You need to watch this. You need to hear what CNN's Don Lemon has to say.
You do that -- I'll wait. Then I have something I need to say. In advance, I ask that you pardon my French.
Have you finished with that Don Lemon video? Good.
Now, you know what the problem is here, right? It's this: Way too many white folk are just
like Donald Trump -- narcissists who lack empathy, only in their case
that deficit only applies to those whom they've been raised to disdain.
Guess what, people. Those who raised you in such a manner were just as
fucked up as you are. They taught you wrong, and you just aren't
introspective enough to question your assumptions and conditioning.
LISTEN, the bad news is we're all fucked up. The good news is you're
not alone. The better news is you have the power to fix your
fucked-upitude. You have an imagination -- use it. Put yourself in the
other guy's shoes for just a minute.
Until I got to Baton Rouge Magnet High, due to life in the public schools of Redneckistan and thanks to my own
family dynamics . . . well, let's just say it's easy for me to
understand the sort of rage we're seeing tonight. At age 59, I consider
it, as Bobby Kennedy related in 1968 after Martin Luther King, Jr., was
assassinated, "the awful grace of God."
It's not terribly
difficult for me to imagine just wanting to "burn the motherfucker
down." It's not terribly difficult for me to understand internalized
rage and humiliation.
Of course, it's not right to just "burn the
motherfucker down," but it's certainly understandable as hell. At least
if you get a hold of your self-absorbed self and imagine what it's like
to have a cop with his knee on your neck . . . just because he can,
figuring the consequences for that will be minimal.
WELL, we're seeing the consequences now, ain't we, Cap?
The problem here is that this sort of riotous anarchy has to be
quelled, but the ones whose job that is have zero moral standing
to do it. Not anymore. That doesn't make a violent mob any less a
violent mob; it just makes us well and truly fucked right now.
Really, we're in an awful place when the tripolar dynamic in any society
is, first, the lawless, enraged mob. Then, second, there are the
jackbooted thugs, as embodied by Donald Trump and his cultists.
Finally, third, there is what appears to be the feckless liberal
authorities -- in this case in Minneapolis -- who believe in relevance
and self-abasement (self-abasement which isn't unmerited, I hasten to
add), but are powerless to do much else but validate the feelings of the
unthinking, enraged Id indiscriminately destroying everything in its
path.
Welcome to the Revolution, folks. Chances are, it won't end well.
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well," but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
Indeed someone might say, "You have faith and I have works." Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works. You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble. Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the works. Thus the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
In the Age of Trump, we Americans live in a giant tinderbox. And we're fighting over everything.
Black Lives Matter. Blue Lives Matter. All hell breaks loose when Blue Lives shoot unarmed Black Lives. These skirmishes break out amid the larger struggle over the strategic crossroads of race and inequality.
Also in these fraught times, the battle over the Rebel flag and Confederate monuments still rages, and Lost Cause aficionados still cry over their spilled "heritage" as they wave the Stars and Bars in the face of civilized humanity. Sometimes, one stumbles into a situation where two or more of these things converge, which today quickly could become a Situation. So . . . welcome to an impromptu pro-police demonstration in Council Bluffs, Iowa, following the fatal shooting of a Pottawattamie County sheriff's deputy -- white -- by an escaping inmate -- black. The gathering along Broadway Avenue consisted of members of a Facebook group for off-road enthusiasts -- at least two of whom also are enthusiasts for something else not usually associated with Iowans.
THE GROUP of Counciltuckians -- and displays like this are why people across the Missouri River call Council Bluffs Counciltucky -- waved at least a couple of Blue Lives Matter American flags, a couple of regular Star-Spangled Banners and. . . . I swear to God, I didn't even know this was a thing.
. . . at least two Confederate battle flags that had been Blue Lives Matterized. In Iowa.
Again, by people not Steve King.
Are you seeing where this could all go horribly wrong? Are you sensing that at least a few of these folks, in addition to saying police lives matter, might be saying that black lives do not? And that one of the Molotov cocktails we Americans so love to use for a pepper game -- when you win, you lose -- is somehow part and parcel of cop killings.
I don't know about you, but my inclination is to ask the Rebel-flag wavers "What the hell are you thinking? Why the hell do you think this is appropriate? What exactly are you saying here?" I'm curious that way. I imagine the Blue Lives that these people seem to think Matter might like a bit of insight, themselves. "Intelligence," I think they call that kind of information.
MANY REPORTERS might like to know, too. Then again, maybe not.
Too many journalists today operate under the same "narrative pressure" local TV reporters face at times like these. Dead cop. Ordinary folk show their love and support. Tears. Respect. Cue somber outro music. Fade to black.
