Was the Beating of Brian Milligan Racially Motivated?

Brian Milligan Jr. is believed to be attacked for dating Nicola Fletcher

​Brian Milligan Sr. has a point. If his son were black, and he’d been beat to unconsciousness by a dozen or more white men, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would be on the next plane to Buffalo, jousting for camera time. But since the races are reversed in this case, Milligan contends Buffalo police are doing their best to prove this wasn’t a hate crime.

In the days leading up to the beating, Milligan says his son, Brian Jr., who’s white, was repeatedly threatened by black men in East Buffalo. His apparent sin: Dating Nicola Fletcher, who’s black. Both are 18.

Two days before the attack, he was shot with a paint gun by the people who were harassing him. “Every time they walk the streets, people stop him and call him
‘cracker’ and ask her why she’s not with a black guy,” Milligan Sr. told CNN…

Brian suffered from swelling and bleeding on the brain

​Days later, a group of some 10-15 black men attacked Brian Jr., beating him with a chunk of concrete and kicking him in the face. He managed to escape to his grandmother’s house nearby, where he was rushed to the hospital, suffering from brain swelling and blood on the brain. He’s back at home now, but he could face additional surgery. He has no memory of the assault.

Police have no suspects in the case. And despite the large group of attackers, no one’s come forward to identify the assailants.

Brian Sr. believes the attack came from the same people who had been threatening his son for dating Nicola. And he’s angry that the predominantly black neighborhood isn’t protesting the way it would be if the beating had been delivered unto a black kid. “If this was a black guy who was beaten by a group of white guys for
dating a white girl, people would be up in arms,” he said. “There’s a
double standard.”

It’s not exactly as if the entire black community has remained silent. Rev. Darius Pridgen, believing the neighborhood had turned its back on Brian Jr., delivered a fire-and-brimstone sermon at his church to help find the attackers. But his own words betray how racial crimes are viewed in Buffalo. “At first, it didn’t affect me the way that it would have if I
heard it was a black teen attacked,” said Pridgen. “But after I saw his father on TV pleading with the community to find
the assailants, I decided I had to go after the people who beat this
kid.”

Yet Buffalo News columnist Rod Watson, who’s also black, isn’t seeing any gray in this situation. He argues that “blacks in Buffalo in 2009 are acting like whites in Selma in 1959.” Writes Watson:

Two weeks after Brian Milligan, a white teen, reported being
brutally beaten by black youths after being warned to stay away from
his African-American girlfriend, there have been no protest marches.

Civil rights group have not demanded a Justice Department probe.

Al
Sharpton has not visited. More to the point: Police still have little
to go on in probing a “possible” hate crime, even though it’s hard to
imagine that no one in the neighborhood saw or has heard anything.

Milligan
is home from the hospital, his father said, his jaw wired shut, his
sense of smell destroyed, his brain still swollen after being hit in
the head with a chunk of concrete.