On April 2, 2025, Karmelo Anthony went to Memorial High School looking for a fight. Though he was participating in a track meet, he felt the need to bring a knife in his backpack. Once at the school, he sat in the tent of the opposing team. When confronted by Austin Metcalf, who told him to leave, Anthony reached into his backpack and said, “Touch me and see what happens.” Metcalf then grabbed Anthony in an attempt to forcibly move him out of the tent. Anthony then used his knife to stab Metcalf in the heart, killing him almost instantly.

Touch me and see what happens. This is the ethos for which Anthony was willing to murder an innocent boy.

On paper, Anthony sounded as if he were a model citizen with a bright future. Coming from a stable, two-parent household, he was the captain of his own school’s track and football teams. He worked two part-time jobs and was a straight A student. At the time of his crime, he was a month away from graduation, and was planning on going to college. Until the moment he plunged his knife into Metcalf’s chest, he had never had any incidents with law enforcement.

What are we to make of this? How are we supposed to understand how someone as seemingly normal as Karmelo Anthony was willing, in a manner of seconds, to destroy the lives of others, not to mention his own life, over such a petty argument?

Touch me and see what happens. Anthony didn’t develop this ethos on his own. There is a sickness in black subculture in contemporary America, and the sickness is this: Too many young black males are immersed in a socio-racial ideology that glorifies violence, preaches that only the meanest dog on the block wins, and dictates that any perceived threat from anyone who “steps up to me” must be countered with a wildly disproportionate, overwhelming response.

With regards to this latter point, the sole purpose of a disproportionate, overwhelming response is to serve as a warning not only to the victim, but to whoever else is watching or who is later made aware of this incident. If pushing me results in me murdering you, people far and wide will think twice before “stepping up” to me. My reputation as an unpredictable, uncontrollable animal is forged and serves my interests in the long run, even if I’m punished in the short run.

Let us be honest. This sickness is prevalent among young black males more than any other group. The statistics don’t lie. And because of this sickness, and because of foot soldiers such as Karmelo Anthony willing to follow its orders, the result will likewise be predictable. People avoid sickness. And though Anthony will spend the next 35 years in quarantine, so to speak, there are still potentially millions of other infected carriers.

This sickness is evident in the Black Lives Matter riots that burned down entire cities and left dozens of innocent people dead. The sickness is evident in the almost exclusively black flash mobs that take over streets, malls, and beaches. The sickness is evident in the 20-person brawls that break out at Waffle Houses, in casino lobbies, and in Carnival cruise check-in lines. The sickness is evident in every attempt to resist law enforcement, and every escalation of a situation that in no way necessitated escalating. The sickness is evident in the Treyvon Martins and Eric Garners and Michael Browns and Jacob Blakes and Anton Sterlings who respond to any and all adversity with hyper-aggressive violence.

Whatever may be the incidental motivations for these crimes, underlying them is the darker, subconscious message. Don’t come near me. I’m not rational, and you can’t talk me down. I’m a rabid pit bull, and the more you anger me, the harder I’ll stomp you. I don’t follow rules, and you’d be wise to just stay out of my way.

This sickness festers like gangrene and rots the entire subculture, regardless of its other admirable components. A toxic mixture of never-ending racial grievance and a perverse pride in the urban “gangsta” lifestyle incubates, encourages, and spreads it. It’s the pathetic selfies holding the handgun in one hand and a wad of money in the other. It’s the bass-bumping car stereos through the neighborhood at midnight. It’s the infantile “statement” clothing, assuming it’s the correct size.

The problem with this messaging, aimed primarily if not exclusively toward the “white” dominant culture, is that the message is received exactly as intended. Don’t go near him. He’s not rational, and I can’t talk him down. He’s a rabid pit bull, and the more I anger him, the harder he’ll stomp me. He doesn’t follow rules, and I’d be wise to just stay out of his way.