Even so, I don't know how a reporter ignores the flag flying right in her face, but there you go.
Confederate flags do not fit The Narrative -- at least not in the Midwest. And I suspect that even in the former Confederate States of America, there would be hell to pay if they did. The descendants of slaves tend to get touchy when white folk celebrate a society predicated upon their ancestors' suffering.
And just like those who embrace the Rebel flag must let go more important things to take up a tainted standard, journalists who stick to the feelgood, feel-bad Narrative are, in their own ratings- and circulation-driven manner, doing exactly what Confederate enthusiasts do in the South and -- one presumes, because Counciltucky -- elsewhere. They whitewash fact so we might live an alluring lie where we all love the cops, the cops all love us, and everybody does it out of the goodness of our June and Ward Cleaver hearts. In The Narrative, communities are good, communities pull together and no one scapegoats, stereotypes or has ulterior motives. Never mind those people waving the Rebel flags, banners the Channel 7 reporter seems to think will cease to exist if just she ignores them hard enough. It would have been such a simple question: "The Blue Lives Matter American flags, I understand. But why the Confederate flags?"
It's a simple question that wasn't asked by reporters for the Omaha World-Herald, either, even though the newspaper made note of the flag-waving off-roaders and even ran a picture of them.
Sans Rebel flag, of course.
Perhaps the answer is the fewer questions you ask, the better off you are in post-truth Tinderbox America.
Zack Linly is an African-American activist. He also is a poet.
And a performer.
And a freelance writer.
And a community organizer.
So it's no great surprise that when a man spread that thin reconsiders the usefulness of engaging with whitey, he doesn't take the time to consider that he's just decided that George Wallace was right after all.
Gee, when you're 12 percent of the population, decide to quit engaging with anyone else, lump all white people into the same racist boat, then basically tell the whole lot to f*** off . . . I wonder where that strategy possibly might go wrong in this Age of Trump?
But if some hothead is going to be stupid, and then he decides to write down his stupidity, it would almost be wrong if some American newspaper somewhere didn't publish it for the sheer entertainment value, if nothing else. In Linly's case, it was The Washington Post's turn. To wit:
Could it be, and I’m just spit-balling here, but could it be that white folks are … completely full of it?
This is why I submit that black people should simply disengage with white America in discussions about race altogether. Let them have their little Klan-esque chats in the Yahoo and USA Today comment sections. We need to stop arguing with them because, in the end, they aren’t invested like we are. They aren’t paying attention to these stories out of fear for their lives and the lives of their children and spouses; they are only tuned in out of black and brown contempt. This is trivial to them, a contest to see who can be the most smug, condescending and dismissive. When black people debate these issues, we do so passionately — not always articulately, and often without a whole lot of depth to our arguments — but we always come from a place of genuine frustration, outrage and fear.
When most white people debate the very same issues from an opposing stance, they do so from a place of perpetual obtuseness and indifference. Their arguments always seem to boil down to “If it isn’t my experience, it couldn’t possibly be yours.” Even “well meaning” white folks tend to center themselves in the discussion (#NotAllWhitePeople #IDontSeeColor). Yes, there are plenty of white people who aren’t racist, who think shouting “Blue Lives Matter” is wrong, who truly do wish things would change. But the fact is, they figuratively and literally have no skin in the game.
I understand that white people are mad. They’ve gone their whole lives being the default for social and cultural normalcy and never really had to think critically about race at all.
Now a black first lady addresses the nation, and she talks about slavery. Now social media identifies and challenges their micro-aggressions. They’re getting the tint snatched off of their rose-colored glasses; that “Shining City on the Hill” they know as America is starting to lose some of its gloss. And they ain’t here for that — but we are.
So we need to let them cry. Let them gripe about how white is the new black and they are now the true victims of racism because their black co-workers don’t invite them to lunch or some black guy on the train called them a cracker or because black people on the interwebs hurt feelings. (How nice it must be to have the option of simply logging off of your oppression.) We need to let them cry. And we need to learn how to just sit our intellectual selves back and enjoy it.
NO, I DON'T think black folks would enjoy it. Not at all.
The fact is, we can fight systemic racism without white validation. We can continue shutting down bridges and highways every time there’s a new Alton Sterling, Philando Castile or Korryn Gaines in the news and let white folks complain about the intrusion on their lives. We can continue moving our black dollars into black banks and keeping our money in our businesses and communities. We don’t need them to “get it” for us to keep fighting.
And likewise, white people who truly want to be allies can find their path to ally-ship without black validation and without us having to take time out of our days to educate them. They can find their own curriculum and figure out for themselves how they can do their part in fighting the good fight. And they can do it without the promise of black praise. And, I’m not about to keep checking to see if they’re doing that much. Because it’s not my job – and it’s not yours, either.
