whose "primary purpose is to defend its members in inter-neighborhood disputes, some of which have resulted in significant violence," the indictment said.
Italian surnames, makeshift clubhouse, vigilante crew on Staten Island, racists. Sounds like sad little Sopranos gangster wannabes who failed miserably, mostly because they're retarded.
Remember that Eddie Murphy comedy bit in "Raw" about the Italian guy from the NYC suburbs with the Iroc Z-28 pushing the black guy around at the movie cinema, saying the "moulie" is paying for the concessions snacks he ordered? That's the image the comes to mind.
anastasia Wrote:Quote: 18, Michael Contreras, 18,
Italian surnames,
Contreras is a Hispanic name, not Italian. That's why I made the comment about his race in my first post.
Yes, I see in another news story, on CNN, they refer to Contreras as "Latino." What a moron. But, of course, racism isn't just limited to white people. I wonder how he enjoyed it when they assaulted the Latino guy.
Ugh... it always depresses me to see that kind of extreme racism in teenagers/young adults. One would hope that these people would start to die off. But, no, it lives on and on.
anastasia Wrote:Yes, I see in another news story, on CNN, they refer to Contreras as "Latino." What a moron. But, of course, racism isn't just limited to white people. I wonder how he enjoyed it when they assaulted the Latino guy.
Does anyone remember back in the '80s when there was a white supremacist named Daniel Martinez or something like that? He was on all the talk shows, like Phil Donahue, etc., spouting his crap.
They always had to mention in articles about him that he was of Spanish (rather than Hispanic/Latino) heritage. You'd think being stereotyped as a Latino due to your name would cause the average person to have more compassion and understanding for people of that heritage, but not this guy! Ugh.
Here in Canada, our official policy is of multi-culturalism, so overt racism is quite rare compared to some other places.
That is not to say that it does not exist.
Overt discrimination is so rare that I could actually list the couple of times that I heard/ saw it in my 44 years.
The last time was three years ago at a multi-cultural event and it was a new acquaintance who came from India, who said disparaging remarks about some strangers who were Muslim and who seemed to be from an area around Iran/Iraq.
I did speak up and when he did not back down, I said that I would not be friend who was racist.
Quote:They always had to mention in articles about him that he was of Spanish (rather than Hispanic/Latino) heritage. You'd think being stereotyped as a Latino due to your name would cause the average person to have more compassion and understanding for people of that heritage, but not this guy! Ugh.
Oh, you have nooooooo idea! Latin Americans are as racist -- or more -- than other groups. I remember once when I asked Dad if we had any Taino blood (we are Puerto Rican), he was so sputtering angry at me for the suggestion, and gave me a detailed history of the family, how we came from SPAIN! SPAIN! (white Europeans), and did NOT "interbreed" with indians, slaves, or mestizos. It's a big thing in a family for a child to be born dark, and it's not good -- there are lots of apologies, and the woman might be castigated if it can be suspected that she had a dark lover. Women trade recipes for lightening children's skin, or straightening their hair. The subtle distinctions in shade difference can be mind-boggling to the outsider, but they are DEADLY SERIOUS in the LA world. My Dad and his siblings are very proud to be "pure" (European descent) -- and my Dad had a very hard time getting used to anti-PR racism in the 60s when he joined the army, because he considered himself as white, or whiter, than most Americans.
Everybody is racist. People separate themselves by color or ethnicity or religion or tribes or whatever and they sit around hating everyone else who isn't in their club. In Oceanside, a small town north of San Diego, the Hispanics and Samoans are busy killing each other. I had a Korean friend years ago whose family disowned her because she married a black man from the US. Her child was not welcomed by her family at all because it is half black. While I lived in New Orleans I saw racism taken to dizzying heights I'd never seen before.
