[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

His constant run-ins with law enforcement have frustrated African-Americans who hoped he could have become something else, a hero in the struggle against police brutality. Instead, King seems to have reinforced the image many non-African-Americans held of him, as an incorrigible hoodlum.

I agree, this is sad. The man could have pulled himself up by his bootstraps and, by his example, shown the black community how to do the same. Instead he serves another purpose: by his inability to confront himself, his past and his culture, by wallowing in victimhood, by shrugging off responsibility and accountability for his own life, Rodney King has become a caricature of all that is wrong with the liberal plantation.

Leave it to the media to ignore this aspect.

[tjg]

"pulled himself up by his bootstraps"

Bootstraps? He was tethered to the good life by $3.8 million.

Self destructive is the only way to describe his behavior.

[TN Republican]

Pull himself up by his own bootstraps? All he had to do was put his money in an S&P index fund and he would have had enough money on which to live the rest of his life. I guess it made more sense to put it into a rap label.