When officials, and the media, are
willing to appropriate the praise worthy performances of others and attribute
them to white women, we are in trouble.
First, Shoshana Johnson's experiences in
Iraq were attributed to Jessica Lynch; then Alyson Jacobs got the credit for
Lisa Campbell's observations in the Jaycee Dugard kidnaping; now Mark
Todd's performance, at Fort Hood, is being ascribed to Kimberly Munley.
The gunman was struck four times by a civilian police officer who was wounded herself. Authorities said Kimberly Munley fired on the suspect just three minutes after the gunfire erupted. The gunman then spun around and charged at Munley withHow can a story emerge, in which Kimberly Munley is credited with taking down Nidal Malik Hasan, when she was unconscious, as the story evolved, and the only person talking, was her partner, Mark Todd, and he said that he took down Nidal Malik Hasan.a gun in each hand, said her boss, Chuck Medley, director of emergency services at Fort Hood. He said Munley shot Hasan in the upper torso, allowing officers to take him into custody.
I observed Hasan calmly selecting his victims, pointing at them with one hand and leveling a handgun with the other. He was firing at people as they were trying to run and hide. I shouted at him to drop his weapon, "he turned and fired a couple of rounds at me. (I fired five shots) Hasan flinched, slid down against a telephone pole and fell on his back. I approached the suspect and kicked the gun out of his hand, (and cuffed him)."In addition to repeating Mark Todd's description of his encounter with Hasan, the writer described Kimberly Munley as firing alongside Todd, even though Todd said she was not there. Also, her silence about shooting Hasan is telling. During her appearance on Oprah, she acknowledged pursuing him, and getting shot by him, but she said nothing about shooting him. As a matter of fact, she never said that she fired her gun. It must be quite a luxury when you can be unconscious, as Jessica Lynch, and Kimberly Munley were, and despite contradictory stories from witnesses, people in authority, and the press, spin a story to aggrandize you, while obscuring the truth about the achievements of others, so that their achievements will be attributed to you. As a matter of fact, Mark Todd is beginning to sound like he is becoming intimidated against telling what he did. He was reluctant to tell Oprah that he shot Hasan, until Oprah asked him how he was able to take Hasan's gun. According to Google, Kimberly Munley's name is mentioned 9,040,000 times in relation to Fort Hood, while Mark Todd's name is only mentioned 104,000 times. In virtually every article that contains Mark Tood's name, Kimberly Munley's name is present, but in most articles in which Kimberly Munley's name appears, Mark Todd is not referred to at all, or he is a nameless "partner." The same is true for pictures. Kimberly Munley's photograph appears everywhere, Mark Todd's photograph that, as a retired soldier and police Officer, should be readily available, appears nowhere. Every story identifies Kimberly Munley as having a role in ending the siege, while Mark Todd's role is not mentioned or his role is made to appear ambiguous. "Hero" accompanies Kimberly's name in every Fort Hood article; Mark Todd is never referred to as a hero. When the survivors were calling to Mark Todd, to finish Hasan off, he disarmed him, and cuffed him instead.
Todd says he heard bystanders say "two more, two more." At first he thought the soldiers meant there were two more suspects, but then he realized they were urging him to fire two more rounds at Hasan, thinking he was still posing a threat. Todd approached the suspect and saw that he still had a weapon in his hand. Todd kicked away the gun, which he said had a laser-aiming device attached to it. Todd handcuffed Hasan and checked to see if he was still alive. (Todd) cut off pieces of Hasan's clothes (to expose his wounds) so he would receive first aid . . ..Not only is Mark Todd the person who brought Hasan down, he just may have provided the evidence that will keep an event like this from ever happening again. Only Hasan can solve the puzzle of what drove him, and who supported him, in committing this outlandish massacre. Thanks to Mark Todd, who had the even temperament and self-control, to put Hasan into government custody, alive . . . so that he could be interrogated, and the pieces of the puzzle can be known. While I want people to get credit for what they do, I actually don't believe that Kimberly Munley or Mark Todd are heroes; they are police officers who did their jobs well. Heroism is something that is above and beyond the call of duty, like purposefully taking a bullet to protect an innocent bystander. By contrast, pursuing a criminal during the commission of a crime and attempting to prevent the furtherance of criminal activity, is what police are trained and paid to do. Commendations for a job well done may be in order, but declarations of heroism are not. Faking white female achievement, at the expense of others, is not only unfair to the people denied their achievement, it is also a vote of no confidence in white women. It is tantamount to declaring disbelief in the ability of white woman to earn recognition on their own. It's a backhanded way of preserving the status quo. While Jessica Lynch and Kimberly Munley are elevated for what they did not do, women like Nancy Pelosi are denigrated as they accomplish unprecedented achievements on behalf of our Nation. Nancy Pelosi almost single-handedly brought about a legislative initiative that has nearly been a hundred years in the making. She is the first and only Speaker of the House to pull that off. So in the realm of white women, by creating fake heroes, and denigrating real heroes, it creates the impression, that there are no heroes at all.