And so, because of the Karmelo Anthonys and Treyvon Martins and Michael Browns, all black men are implicated. That’s obscenely unfair to innocent black men, but it’s also an unavoidable reaction of human beings. A black man in the Reconstruction South in the 1870’s would understandably avoid gatherings of young, loud, boisterous white men, especially at night. And it wouldn’t be because that black man was “racist.” It would be because enough gatherings of young white men had resulted in death or serious bodily injury for black men that it was prudent for black men to give such gatherings as wide a berth as possible. Sure, not every gathering of young white men was ill-intended towards black men, but the risk wasn’t worth one’s life.

That same mindset is at work today. People instinctively avoid gatherings of young black males. And not only do people avoid them, people also avoid confronting them in the same way they would confront a young male of any other race. If a young black male is acting up in a restaurant, or on a subway, or in a movie theater, or near a playground in my neighborhood, do I lower my gaze and pretend it isn’t happening? Or do I say something to him and risk getting stabbed to death?

And while these thugs might feel they’re doing other black people a favor by further manifesting their “street cred” to the rest of America, the fact is that they are hurting all black people in the long run. Sure, no white people will intervene when you behave like a feral animal at the local McDonalds. But because of you, nor will white people (or any other race of people, for that matter) move to your neighborhoods. Or invest in your communities. Or hire you for jobs. Or teach in your schools. Or ever trust you enough to breathe easy.

Touch me and see what happens. What happens is that the entire black community suffers, because of your need to act out your sophomoric “thug life” fantasy. What happens is that innocent people, both white and black, are murdered because they “disrespected” you.

Only black America, and black America alone, can eradicate this sickness. No government program or study group or reparation payment will fix this. This sickness has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with slavery, or Jim Crow, or any racial grievance, real or invented. This sickness is purely organic.

There is absolutely a light at the end of the tunnel, but it will require some serious soul-searching and a good, hard look in the mirror. It will require overcoming not only the “gangsta rap” culture of violence and brutal social Darwinism, but also the racist undertones affecting black America.

If a white man and a black man get into a fight, I don’t automatically side with the white man just because he’s white. If I were on a jury, I would look at all available evidence and try to make an informed judgement based on the knowledge available to me about who was at fault. But the crowd of Karmelo Anthony supporters outside the courthouse clearly don’t examine problems through any lens except the lens of racial grievance. Theirs is a knee-jerk reaction to defend black criminality, not on the grounds of objective evidence, but solely on the grounds that being black gives the defendant the moral approval to exist free from the constraints of the moral order. There is no other term for this mindset other than racism.

This racism ripples back to where it usually begins, i.e. the halls of academia. “Scholars” such as Harvard professor Stacey Patton blaming the murder victim because his father never taught him that “black boys have boundaries” will only further isolate the black community. Until black America confronts, defeats, and transcends both the racist and self-destructive elements of black subculture, it will continue to be its own worst enemy.

Despite what your “leaders” and racial-ambulance-chasing lawyers tell you in the press conferences, and despite what you see on Netflix, white America wants you to succeed. There are no hidden armies of hooded white supremacists just waiting for you to let your guard down. Rather, there are everyday, normal white people who share the goals, values, and hopes for their children as do everyday, normal black people. It’s the ones calling you a “sellout” for your achievements that you shouldn't trust.

We want you at our parties and at our barbecues. We want to talk over the fence and hear how well your son is doing at university, or in his new career, or on his honeymoon vacation. We want a true, honest friendship with you that you don’t forget exists the moment another black person enters the room.

But that won’t happen until you extend an open hand rather than a closed fist. It won’t happen so long as the baseless paranoia and resentment and hate continues to smolder. Bigots such as Cardi B and Jasmine Crockett are intentionally fanning the flames of vulgar tribalism, because this is how they get paid. But you… not them… you have to distinguish between what the honest side of you actually believes about us and what the deceptive side of you wants to believe about us.

Touch us, and see what happens. Most likely, you’ll get a smile, a handshake, an invitation. I guarantee you won’t get a knife in the chest.

The ball is in your court.

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