Prioleau Alexander: What Happened With Karmelo Anthony?

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I honestly didn’t think this column needed to be written, until I discovered at lunch two of my well-informed friends were unaware of the details. As a result, I offer up the following facts. For the sake of brevity, I will ask you to add “allegedly” after each verb and at the beginning and end of each sentence:

1. On April 12, a black teen named Karmelo Anthony was attending a high school track meet in Frisco, Texas. For reasons unknown, he was sitting in a tent that was set up for one of the opposing schools.
2. A white teen named Austin Metcalf informed Anthony he was in the wrong tent and had to leave.
3. A witness in the tent stated via affidavit that Anthony responded by reaching into his backpack and saying, “touch me and see what happens.”
4. The witness went on to say that Metcalf did touch Anthony (or his backpack), and Anthony responded by daring Metcalf to punch him.
5. Metcalf then went to try and physically remove Anthony, when Anthony pulled a knife and stabbed Metcalf in the chest, killing him. Metcalf died in his brother’s arms.
6. Anthony fled the scene, disposed of the knife, and was soon arrested. He told police, “he put his hands on me. I told him not to.” He also asked the officer if what had happened constituted self-defense. 
7. He was charged with murder and ordered to provide $1 million in bail.

The days that followed have been almost unbelievable—at least if viewed in terms of the most basic behavior of civilized humans—but if viewed in the post-Saint-George-Floyd America, it is exactly what one would expect.

Before proceeding, let me say I wanted to be above board in my reporting, so I went to CNN to learn more. I did a search on “Karmelo Anthony” and “Carmelo Anthony” and here’s how many CNN stories were posted, a full week after the (alleged) murder: Zero. I pressed on, and searched MSNBC… Zero.

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So, after his arrest, a black judge named Angela Tucker reduced Anthony’s bond to $250,000, and allowed him to be released on “house arrest” with parental supervision. 

A “GiveSendGo” fundraising site was established for Anthony’s “defense,” and has already raised $500,000. None of that funding was used to help post bond, with Anthony’s lawyers stating, “it wasn’t a bond fund,” and that the money was going to help his parents “pay their rent and bills.” One of their new “rent bills” includes their immediate renting of a $900,000 home in a gated community.

Among the comments offered alongside the GiveSendGo donations were:

• “This is for justice and equity… This does not make up for legacies of racism and white violence, but it is a small ripple in a larger fight for justice.”
• “Keep doing what you do young man. You are an antibullying hero, a scholar, and a gentleman.”
• “Us against them! Period!”
• “A case that wasn’t premeditated murder, just an incident similar to [Kyle] Rittenhouse’s situation, Karmelo was facing imminent threats to his life.”
• “Donating again because the pain of watching a young Black child be targeted by lies and hate is too much to bear.”
• “That bully Klansman closed the gap first while tryna (sic) rob you and got to meet his maker Satan. This is Amerikkka. Yah spared your life that day through that blade. You made the right choice.”
• “The more you (whites) bitch, the richer my brother gets. I honestly laugh at your misery. You deserve it. Now (you) mad our brother is about to walk free after sending a white supremacist to HELL where he belongs. We are not our ancestors. F@ck around, die out, Bitch.

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I understand if you’re confused about the rage in the comments, given that Karmelo is clearly (allegedly) guilty as hell. 

However, you’ve got to remember us whites also have mouth-breathing Klansmen who’d cheer if the black kid was murdered… and it’s important to keep in mind that the majority of black Americans are as horrified by this behavior as white Americans are about Klansmen. 

However, one thing’s for damn sure—the family of Karmelo Anthony has taken a run at the title of World Heavyweight Champions of Moronic Decisions. Read on…

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The Anthony family decided it would be a good idea to hold a press conference, and speak about the situation.

As a “family spokesman,” they retained the services of an Al Sharpton-esque activist and career-criminal named “Minister” Dominique Alexander. Such a winner is he that in 2011 he confessed to shaking and hitting his girlfriend’s baby… was sentenced to probation… was later sentenced to five years for multiple parole violations, then served a total of eight days. His esteemed resume goes on include a conviction for felony theft and forgery, and a jail sentence of… two days.

I’m not sure why this happens so often to black families. There are 40 million educated Americans with spotless records who’d jump at the chance to stand up and plead mercy, calm tempers, and speak on the importance of the justice system. For some reason, the charlatans and grifters are all too often chosen to “lead,” and it simply makes matters worse.

Let’s take a look at some of the inane “thoughts” put forth by the good Minister:

“This is not just about Karmelo, this is about the family that dared to stand and demand justice. Let me be loud and clear, we are not scared. We are not moving. We will not be silent.”

Demand justice? Maybe being silent is actually the smartest way to go.

When told that Austin Metcalf’s father was attending the press conference, the Minster stated:

 “I want to start off this press conference with a deep note. A deep note that I can tell America. What we seen (sic) at the beginning of this press conference, of the father being at the press conference—these are my words, don’t quote anyone, is a disrespect (sic) of the dignity of his son.”

