I am always amazed at the many ways organizations and people take tragic situations and utilize them as avenues to push forth their own agendas. When there is a nationally recognized story of tragedy, support comes from many people that simply want to jump on the “bandwagon” and ride the momentum of publicity. When this is the case, the real issue becomes somewhat unclear falling victim to what I refer to as the “secondary hype.” The secondary hype is the issue that really has nothing to do with the story, but people still try and relate it to the story as a means of publicizing their organizational agendas.

I talked about a story out of New York where a young man, Sean Bell, was killed after a bachelor party by police the morning before his wedding. There are several unconfirmed accounts of what happened, but the consistent characteristic in all of the stories is he was unarmed. The other consistency is 50 shots were fired at Bell and his two friends. This is a tragedy as I reported, it can even be considered an injustice towards minority populations in Queens. I agree with those assertions. I do not agree with the secondary hype that is being associated with this story however. There are groups calling for individuals to boycott white businesses as a result of this tragedy.

One question…What does A have to do with B? The cops that allegedly shot Bell and his friends were from various diverse ethnic backgrounds and allegedly have no other cases of using force against victims. How do you go from holding cops accountable for their treatment of minority suspects to boycotting white businesses? This is clearly a case of secondary hype. The argument to boycott white businesses based on the shooting of Sean Bell is just as ridiculous as if someone suggested boycotting black businesses based on the actions of DC area snipers Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad. Radical organizations are trying to use this case as a means of pushing their own agendas. What does this do to the fight for justice for Sean Bell? This takes the attention from the real issue.

This case is not about one race, it is about the tarnished relationship between police officers of all races and minority groups from all ethnic groups. The secondary hype is clearly hurting the fight for justice in the case of Sean Bell. If justice is to be served in cases such as this, we can not allow organizations and individuals with personal agendas to push secondary hype in the place of the real issues. Al Sharpton, The New Black Panther Party, and everyone else jumping on the bandwagon need to keep in mind that the issue is about justice for the victims. While their efforts to lend support are commendable, I do not think their methods are most effective.

If you are going to lend support to the case of Sean Bell and his family, keep the attention on his murder and the investigation surrounding the murder. Slippery slope racial arguments only hurt the plight of black Americans in our efforts to gain equal positioning in this society in all areas. Secondary hype creates “boy that cries wolf” syndrome in the eyes of the American public and when a clear case of racial discrimination is presented it is denounced as “playing the race card.” This is not a case of only race where such an argument would be warranted. There are clearly to many issues surrounding this case to reduce it to such elementary logic.