Race And Sensationalism

Thugs, cannon fodder, Police, and the media are used as primary ingredients.
One night this black guy coming from a liquor store with a fifth of wine in a thick bottle took a shortcut through an alley that was some three blocks long, ending at the back of his apartment building.  He saw another black guy coming toward him from the opposite direction.  They eyed each other as they were passing and the guy said, "Got a match?"  He shook his head and said, "No."

He'd taken only three or four steps when the guy said again, "Got a match?"  He turned, didn't like the way the guy was standing there looking at him and he repeated "No" and continued walking.  "Got a match?" the guy hollered.  A nut, he thought, not turning.  If I had my gun and he started acting crazy I'd give him a match.  Light his crazyass up.  Then he heard footsteps behind him and turned, seeing this guy and another black hurrying toward him, about fifteen yards back.  He walked faster, hearing their footsteps quicken.

A couple of trashbins were about ten feet ahead of him, his apartment about a block away.  He couldn't whip the two of them and might not be able to outrun them and had only the wine bottle, he thought.  "Not going down quietly," he murmured, "time to make a stand."  He backed up against one of  the trashbins, seeing them  stop a few feet away and one starting to circle him slowly on the left and the other circling on the right.  Suddenly he began shouting curses at them.  They stopped, stared at him as if they were in shock, then they stepped toward each other, mumbling.  They might take me down, he thought, but one of them's going to get busted with the bottle and neither one wants to take the hit.

One said, "Aw, no, man it wasn't 'bout that . . ."  Then they backed off a few steps, turned and started walking back down the alley.  After they had gone about five yards, one yelled, "You  got 75 cents?  Just put it down there and we'll come git it . . .."  He ignored them and kept walking, thinking, Damned fools  would get killed not even knowing whether the person they're trying to rob has any money or not . . . like dumb cannon fodder lonely for Anglos to notice them and will do something foolish and cops will come to investigate and more cannon fodder show up -- not even knowing what it's about -- and start shouting, "Police brutality . . . No justice, no peace" -- stirring up more animosity than benevolence -- and thugs eagerly join in and start rioting and lootin' and burning, and the cops can't distinguish the illiterate thugs from the illiterate cannon fodder and the unscrupulous media riding the wave for every drop of sensationalism.