(Associated Posers) - KIRKLAND, Washington - State and federal authorities are investigating a possible hate crime in Kirkland, a Seattle suburb with population of around 50,000, after a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was found hanging from a tree branch near the sidewalk. Daryl Thomas, a local African-American found the offending sandwich in a tree in the yard of Rodney Smith, who is white,.
Daryl Thomas said his tenure at the Harvey Scott School in Portland, Oregon as an assistant teacher had showed him that a peanut butter jelly sandwich was a racist symbol of dominant white culture. “It was very obvious, to me, I have witnesses a lynching” he told the Portland Tribune newspaper website.
Indeed since 2010 the cash-starved Portland school district has spent $530,000 teaching and training teachers to spot evidence of white culture and white privilege everywhere they look. The Harvey Scott School itself is ranked in the bottom 15% of schools in the state.
“I recognized it for a hate crime and I notified the police” Daryl Thomas proudly told the local media at an impromptu press conference near the tree where this took place. Meanwhile the local police dutifully waited until the press gathered to escort Rodney Smith to the police cruiser where he would be taken to a police station for questioning.
Principal Vernice Gutierrez said she is proud of her assistant teacher for being proactive in the face of a racist hate attack. “I think we should all be able to find and extinguish white privilege and culture wherever we find it. Daryl Thomas is a credit to his people”.
Meanwhile police say that Rodney Smith denied any racial motivation for the sandwich lynching and said the whole idea perplexed him. “If someone lynched a symbol of white culture, wouldn't that be a hate crime against whites?” he asked “None of this makes any sense”.
Meanwhile the Portland NAACP, Pacific Educational Group and Pacifica Radio were planning to hold a demonstration they called a March Against Jelly Engendered Stereo Typing In King County, or MAJESTICK. The planned to demand hate crime charges against Rodney Smith and a vigorous prosecution. Rachel Talbot Ross of the local NAACP spoke at the press conference “This act of hate and bigotry must be wiped from the conscious mind of America's slave-holding class. We demand that this District Attorney put this racist Neanderthal in prison, away from civilized people”.
Sheriff Steve Strachan says that Rodney Smith is being held in protective custody momentarily while the investigation continued. Meanwhile Smiths' lawyer, Antonio Valdez, told the local media that his client had no racist feelings at all. “The tree is right next to the sidewalk on the side of his house, he says he has no idea who put it there or why. It could easily have been a prank”.
The Portland Tribune website and the radio station owned by the company KPAM have been calling for “hunt and destroy” missions against “white privilege”. Meanwhile some locals, behind closed doors, said that people have hung peanut butter sandwiches for decades to attract squirrels, which were hunted for food.
“I have no doubt this was a hate crime” said the Pacific Education Group's founder and President Glenn Singleton “No justice, no peace”.
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