Two Viral Texas Racists Get Served Justice In Very Different Ways

     Two very disturbing incidents of racism in Texas have concluded with two very different but very satisfying outcomes. 

     Let's start with Joey Derek Christian, a drunk man who went viral in April 2019 after hurling abusive language at a Muslim employee in an AT&T. He called the man, who went by Mo, a "fucking Arab" and said that people "like him" were the reason America was going to "what it's going to." Most disturbingly, he said, "I've been killing his kind." That was probably a reference to America's military activity in Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, and numerous other Muslim-majority countries across the Middle East and North Africa. Thankfully, it appears he was not a veteran. Had he served in the military, this would have raised questions about potential violent conduct against civilians overseas. This phrase may have been a reference to the fact that he is a taxpayer and therefore considers himself partially responsible for funding America's military, a talking point often used by self-described "sovereign citizens," or those who believe the law of the United States does not apply to them. Rather, it appears Christian was a lifelong felon: most "SovCits" are. Born in Tennessee in 1980, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by 10 years of probation for armed robbery in 2001, had previously shared white pride imagery in 2015, and had a DUI arrest in 2018. For his racist tirade, he was fined $700 by police, who were apparently familiar with him. To those saying drunk behavior does not make someone racist: coming from someone with lifelong experience in the bar industry, alcohol does not make people do things they wouldn't ordinarily do; it makes the worst of their personality traits shine through without the filter that would ordinarily keep them from saying things out loud or acting on their impulses. The man named his son "Aryan." While justice may not have been served by the legal system, it was served by fate. The 40-year-old died in November 2020 of unknown causes, likely COVID-19. Good riddance!

     Unlike Joey Derek Christian, a drunk white guy who died young after racism against Americans with MENA origins without facing serious legal consequences, Constance Lynn Bono, an old white woman who intimidated Latino Americans while stone cold sober, got ripped a new one by the Texas legal system. In May 2020, wearing her now-infamous Irish flag t-shirt, she chased a Latino doctor and her husband in her car; when the coupled pulled over at a gas station to find out what she wanted, she exited her vehicle with a hammer while shouting, "fucking Mexicans!" and telling the couple they needed to, "go back where they came from," among other racist insults. The whole incident was captured on camera, and Bono was arrested on a second-class felony assault charge that carried a maximum of 20 years in prison; because it was motivated by race, it was bumped up to a first-class felony punishable by life in prison. Her lawyer gave the predictable statements about Constance Lynn Bono, saying she has "Hispanic nephews whom she loves dearly" and that she was not racist. What kind of defense can you even put up here? The underlying assault with a deadly weapon charge was caught on camera, and you can't say it wasn't about race when every insult she hurled was a racist slur against the Latino couple. 

     When she is convicted and sentenced, you can find an update on John Brown's Body at thebrownharper.blogspot.com.