[PJMedia] On April 2, 2025, Karmelo Anthony went to Memorial High School looking for a fight. Though he was participating in a track meet, he felt the need to bring a knife in his backpack. Once at the school, he sat in the tent of the opposing team. When confronted by Austin Metcalf, who told him to leave, Anthony reached into his backpack and said, “Touch me and see what happens.” Metcalf then grabbed Anthony in an attempt to forcibly move him out of the tent. Anthony then used his knife to stab Metcalf in the heart, killing him almost instantly.
Touch me and see what happens. This is the ethos for which Anthony was willing to murder an innocent boy.
On paper, Anthony sounded as if he were a model citizen with a bright future. Coming from a stable, two-parent household, he was the captain of his own school’s track and football teams. He worked two part-time jobs and was a straight A student. At the time of his crime, he was a month away from graduation, and was planning on going to college. Until the moment he plunged his knife into Metcalf’s chest, he had never had any incidents with law enforcement.
What are we to make of this? How are we supposed to understand how someone as seemingly normal as Karmelo Anthony was willing, in a manner of seconds, to destroy the lives of others, not to mention his own life, over such a petty argument?
Touch me and see what happens. Anthony didn’t develop this ethos on his own. There is a sickness in black subculture in contemporary America, and the sickness is this: Too many young black males are immersed in a socio-racial ideology that glorifies violence, preaches that only the meanest dog on the block wins, and dictates that any perceived threat from anyone who “steps up to me” must be countered with a wildly disproportionate, overwhelming response.
With regards to this latter point, the sole purpose of a disproportionate, overwhelming response is to serve as a warning not only to the victim, but to whoever else is watching or who is later made aware of this incident. If pushing me results in me murdering you, people far and wide will think twice before “stepping up” to me. My reputation as an unpredictable, uncontrollable animal is forged and serves my interests in the long run, even if I’m punished in the short run.
Let us be honest. This sickness is prevalent among young black males more than any other group. The statistics don’t lie. And because of this sickness, and because of foot soldiers such as Karmelo Anthony willing to follow its orders, the result will likewise be predictable. People avoid sickness. And though Anthony will spend the next 35 years in quarantine, so to speak, there are still potentially millions of other infected carriers.
This sickness is evident in the Black Lives Matter riots that burned down entire cities and left dozens of innocent people dead. The sickness is evident in the almost exclusively black flash mobs that take over streets, malls, and beaches. The sickness is evident in the 20-person brawls that break out at Waffle Houses, in casino lobbies, and in Carnival cruise check-in lines. The sickness is evident in every attempt to resist law enforcement, and every escalation of a situation that in no way necessitated escalating. The sickness is evident in the Treyvon Martins and Eric Garners and Michael Browns and Jacob Blakes and Anton Sterlings who respond to any and all adversity with hyper-aggressive violence.
Whatever may be the incidental motivations for these crimes, underlying them is the darker, subconscious message. Don’t come near me. I’m not rational, and you can’t talk me down. I’m a rabid pit bull, and the more you anger me, the harder I’ll stomp you. I don’t follow rules, and you’d be wise to just stay out of my way.
This sickness festers like gangrene and rots the entire subculture, regardless of its other admirable components. A toxic mixture of never-ending racial grievance and a perverse pride in the urban “gangsta” lifestyle incubates, encourages, and spreads it. It’s the pathetic selfies holding the handgun in one hand and a wad of money in the other. It’s the bass-bumping car stereos through the neighborhood at midnight. It’s the infantile “statement” clothing, assuming it’s the correct size.
The problem with this messaging, aimed primarily if not exclusively toward the “white” dominant culture, is that the message is received exactly as intended. Don’t go near him. He’s not rational, and I can’t talk him down. He’s a rabid pit bull, and the more I anger him, the harder he’ll stomp me. He doesn’t follow rules, and I’d be wise to just stay out of his way.
And so, because of the Karmelo Anthonys and Treyvon Martins and Michael Browns, all black men are implicated. That’s obscenely unfair to innocent black men, but it’s also an unavoidable reaction of human beings. A black man in the Reconstruction South in the 1870’s would understandably avoid gatherings of young, loud, boisterous white men, especially at night. And it wouldn’t be because that black man was “racist.” It would be because enough gatherings of young white men had resulted in death or serious bodily injury for black men that it was prudent for black men to give such gatherings as wide a berth as possible. Sure, not every gathering of young white men was ill-intended towards black men, but the risk wasn’t worth one’s life.
That same mindset is at work today. People instinctively avoid gatherings of young black males. And not only do people avoid them, people also avoid confronting them in the same way they would confront a young male of any other race. If a young black male is acting up in a restaurant, or on a subway, or in a movie theater, or near a playground in my neighborhood, do I lower my gaze and pretend it isn’t happening? Or do I say something to him and risk getting stabbed to death?
And while these thugs might feel they’re doing other black people a favor by further manifesting their “street cred” to the rest of America, the fact is that they are hurting all black people in the long run. Sure, no white people will intervene when you behave like a feral animal at the local McDonalds. But because of you, nor will white people (or any other race of people, for that matter) move to your neighborhoods. Or invest in your communities. Or hire you for jobs. Or teach in your schools. Or ever trust you enough to breathe easy.
Touch me and see what happens. What happens is that the entire black community suffers, because of your need to act out your sophomoric “thug life” fantasy. What happens is that innocent people, both white and black, are murdered because they “disrespected” you.
