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Friday, March 03, 2000
Sometimes it takes a madman to remind us that we're all in this together.
In the wake of Ronald Taylor's bloody siege of Wilkinsburg, there are already signs that the destruction fueled by a handgun and one man's lunacy won't be allowed to define the community for very long.
As appalling as Taylor's shooting spree was, the residents of Wilkinsburg will have the final say as they go about putting their lives together again.
The 39-year-old loner may have temporarily succeeded in shattering the peace the once troubled community has cultivated in recent years. But his .22-caliber revolver is no match for the armies of goodwill that marshaled to oppose his violence.
In what is one of the most murderous assaults Pittsburgh has ever seen, Taylor shot five people, four of whom he'd never laid eyes on before. Three are dead, including a handyman he harbored a petty vendetta against, an ex-priest who once reached out to people like him and a college student.
With the exception of the janitor, the victims didn't know Taylor. According to witnesses, they were singled out because of the color of their skin. At this point, it looks like Taylor, a deranged black man with access to a gun (surprise, surprise!) ambushed five white people whose only crime was crossing his path on an overcast afternoon.
Taylor had a bad day, but that banality doesn't explain the ferocity of his rampage. The shibboleth of race sheds light on but doesn't completely explain his actions, either. Taylor could've shot more people, but chose not to for reasons that will remain a mystery until his lawyer gets him past the point of maximum legal jeopardy.
Not surprisingly, race seems to be the motive that most titillates talk radio audiences. Some folks, perhaps traumatized by their sudden vulnerability to the Ronald Taylors of the world, are asking whether society practices a double standard when it comes to prosecuting blacks for hate crimes.
Among paranoid black people, the mantra is: "I don't condone what the brother did, but I understand why he did it." This morally revolting drivel is uttered in complete seriousness, as if the actions of a psychopath make sense in the context of dysfunctional race relations.
But this is what happens when the actions of a lone kook are made to take on more symbolic weight than is sensible. The conspiracy-minded of all colors lack all sense of proportion. They want to believe Taylor is part of a vanguard of urban guerrillas waiting to explode with every disappointing jury verdict. And we call Ronald Taylor crazy?
Taylor is a disturbed man. He is not my "brother," to use the parlance of racial chauvinists. I consider those who performed acts of mercy and compassion in Wilkinsburg on Wednesday my true brothers and sisters, whatever their color.
When a madman with black skin was running amok, a white policeman talked him out of killing himself. For that, Sgt. John Fisher is my "brother." All the cops who withheld fire that afternoon also showed a profound sense of brotherhood.
When Tom Connors, a white man, led a multiracial congregation in prayer for the wounded and the shooter, he was practicing Christian virtue at its highest. When the community's pastors and parishioners came together to pray, they were my family.
I don't see Taylor's actions as somehow paradigmatic of what we can expect in Pittsburgh. On the contrary, the people of Wilkinsburg are leading the way to a deeper understanding of life, faith and our collective responsibility in a multiracial society.