He went on to add:

“All I’m gonna say, so it don’t be (sic) asked later, is that was disrespectful, the character (sic), who was not invited. He knows that it is inappropriate to be near this family. But he did. And so I say to people ‘actions speak louder than words.’”

I’ll go out on a limb and opine that Mr. Metcalf wishes his son hadn’t been near anyone in this family, too.

“What he has felled (sic) into is the political operatives who want to make this thing into a political thing of hate, yet bigotry, and yet racism.”

And yet here we are, with a murdered kid.

I asked, because these racist bigots tried to stop us from standing up for our baby, our boy, that he should be afforded the same rights that Kyle Rittenhouse had, Daniel Penny, and all the people who have claimed whatever their defense was.

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I’m not sure how his rights are being violated—getting his bail reduced by $750,000 and sentenced to home arrest seems like pretty righteous deal.

Nobody in the public media has one video camera, but we got the video of Kyle Rittenhouse with an AK-47 shooting three people in the back.

In a slice of irony too odd not to note, Anthony posted on social media a picture of himself holding an actual AK-47.

“How many of y’all (in the media) have asked a superintendent or one single board of trustee (sic)—why didn’t you cancel or postpone with the weather in that magnitude (sic)—you couldn’t have a track meet in the rain. Or thunderstorm. Or clouds. (sic) Y’all in the media ask your journalists—your weather journalists—how the weather was in that day in that time.”

I KNEW it… it was global warming that killed that kid.

“While the current occupant of sits at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., black people in America don’t need to pull the race card; it is a reality of what we live every day. It’s what we have to teach our children. We don’t want to, but we have to. If we want to sleep at night, we got to. I ain’t pulling no race card (sic), I live it. I’m reminded all the time that I’m a Black man in America.”

I really need to know what this has to do with a black teen (alledgedly) murdering a white teen.

Anthony’s mother and father were impeccably dressed and standing behind the “minister” during his blathering. When given the chance to make a statement, his mother spoke of the harassment of their overall family, and pointed out they had nothing to do with what happened. She stated that her husband worked hard every day, and she was a stay-at-home mother of four.

Honestly, they looked like the parents of an All-American family.

And if that’s the case, what the hell happened? What sort of influences turned their son into a boy who’d take a knife to a track meet? Put his hand on the knife when a white kid told him to leave their tent? Plunge it into his chest for touching him? Use as an excuse, “I told him not to touch me.”

That’s rage. 

How did Karmelo’s outside-the-home environment poison him so badly? He wasn’t in a gang and was participating in organized sports. Was it his friends? The never-ending glorification of violence in Hip-Hop music? Is it the endless drumbeat of the media regarding black victimhood? Black “leaders” like “Minister” Alexander constantly blaming the white victim? 

Karmelo Anthony was, for some reason, on the ragged edge that day… he was looking for a way to lash out. Sure, drug addiction may lead to senseless murder, but he had everything going for him, including good grades and a promising future. Something in his psyche triggered that fury—and the drive to murder without a thought about the consequences.

Someone needs to figure out what’s happening to our nation’s young black men. The situation grows worse every year, and civilized Americans of every color are growing less and less patient—with the violent crime, robbery, out-of-wedlock babies, the gangs, and the drugs.

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There are a few uncomfortable factors that must be addressed, because they are true—no matter how much we wish they weren’t.

Our welfare system pays black women to have babies, but only if the babies are born out-of-wedlock. Since this law was enacted, marriage among blacks went from being the “most committed to staying together” demographic to an out-of-wedlock birthrate of 78%.

Young black men are growing up without a father in the house, and virtually every study shows a father’s leadership and discipline is critical to a young man’s success in life.

Young black men are per capita wildly over-represented in violent crime statistics.

Black boys excelling in public school are far more likely to be bullied by friends for “acting white.”

Recent studies show black children are read (aloud by their parents) an average of 1,000,000 fewer words than their white counterparts before reaching first grade.

Outside pressure has caused young black males to adopt as “their culture” a style of attire, mannerisms, and speech that have nothing to do with their actual culture, but instead intimidates those around them.

Numerous studies have shown that “black sounding names” are subconsciously viewed negatively on resumes, yet the trend continues unabated—another trend that has nothing to do with American black culture.

If the small fraction of these pressures placed on Karmelo Anthony resulted in him committing a cold-blooded murder for a simple act of “disrespect,” the future appears grim for the young men raised with all of these pressures in the lives.

What we as a country have done thus far to help these young men has failed—in totality. The lives of these young men, despite over 50 years of social programs and an estimated one trillion dollars invested in “the war on poverty,” are worse than ever. 

A radically different approach will be needed, or failure among this demographic will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.    

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

Prioleau Alexander is a freelance writer, focusing mostly on politics and non-fiction humor. He is the author of four books: ‘You Want Fries With That?,’ ‘Dispatches Along the Way,’ ‘Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?‘ and ‘They Don’t Call It The Submission Process For Nothing.’ 

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