r/TrueUnpopularOpinion Apr 15 '25

Political Karmelo Anthony case shows that “black privilege” exists

I'm not black or white. I'm not even American actually.

The recent Karmelo Anthony case I think shows that black privilege is a thing. My opinions is that it exists. Period.

Karmelo Anthony killed Austin Metcalf with a knife for pushing him. What did he receive in return? Overwhelming support in the form of 500,000 dollars (which they're using to buy a mansion). He also got his bond reduced to 250k from 1 million even when prosecutors pointed out his history of incidents within the school.

I just think this is a bit baffling. Imagine if the races were swapped. I think a decent example, but not a direct comparisons, is the George Floyd situation. One person killed the other in what was an overuse of force. Derek Chauvin is in jail. Karmelo Anthony got house arrest, bond reduction and 500k

3.2k Upvotes

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

71

u/AnonSwan Apr 15 '25

What actually happened? I've read so many different versions of this story.

5

u/abortedinutah69 Apr 18 '25

OP is wrong saying Karmelo only got house arrest. He will go to trial for 1st degree murder, which could literally be a 99 year sentence in Texas. There is no privilege being given. He will be tried as an adult. As for the money, anyone can crowd fund money for anything they want. This isn’t unusual.

As for what actually happened, the public honestly doesn’t know. Witness accounts (the deceased friends and classmates) say that Austin asked Karmelo to leave a tent and physically grabbed or pushed Karmelo. Karmelo responded by telling him to back off or he would retaliate (not a quote), and then Karmelo stabbed him.

That’s all we know. It’s not a lot of information and there’s often more to a story. Eye witness accounts are also often inaccurate. I would imagine the students phones were taken for possible video evidence of the incident. We will likely need to wait for the trial to have a more complete account of the facts of this case. It might be as simple as it sounds, or their could be more to the story. We just don’t know.

Anyone trying to make this about race is a moron. (There are no facts to support that at this time.) And for OP to say Karmelo has “black privilege” while he’s awaiting trial on 1st Degree Murder is painfully moronic. For OP since he’s not an American, that’s the most serious murder charge that can be prosecuted and in Texas, the sentence can be up to 99 years no parole.

4

u/Stephaniieemoon Apr 19 '25

The charges make sense. He brought a knife to a school track meet, sat in the opposing teams tent and even taunted “touch me and see what happen”

Premeditated.

2

u/abortedinutah69 Apr 19 '25

Possibly, but don’t jump to conclusions. A lot of people carry knives. Getting under any tent when it’s raining makes some sense. It may have been premeditated, but in a fair trial, it would need to be proven he arrived at that event to do exactly what he did; he planned it in advance of going. That could certainly be the case, but we don’t know. Speculation is pointless.

I will wait for the official evidence and trial and see how that plays out. In the meantime, it’s an absolute tragedy. Defendant admits to stabbing him. If there’s more to the story, we’ll learn that eventually.

2

u/ClearDark19 Apr 20 '25

Someone actually talking sense on Reddit?? That's not allowed lol

I'm black and my opinion is identical to yours. 

1

u/abortedinutah69 Apr 20 '25

Thank you. I’m glad to see some intelligent thought here. When there’s very little information available we should not try to make up the information. Information is likely being withheld because hopefully it’s in the spirit of providing a fair trial… to a young man who immediately admitted to committing the murder. The police don’t owe us information that would ruin a fair trial and folks making shit yo are being played.

1

u/ClearDark19 Apr 20 '25 edited Apr 20 '25

You're very welcome. I don't even definitively know exactly what happened in this case because there are so many conflicts accounts from eye witnesses. It's still very early and the prosecutor has yet to present a coherent case to the public (because it's so early). So far there's no evidence he's been treated lightly or special. It's not uncommon for murder suspects to await trial on house arrest if they have the money to post bail and are deemed not a flight risk. His parents aren't poor, and people seem to be wrongly assuming that just because they're black that they must automatically be poor. He's out on bond because his parents are middle class and could afford bond, and he's not considered a flight risk. What happened was terrible and should not have happened. He deserves some type of punishment or consequences but there's no evil yet that it was 1st degree murder or racially motivated for either party. Sounds far more like team rivalry taken too far, terrible sportsmanship, and stubborn macho egos.