Black people, it is long past time for us to start practicing self-care. And if that means completely disengaging with white America altogether, then so be it.
WELL, you certainly can try to fight systemic racism without white validation, but I don't know how far you're going to get. Keep telling white people to screw themselves while you scarcely treat white allies better than you do sworn enemies like David Duke, and I think -- and I'm just spit-balling here -- you're going to create even more enemies.
You're going to take people of good will and ultimately convince them that they are being targeted by blacks, and then that whole self-preservation thing kicks in.
Remember Bosnia? The United States already is well on the way to getting there in Trump's good time, and Mr. F*** Whitey proclaims that throwing gasoline on a smoldering fire looks like a solution to him.
Ensure that all the hated, innately racist white people come to see you not as fellow Americans -- or even brothers and sisters in Christ or merely part of the brotherhood of man -- and see what wonderful and immediate results come from "shutting down bridges and highways every time there’s a new Alton Sterling, Philando Castile or Korryn Gaines in the news and let white folks complain about the intrusion on their lives."
Let's take a brief moment for a brief history lesson from just my middle-aged lifetime.
IN 1963, it was the abject horror of the American public at TV pictures of fire hoses and police dogs turned on peaceful black protesters in Birmingham -- the horror of the predominantly white American public -- that made it politically possible for President Lyndon Johnson (white President Lyndon Johnson) to ram the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress (the overwhelmingly white Congress) over the strenuous objections of powerful (and segregationist) Southern members.
A year after the Civil Rights Act's passage, it was the abject horror of the American public at TV pictures of segregationist vigilantes and Alabama state troopers attacking peaceful black protesters in Selma -- the horror of the still predominantly white American public -- that made it possible for President Lyndon Johnson (the still-white President Lyndon Johnson) to ram the Voting Rights Act of 1965 through Congress (the stilloverwhelmingly white Congress) over the once again strenuous objections of still powerful (and still segregationist) Southern members.
Muhammad
So, if Zack Linly would like to know how successful he and his might be after disengagement with -- and his near-blanket villification of -- honkies like lil' ol' south Louisiana-born me, that not-so-ancient history might be a reliable guide. He'd well know that if his study of African-American history had extended beyond "We were slaves" and "White people bad."
Here's my educated guess on how African-Americans might fare under the Linly Plan, which is nothing more than a less-articulate version of the Elijah Muhammad Plan.
Connor
Bull Connor would be just a warm-up; that's how well it would go. Yes, some white people are ugly nowadays. I am old enough to well remember a time when a lot more were a lot uglier. I would advise against daring white people to be that way once again.
Especially, as I said, when African-Americans are about 12 percent of the population, and white people are better armed.
Micro-agression that.
WHEN THE center does not hold, bad things happen. Given that Americans oftentimes aren't all that bright (or particularly well-versed in history), it's looking like were going to have to find that out the hard way.
Welcome to the confluence of every damn thing that's wrong with my hometown, Baton Rouge, La.:
Banana-republic policing,
Ineffective, dysfunctional state and local government,
An angry, ignored and historically severely damaged (in every way) inner-city population,
A critical mass of stone-cold white racism locally, and
Systemic breakdowns in education, the justice system, public health care and social services.
You tell me how this ends well. I got nothin'.
I KNEWthis would go south Friday night when the protest outside police headquarters -- I've been obsessively watching The Advocate's live streams -- began to turn ugly and the local "community leaders" tried to talk to the crowd and restore order. They were all shouted down.
One state senator from inner-city Baton Rouge kept talking about legislation she was going to introduce to deal with the situation, and how she needed the protesters to get politically involved, blah blahblah blahblah blahblah.
The hotheads may have been beyond reason, but they're not stupid. Any legislation she were to introduce to "deal with the situation" would pass the Louisiana Legislature how, exactly?
The kind of breakdown of public order that the hotheads among the demonstrators would like to achieve in the streets of Baton Rouge, because outrage, is what the GOP-dominated legislature already is achieving politically, because . . . Louisiana. And "conservative" ideology.
TELL ME how this gets better. Tell me how this gets better when officialdom is urging everyone to lower the temperature of their rhetoric, but then the comments sections of Baton Rouge media outlets -- both on their websites and on their Facebook feeds -- more or less look like so many Ku Klux Klan message boards, with some outraged black folks responding in kind here and there.
Suggest that -- in the public interest and to promote reasoned dialog -- they either shut down comments or actively moderate them and you get lectured about the First Amendment and not wanting to stifle people's "freedom of speech."
