On January 26th, a plane carrying former NBA basketball star Kobe Bryant slammed into a California hill in the fog killing everyone on board.  After it was announced that Kobe, indeed, was on the plane and that Kobe was, indeed, dead, the accolades started flowing in.  Time magazine placed him on their cover.  In the past, other high profile people died in airplane crashes and never made it to the cover of Time.

This is not to diminish the accomplishments of Kobe Bryant on and off the basketball court.  He was not some loudmouth who used his profile and ability to score baskets and win NBA championships to stand on a soapbox and rant about whatever injustice he imagined.  Perhaps that is attributable to Bryant’s upbringing.  He was not the typical black athlete raised by a single parent whose only choice in life to break the cycle of poverty and ghetto life was sports.  Well, at least that’s usually the narrative.

Bryant hails from “Philadelphia,” but even that is a misnomer.  He went to school at Bala Cywynd Middle School and Lower Merion High School in Ardmore.  These are not exactly “ghettoes.”  In fact, they are the tony suburbs of Philadelphia usually known as the “Main Line.”  We are talking about places like Villanova, Radnor, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and yes…Ardmore.  Kobe was the exception to the rule of the typical black athlete.  He raised a family with his one and only wife.

Posthumous praise is the norm in most societies and our’s is no different.  However, with the passage of time comes a brutal evaluation of truth, not emotional dribble about a dead basketball star.  Let’s face some facts here: In 2003, Kobe Bryant was accused of raping a 19-year-old white girl (I mention the victim’s race for a reason…read on).  The case was eventually dropped after the Lakers dispatched a lawyer to Colorado to announce that Kobe Bryant mistakenly believed the tryst was consensual and that he was truly sorry.

Imagine if a high-profile white, conservative athlete was accused of rape and settling out of court.  Outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post would have been demanding their head on a pike.  The person I am imagining (and I’m not sure he’s “conservative”) would be someone like Tom Brady whose NFL success rivals that of Bryant’s success in the NBA.

The few who were brave enough to mention the 2003 rape charge against Bryant were quickly silenced amidst an avalanche of racism charges.  Instead, we witnessed Kobe Bryant being memorialized at the Super Bowl, and every sporting event from NASCAR to the NHL had moments of silence for Kobe Bryant.  As Kobe Bryant is canonized, no one dare say the word “rape” anywhere near a mention of Saint Kobe for it is now a mortal sin.

But that’s the way it usually works with the Left and America is not unique in this.  In Britain, as is the case here, there are lectures from the media types and brain dead celebrities about gender politics, sexual harassment and racism.  And while we can imagine what fate a Tom Brady would suffer in the face of rape charges, we can see from Great Britain the same Kobe phenomena witnessed here.

The reader is invited to look up the events in Britain and places like Rochdale, Bradford, Rotherham, Oldham, Derby, Bristol and Manchester.    Here is a number: 1,608.  That is the minimal number of young, white poor adolescent teenagers who were brutalized, raped, and trafficked in prostitution after being groomed at the hands of those of Pakistani or Somali descent.  Kobe Bryant is accused of (actually admits) rape and is canonized while people of color rape poor white kids in England and it is ignored by authorities and the media.

Same thought exercise: imagine if these were Pakistani or Somali girls being picked up, brutalized and raped by a gang of white men.  What would be the reaction?  This writer can assure you there would be rioting in the streets and placard-carrying celebrities on social media bleating about racism before you could say “Meghan and Harry.”

Notice that to this date, not a single victim of these crimes in Britain has a celebrity voice in their corner.  Obviously, Joaquin Phoenix is too busy saving cows, so he’s out.  But, where are all the other smarmy Brits who are so apt to criticize racism in America, but blind to the obvious racism right under their turned up noses?

This abuse of poor white English girls went on unchecked for years.  Although the main perpetrators are now put away and hopefully having done to them in jail what they did to innocent girls, for years the authorities in Britain were paralyzed by fear of being called “racist” for going after the guilty who just happened to be “persons of color.”

In the world of social justice, Kobe Bryant and the perpetrators of crimes in England had the correct skin color.  The victims had the wrong skin color.  But at least there is one good thing about this saga- some in Hollywood have the best interests of cows, if not rape victims, in their hearts.  Kind of says something about the “virtue” and hypocrisy of the #MeToo types, eh?

As for Kobe Bryant, the words of Voltaire say it best: “We owe respect to the living; to the dead, we owe only the truth.”