Last week, a Swedish court found rapper A$AP Rocky (real name: Rakim Mayer) guilty of assault in a June 30 street altercation in Stockholm. He got away with no jail time and fines of about $1,300.
For those paying attention, the Swedes brought fairly serious charges, conducted a trial and rendered a verdict – all within six weeks! A similar situation in the States could have taken months.
This outcome makes even more embarrassing the behavior of President Trump. Following A$AP’s arrest, at the apparent urging of celebrity pals Kanye and Kim Kardashian West, Trump launched a Twitter tantrum – browbeating Sweden’s prime minister to free Rocky.
Despite Sweden’s independent judiciary, Trump announced he was “Very disappointed in Prime Minister Stefan Lofven for being unable to act. Sweden has let our African American community down in the United States … Treat Americans fairly.”
In further abuse of official resources, Trump sent a hostage negotiator to monitor the trial.
We’d take more seriously this sudden interest in black Americans being treated “fairly” by courts if the man who in 1989 bought full-page ads calling for the death penalty for the accused Central Park Five had bothered to apologize at some point in the 17 years since they were fully exonerated.
Instead, this man who incessantly wails about “unfairness” mocks a friendly Scandinavian nation that did nothing to offend the United States – to bail out a celebrity pal who beat someone up abroad.
Ugly American “justice.” No wonder Denmark won’t sell us Greenland.
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