I got that line from some 20-something Channel 2 talking head. Having gotten A's in media law at the LSU journalism school a decade before this lightweight was born, I explained to him that freedom of the press belongs to the owner of the press. Which ain't the amazing number of racist trolls taking over these outlets' comments sections.
So, given all of the above, tell me . . . how is Baton Rouge not even more screwed than it usually is? How is someone, or several someones, not going to end up as dead as Alton Sterling before all this is through?
WFAA sports anchor Dale Hansen may be the last actual grown-up in American media.
All the rest, I am reasonably certain, are dead or have been run off by corporate fools who make human sacrifices to shareholder value. Please watch this, because this grown-up says some grown-up things about the hellish chaos which we know as the New Normal.
You do that, and instead of producing an episode of 3 Chords & the Truth this week, I will go back to watching my hometown teeter at the abyss -- You may have heard of it recently . . . Baton Rouge, La.-- while white racists unleash their racist slurs on local-media comments sections, enraged blacks lash back with some of their own and local newspaper and TV figures enable this incendiary cesspool in the name of "free speech." (Nota bene: Freedom of the press belongs to he who owns the press. Listen to me; I got an A in media law in college.) Alas, 2016 is a lot like 1968 -- "one goddamn thing after another."
We have a problem, and it's that every citizen has become a potential terrorist or insurgent in their eyes. We have a problem. It looks a lot like some sort of fascist police state, and lots of Americans like it that way. Donald Trump did not come from nowhere. We have a problem. When we weren't looking, America became Amerika.
I've always thought of myself as a writer, among other things. I have a journalism background -- I've worked as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. I know my way around a keyboard.
Increasingly, I find myself without words, at least ones that I can print here. There is something to be said -- something important. I wish I knew what the hell it was. The enormity of evil has murdered my words. Killed them dead, just like the Baton Rouge, La., police killed Alton Sterling. Sterling was the CD Man at the corner of North Foster and Fairfields, in north Baton Rouge, otherwise known as the 'hood. Truth be told, lots of my hometown is the 'hood. This part of town, like so many others in north BR, used to be working class and white back when I was a kid.
White people hauled ass. Now it's the 'hood, the place where -- at least according to too many of those white people who abandoned their city for points south, east and way north -- the "animals" live. Anyway, the CD Man peddled compact discs, bootleg and otherwise, outside the Triple S Food Mart. That's how he scraped together what some people might call a living, or as much of a living as you can when you have a long rap sheet and can't get a job. Long rap sheets happen in the 'hood, the 'hood in my hometown and yours, too. You grow up poor, you grow up lacking a father . . . or a mother . . . or both, and then shit starts to happen. Then shit snowballs. Then you get out of jail and peddle CDs. And then you carry a pistol because you got mugged or a buddy got mugged or you're just scared of the 'hood that is your home. Then you cross paths with the Baton Rouge cops. Again. And now you're dead, a big-ass hole blown in your chest, point-blank from a cop's service weapon. Don't ask me why. I don't know. I got theories, probably wrong ones. I got no words -- no sufficient ones, at least. I just know that there Baton Rouge is, sitting atop a tinderbox with people -- many of them white, self-righteous and racist as a son of a bitch -- tossing lit matches from atop platforms provided them by local media. Add some outraged African-American counterparts in incivility, and you have a combox race war. All you need are guns. There are a few of those floating around Louisiana. And America.
Click for full-size image
I COULD go on and on about the gross irresponsibility of the media aiding and abetting a racist, rage-fueled shitstorm at a time such as this, on the Internet there in America's own banana republic, which of course is a wholly owned subsidiary of Donald Trump's Amerika. Could even complain to those in charge of the newspaper and TV stations. Wouldn't do any good. The last grown-ups in the media were laid off sometime around 2010. Heat draws eyeballs. Light gets you squat. If you're looking for a ray of sunshine amid the darkness, if you're looking for some earthly hope in this space, I apologize for wasting your time. I got nothing. I got no great hope for my hometown or my home state. I got no great hope that racism won't get anything but worse in this Age of Trump. I got no words -- no useful ones. I got squat. All I have is that familiar sick feeling in my middle-aged gut. All I have is sorrow. All I have is contempt for my hometown and the hateful stupidity it seems to nurture like a Petri dish does bacteria. I wish I could say, like the Steve Taylor song, "Since I Gave Up Hope (I Feel A Lot Better)." But I don't. I'm just the same -- tired, pissed and sick to my stomach, just without any real hope this side of the Second Coming. It's always 1959 somewhere. Somewhere, thy name is Baton Rouge.
