The MLK Day Fight

How about this depressing news item:

A fight marred an athletic event Monday to commemorate the life and peaceful message of a civil rights icon. Six people have been arrested in connection with the fight, which broke out at the Martin Luther King Jr. Basketball Classic featuring teams from Cincinnati high schools.

According to one person in attendance:

"It was crazy," Withrow coach Walt McBride said. "Our players were talking about it. We heard there was somebody up there with a gun. We heard there were people with brass knuckles.

"What it comes down to is, they just need more security for an event like this. They need to pay whatever it takes to have more security."

The ever-ambiguous 'they' would presumably be Xavier University, who almost certainly didn't think it was necessary to hire a battalion of extra security guards for an event intended to honor a man who was the greatest force behind peaceful civil change in America.

With all due respect to the coach - the blame for this embarrassing episode only lies with the idiots who started a fight. Imagine the howls of righteous indignation that would have been heard if the players, students, and families arrived on Monday morning to a sports venue busy with cop cars, drug-sniffing dogs, and metal detectors.

Folks in our society can't have it both ways - we can't blame law enforcement when they do their job, but lament their absence when violence breaks out. On Monday the more civil expectation was, very reasonably, that the students would participate in the event without attempting to kill each other. This is admittedly setting the bar low - it's pretty basic - but it's a better expectation than treating them like criminals from the outset.

Meanwhile - send the idiots off to a judge. And maybe reduce their punishment if they can turn in a thoughtful essay about MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I'm a firm believer that true civil change requires creative solutions - and sentences.

Tags: Martin Luther King Jr.