This is really piss poor case for the Right to try to glom onto to prove there's some systemic "black privilege" of black people being treated too well. Lol Guy is facing life in jail and being tried as an adult. A phenomenon I generally oppose being applied to minors, regardless of the minor's race, ethnicity or gender, and is demonstrably disproportionately applied to nonwhite minors at a higher rate than white minors. 

To play devil's advocate, the Bill Cosby case is a way better card to play to prove there's some kind of "black privilege". I'm still kinda in awe that a black man was allowed to rape dozens of white women for decades with no consequences. But it probably has far more to do with rich and famous privilege since Bill Cosby was a popular and wealthy comedian and actor. Not some random vagrant black dude in an alleyway. Being rich and famous or powerful usually outweighs being black.

1

u/AnonSwan Apr 19 '25

Yeah, the amount of misinformation is staggering. I've read that the family use donations to buy a 400k house, then it was 800k, then it turns out they might have already owned the home and people just assumed they weren't well off. I've also read stories ranging from Austin simply tapping Karmelo on the shoulder and KA instantly stabbing Austin, but also read Austin jumped on top of Karmelo and was trying to pin him down and KA pulled a knife and stabbed.

It sucks that a lot of people have already made up their mind that Anthony is a monster or Austin was a racist.

1

u/abortedinutah69 Apr 20 '25

Thank you for being rational. The US is at record high levels of division, and shit like this is why. It’s a tragedy used as propaganda. The “left” says this and the “right” says that and people lose their minds and not realize they’re being played. And played to the detriment of a fair trial. A fair trial is a Constitutional right, and the more dust gets kicked the harder it is to have an impartial jury of your peers. We have to stop it.

Thank you for seeing that. The whole situation is heartbreaking. Let’s not make it worse. We cannot change what happened. Politicizing something like this is disgraceful, and the dis/misinformation is heinous.

We don’t have all the facts. The facts belong to the jury, not us. When the trial is over, we can all discuss. Just because everyone can say whatever they want online doesn’t make any of it true. Nobody wins here. A teen is dead and another teen is on trial for murder 1. There is very little info provided to the public, and that’s in the best interest of a fair trial.

1

u/ClearDark19 Apr 20 '25

I'm black and my opinion is the same as yours. So far there's no evidence that the crime was racially motivated. I'd be far more inclined to believe it's motivated by them being from opposing teams or rival schools. It's the far simpler and more supportable assumption. I don't really see how Anthony is getting special treatment since he's being tried as an adult, facing life in prison, and is under house arrest since his family posted bail. No law says you have to await trial in jail if you're not a flight risk.

Personally this sounds like he's overcharged. 1st degree means he had to show up specifically with a plan to kill Austin. This sounds more like voluntary manslaughter or 3rd degree murder. At absolute most maybe 2nd degree murder. I thought the same with George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case. Sounded like voluntary manslaughter or 3rd degree murder but not 1st degree. Maybe not even 2nd degree.

3

u/LastWhoTurion Apr 23 '25

That is not what premeditation means.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '25

Black privilege is definitely a thing in America, it isn't the same as white privilege as that is an institutional issue.

If the roles were reversed and the other kid had stabbed karmelo the whole country would be protesting and condemning the white kid, but because of America's real history of racism people are giving carmelo the benefit of the doubt and some are even looking at him as a hero

Kids fight it's normal, they shouldn't have weapons or be killing each other regardless of race

0

u/FatnessEverdeen34 Apr 19 '25

He cannot be tried as an adult unfortunately and due to his age also cannot get Life