What used to get me was the racism and bigotry I experienced when I used to be in the gay community. I'm straight, but there was a time when all my friends were gay, mostly men, and I used to hang out every single night at the big gay bar in chattanooga to go dancing and be with my friends. The white gays hated the black gays, the black gays hated them back, they separated into little groups in the bar. The gay men hated the gay women. And they all ganged up on the cross-dressers--straight men who felt comfortable in women's clothing would go there for support group social meetings and be shunned and stared at by everyone else. Then there were the distinctions among the men as who was more masculine or not, and they looked down on the extra-feminine types. And the women who looked more feminine in appearance always got more respect and the women who looked more like the stereotypical gay women got ridiculed behind their backs.
Most humans are bigots, even if they are part of a group that gets picked on a lot.
I take offense at "everyone is racist".
I am NOT and I speak up everytime someone is unfairly victimized in front of me.
In addition, I have done volunteer work on these and other social issues.
I was making a generalization based on my own personal life experiences. It's also a shot a humanity in general. People, mostly, suck ass.
I openly admit I am a racist. Ever since being mugged by members of a certain race I look at all them with contempt, but I must ask you all a question. What nations on this planet are first world? I'd point out that they are all run by the whites. Maybe this says everything. The only non-white nation that is first world is Japan and that's only because the whites beat them into submission.
It's not about being white, but about having an edge in food production and domestication of food and working animals. Read Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" for a wonderful exploration of the subject. White people only seem to have an advantage around the globe -- in reality, it's because Europeans and far-western Asians had access to a more diverse food source capable of domestication (almost all the modern foodstuffs developed in the Fertile Crescent area of Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, etc), and greater access to large animals capable of being domesticated (horses and cattle, particularly).
As an example, the entire double continent of North and South America had only ONE large animal capable of domestication -- the llama. And as we all know, the llama is inefficient as a traveling/pack/war animal (compared to the horse) and inefficient as a food source or brute worker in the fields (like cattle or oxen). The two Americas only had one grain capable of cross-breeding and domestication (corn/maize), and only one non-animal source of protein (something called "sumpweed", which you can imagine from the name, smells something awful). Eurasians, however, had the full range of foodstuffs we are familiar with -- wheat, barley, horses, cattle, domesticable fruit and nuts (the nuts are an interesting story -- many are toxic in their original states, and it took cultivation and grafting to control them -- meanwhile, the Americas had acorns, which have proven incapable of control/domestication), etc.
To have soldiers, priests, teachers, and others, you need a society capable of feeding people whose role is NOT food production. For that, you need a lot of food. To have germs to infect "weaker races", you need close ties to animals to infect you. To have widespread immunities, you need major cities to spread infections among huge swaths of people. To have "superior" weaponry, you need metallurgy, and you need people (metallurgists) who don't produce food, but are supported by those who do. It all stems from the available food source, and only Eurasia had access to the requisite variety, range of nutritional values, and domesticable animals. If the food had existed in the deepest heart of Africa, or in Australia, or in the Americas, or solely in China, then a different color people would be now considered "superior" to others by virtue of their race.
Open racism and white supremist posts make me feel ill.
Please do not let this go unchecked.
cassia Wrote:Open racism and white supremist posts make me feel ill.
Please do not let this go unchecked.
Eddy's post gave me pause, as well. But having known him for years, I am working on giving him the benfit of the doubt. In some ways, his post is more of a factual observation. But it does involve value judgments ("first" world, for instance) and racist speculation.
I second PG's recommendation of Guns, Germs, and Steel. Part of the premise of the book is to examine why the most "advanced" cultures are "western."
Except that this is NOT the first time on this list that that poster gave vent to racist and supremist posts.
That time he got "the benefit of a doubt" because he is a friend.
Those exact same posts got him hounded and removed elsewhere.
Believe it or not, I have nothing against any particular person.
I am deeply offended that any such posts have not more roundly criticized and action taken.
cassia Wrote:Except that this is NOT the first time on this list that that poster gave vent to racist and supremist posts.
That time he got "the benefit of a doubt" because he is a friend.
Those exact same posts got him hounded and removed elsewhere.
Believe it or not, I have nothing against any particular person.
I am deeply offended that any such posts have not more roundly criticized and action taken.
I like Eddy too, but I have to say I agree with you. GiaGrrrl was kicked off a previous incarnation of this board for something similar. I do think there needs to be consistency here.