The Gorilla Wall

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

James Lafond tells a tale of Paul, a janitor at a Baltimore supermarket, who was cleaning up out back behind the gorilla wall:

No fooling, that’s what they call them. They were developed for D.C. area supermarkets where gangbangers were shooting receivers and drivers offloading PM deliveries. I do not know if these very high offset walls were named for the Gorilla Family gang or after the big wall the natives built to keep King Kong out of their village in the movies. The wall protects the clerks who unload the trucks at night from being shot by the local gangbangers. Paul is a small black guy, and was detailed to sweep the area during ‘safe’ daylight hours. Just as the white guy above had been socially isolated, Paul was physically isolated, being alone behind the store. The Sun God would look uncaringly down on poor Paul as cruel Fate wrote him into her remorseless story.

Two black men and two black women, who had been ejected from the store by the uniformed police officer on duty for aggressive behavior, saw Paul as they were leaving and took out their rage on him. Paul was beaten far worse than the white guy at the Aquarium, and didn’t even think it was a big deal, because black people in Baltimore do this to each other all of the time! In fact, I could make the case that the white man attacked at the Aquarium is now an honorary African American, thanks to the liberally inclusive actions of his compassionate attackers. One of his attackers even called him ‘nigger’!

Another factor that is overlooked here is the fact these attacks were not nearly as serious as they could have been. Paul and Saint Patrick [we have to call him something shorter than 'the drunk white tourist at the Aquarium'] were downed on concrete and could have easily been stomped to death in a minute or two. These attacks are done for thrills and to build group cohesion. This is first and foremost a bonding experience for the attackers.

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