Whites face attempted murder charges in incident
(FinalCall.com) – Seven Whites have been charged in the beating of a 17-year-old Black youth in the South Shore town of Marshfield, Mass., which is some 30 miles from the city of Boston.
According to published reports and police officials, Tizaya Robinson of the Jamaica Plains community in Boston was chased by at least a dozen Whites. The seven are charged with attempted murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and civil rights violations. Witnesses and police say the group repeatedly shouted racial slurs during the attack on the teenager.
›There has also been talk by local police that the assailants and the victim may know each other and may have been socializing before the attack. None of this had been confirmed at Final Call press time.
The Marshfield Selectman’s Board, which is comprised of three people, ordered Town Administrator Rocco Longo to re-institute the “No Place for Hate Committee.” The chairperson of the Selectman Board was quoted as saying, “We are deeply disturbed, and that sort of behavior will not be tolerated in Marshfield at all.”
“If the community does think it has an issue of racism, it’s nothing that’s going to change overnight, but it’s important for the community to address it, and get a start in the process to eliminate it,” Mr. Longo told the press. He wants to hold an anti-racism rally on the town’s common.
“I am well aware of these No Place for Hate Committees, which never seem to consult with Black organizations at the national or grassroots level. It’s just White people talking to White people about their racism,” said Jamal Crawford, chairman of the New Black Panther Party in Boston, in an interview with The Final Call.
According to Mr. Crawford, Mr. Robinson was defending another Black youth, who was jumped. “There are no buses going to Marshfield, so they must have known someone in that community,” he added. The New Black Panther Party is still investigating the incident.
According to a Metropolitan Area Planning Council report, the South Shore area is one of the “most heavily segregated suburban areas in America. The report said Blacks and Latinos are rejected at a rate two to four times Whites for home loans in the area–even if incomes are $150,000 or more.
Blacks and Latinos are about one-half of one percent to Marshfield residents and median income in the area was $72,100 a year in 2005 and the average values of homes/condos was $422,300, according to census figures. The town’s student body is 97 percent White.
A town of over 24,000, Marshfield was incorporated in 1640. One of its famous citizens was American statesman Daniel Webster, who served in the U.S. Senate and supported the “Fugitive Slave Laws of 1850,” which required federal officers to recapture and return runaway slaves.
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