On May 20, Richard Wilbur Collins III, a 23-year-old Black man who had just been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army was stabbed to death as he was waiting for an Uber driver at the University of Maryland College Park. Police arrested Sean Christopher Urbanski for the murder. Urbanski is a member of an Alt-Right group. Federal officials are continuing to investigate the incident as a possible hate crime.
In response to this and other incidents, the University of Maryland has announced an action plan to “combat hate and create a safer campus.”
Among the actions being taken are:
- Creating a task force on hate-bias and campus safety.
- Creating a trained, rapid-response team for hate-bias incidents.
- Increasing funding for campus-wide diversity and inclusion efforts.
- Affirming and demonstrating our core values of unity and respect as a university community.
- Compiling and publishing an annual report on hate-bias incidents on campus.
- Strengthening existing intercollegiate athletics policy to explicitly prohibit any hate-bias symbols or actions in any athletic venue.
- Reviewing our Code of Student Conduct to strengthen sanctions for hate and bias.
The university added that “this is just the beginning and our action will continue.”
The most frequent racial incidents that occur today are the wholesale murders of black children in the womb. Until educated blacks are willing to acknowledge that Black Children Matter [BCM] they send a clear message to everyone that Black Lives really don’t matter either. And if Black lives don’t matter then racial incidents don’t matter either!!
Col. Donald L. Parsons
U.S. Army, Retired
College Station, Texas
Dear Mr, Parsons,
First of all, sir, thank you very much for serving our country. Most of my family has served in the military in some capacity or another. all of them, and members of the service in general, are those that need to be treated with the utmost respect and honor at all times. However, to your point, I will have to respectfully disagree with you.
While I agree with you that the killing of children in the womb is an issue throughout the United States, with it being constantly debated in both state and federal levels of our government, it is not solely the African American populations of our country who are obtaining the procedure to kill the child. White women also account for 34% of the abortions that account throughout the country.
Again, and I mean no disrespect, but your opinion does not seem to relate to the topic the article discusses. The abortions that occur throughout the United States has nothing to do with the murder of a commissioned ROTC member of the armed services. This is not comparable to the process of abortion. This is a straight forward cut and dry case of it being a racially motivated hate crime. The kid had followed an Alt-Right online group, and was a member of an online forum for this group.
The movement of Black Lives Matter has no place in the discussion of this incident has no significance at all. It shouldn’t matter if he was black, white, Hispanic, rainbow colored, whatever. He is still someone who did not deserve to be stabbed to death without a reason. Abortions is one of the biggest topics today but has no place here.
So while you are a former military member, and I respect you as a former member of our services and all that you have provided for our nation during your service, I believe that your comment is one that is ill-informed and makes an irrelevant comparison between two different acts.