Only black America, and black America alone, can eradicate this sickness. No government program or study group or reparation payment will fix this. This sickness has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with slavery, or Jim Crow, or any racial grievance, real or invented. This sickness is purely organic.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/14/2026 8:05 Comments ||
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#5
I sure am glad Obama fixed all this.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/14/2026 8:36 Comments ||
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#6
They are ALL the problem. 1 podcaster is calling for blacks to all move to Africa. I for 1 agree and say go for it,hell can we start a go fund me to help them move along?
Posted by: Chris ||
06/14/2026 15:21 Comments ||
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[ZERO] The wealthiest person I know personally drives a 2018 Toyota Camry. He owns three rental properties, has over $2 million in investment accounts, and could buy any car on any lot without blinking. He chooses not to, and his explanation is both simple and profound: "A car is a tool that takes you from one place to another. Everything beyond that is a payment for other people's perception of you."
That conversation rearranged how I think about money, status, and the difference between looking wealthy and actually being wealthy. And the more I studied the habits of genuinely rich people - not the Instagram version of rich, but the people with real, substantial, enduring wealth - the more I found that his approach was the rule, not the exception.
THE WEALTH ILLUSION
We live in a culture that equates visible consumption with financial success. A nice car, a big house, designer clothes, expensive vacations - these are the signals we use to judge who has money and who does not. The problem is that those signals are almost perfectly inverted from reality.
The person leasing a $70,000 SUV might have a negative net worth. The person buying rounds at the bar might be maxing out a credit card. The couple who just renovated their kitchen might have raided their retirement accounts to pay for it.
Meanwhile, the person with $1.5 million in the bank is wearing jeans from Target, driving a paid-off Honda, and eating dinner at home. They do not look wealthy because they channeled the money that would create the appearance of wealth into building actual wealth.
This is not a new observation - the book "The Millionaire Next Door" documented it decades ago - but it bears repeating because the cultural pressure to spend for status has only intensified with social media. Every platform is designed to show you people living aspirational lifestyles, and the psychological pull to keep up is relentless.
#1
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." - Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield.
#4
(I tried to buy a new truck 18 months ago but a recall hold prevented and i ended up buying a slightly used equivalent - still only ever bought one new car in my 72 yar life.)
It frequently ends up a nightmare for those who decide to go ahead with it. A lot of things can go wrong. Even if you are worth 8 digits, think long and hard before you do it.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
06/14/2026 17:22 Comments ||
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[CDM] The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was born in an era when Americans finally learned the extent to which their own government had been spying on them. In the wake of the Church Committee investigations of the 1970s, Congress discovered a sprawling surveillance apparatus that had been used against political dissidents, activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens. The FBI, the CIA, and other intelligence agencies had wandered far beyond their legitimate mandates. FISA was supposed to be the remedy. It was designed to place guardrails around government surveillance and ensure that intelligence agencies would never again turn the immense power of the state against the American people without oversight and accountability.
Nearly half a century later, FISA has become the very abuse it was intended to prevent. What began as a narrowly tailored mechanism for monitoring foreign spies, hostile governments, and terrorist organizations has evolved into a vast surveillance architecture capable of vacuuming up the communications of millions of Americans. The most controversial component of this system is Section 702, which allows intelligence agencies to target foreign nationals located overseas without obtaining individual warrants. On paper, that sounds reasonable. In practice, however, Americans who communicate with those foreign targets are swept into the dragnet through what the government euphemistically calls “incidental collection.” There is nothing incidental about it.
The federal government now possesses enormous databases filled with emails, text messages, phone calls, and digital communications involving American citizens who were never suspected of committing a crime. Those communications can then be searched by federal agencies through what critics accurately describe as backdoor searches. In many cases these searches occur without a traditional warrant, without probable cause, and without the constitutional protections that Americans have long understood to be their birthright under the Fourth Amendment.
Supporters of reauthorization insist that this authority is indispensable for national security. They point to threats from China, Iran, Russia, transnational criminal organizations, and terrorist groups. Nobody disputes that foreign intelligence collection remains necessary. The United States faces genuine threats and our intelligence professionals require tools to identify and disrupt them. The issue is not whether intelligence gathering should exist. The issue is whether Americans should surrender their constitutional rights in the process. The answer is no.
Over the years the government has repeatedly assured Congress and the public that safeguards are in place. Yet those safeguards have repeatedly failed. Declassified opinions from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court have documented thousands of improper queries and compliance violations. Searches have involved journalists, political donors, protesters, members of Congress, and countless individuals who were not legitimate foreign intelligence targets. Time and again officials have promised reforms. Time and again those promises have been followed by new revelations of misuse.
This pattern is not an accident. It is the predictable consequence of granting extraordinary powers to institutions that operate largely in secrecy. Human nature does not change merely because an agency possesses a three letter acronym. Bureaucracies expand. Authorities broaden. Temporary exceptions become permanent practices. Mission creep becomes institutional doctrine. Every generation of Americans learns this lesson anew, yet Washington somehow manages to forget it whenever intelligence agencies appear before Congress seeking another extension of their powers.
The problem extends beyond the mechanics of surveillance. The existence of these massive databases creates a chilling effect throughout American society. Citizens who know their communications may be collected, stored, and searched are naturally less willing to speak freely, associate openly, or engage in controversial political activity. The Framers of the Constitution understood that liberty cannot survive under the shadow of constant surveillance. A government that possesses the ability to monitor every communication possesses the ability to intimidate every citizen.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[PJMedia] On April 2, 2025, 