It's summer in Omaha. And with the beginning of summer comes the College World Series, a fine way to spend a sultryevening in late June.
Added to the mix, starting next week, will be the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials at the CenturyLink Center Omaha, just across the street from TD Ameritrade Park downtown. The CWS is Omaha's signature event, one that has become part of this Midwestern city's very being. It has come to symbolize what we all love most about amateur sports and about America's national pastime. IT'S THE PICTURE Omaha wants to present to the country, and the one America wants to present to the world. Here, three of these pictures belong together.
Three of these pictures are kind of the same.Can you guess which one of these doesn't belong here?
Now, with apologies to Sesame Street, it's time to play our game. Proceed.
SORRY for the blurriness of the picture that's not the same, the one immediately above. The sports Nazis of the NCAA won't let me bring my digital SLR with the long lenses into the stadium, and when you zoom in with an iPhone camera, you get what you get. So let me tell you what you're seeing here. The Omaha policeman on the right is carrying what appears to be some permutation of an AR-15 -- an assault rifle. These officers are stationed right before you get to the ticket-takers, and you don't get more in plain sight than that. It took me aback -- not that CWS security hasn't always been this heavy in our post-9/11 world, but that this year, in the era of ISIS and a week past Orlando, it seems to be more conspicuous than ever. In your face, even. I'm not faulting the local cops. I'm not questioning the security strategy. And I'm certainly not getting in the face of the cop with the military-grade firearm to get a better picture of his assault rifle. Besides, I look rather Mediterranean in this Age of Trump. What I am saying is this is sad. Damned sad. It might be the right thing, but it is so, so wrong. America's right-wing, gun-nut wingnuts don't want us to become just like those socialist "Euroweenies." Seen the security at the Euro soccer championships in France? Looks to me like we just have.
If you could, the Omaha World-Herald never would have had to do away with its evening edition. Color me highly amused. Color Omaha the home of some of America's most criminally entertaining drunks, like the gal a few months ago who broke into the zoo in the middle of the night so she could pet a tiger.
Neither did a Monday misadventure go so well for this guy, who you kind of assume was drunk. Or at least hope had the excuseof being three sheets to the gales of March. At any rate, he'll have a lot of time to sleep off whatever ails him.
A 50-year-old Omaha man was charged Tuesday with second-degree assault of a police officer, who allegedly was hit in the face by the man’s crutch.
The 30-year-old officer received four stitches at the Nebraska Medical Center for a cut above his left eye, according to a Police Department report.
The suspect was charged with the felony, booked into the Douglas County Jail and ordered held on $15,000 bail. He must pay 10 percent of that, or $1,500, to be released.
The incident occurred at about 2:20 a.m. Monday when officers were called to 24th and Harney Streets to investigate a person sleeping on the ground. Officers said the man awoke, got up, relieved himself and lay down again.
After being cited for public urination, the suspect signed the ticket and again lay down. When the officers tried to get him to move along, he allegedly hit the officer, who has been on the force eight years, with the crutch.
"I believe this
has crossed the line where we are endangering lives of those who wear a
uniform to protect us. How can we expect a criminal – a potential
criminal – who might want to commit a gun crime or any kind of crime
against law enforcement, to read a transcript and try to understand
context or hyperbole? Words matter. And Sen. Chambers said these words."
-- Nebraska Sen. Beau McCoy
Chambers' controversial remarks run from 51:06 to 58:36
Nearly a week after he said it, Nebraskans have decided to be outraged, horrified and morally offended by Sen. Ernie Chambers, who pointed out in a legislative committee meeting that ISIS wasn't a threat to ordinary folk in his district, but the police were.
In more than one case recently, this has been demonstrably true. But something being demonstrably true in a nation that's seen a spate of unarmed civilians -- many of them black -- being killed by heavily armed police is no deterrent to Nebraskans when it's yet again time to hate on the outspoken man who for decades was the state's only African-American legislator, and now is one of only two.
And did I mention that it took people almost a week to get outraged over widely reported "outrageous" comments? What people are saying is that Chambers said he'd shoot a cop because the cops are the equivalent of the worst sort of Islamic terrorists. What Chambers actually said is quite different.
State senators confronted Sen. Ernie Chambers Thursday during an extraordinary two-hour discussion about his remarks last week comparing police interaction with black citizens to ISIS treatment of its victims in the Mideast.
One freshman legislator, Sen. David Schnoor of Scribner, demanded the Omaha senator resign from the Legislature.
But Chambers dismissed insistent calls that he apologize or retract statements he made during a committee hearing last week.
His critics focused their criticism on a brief remark by Chambers that if he carried a gun -- which he doesn't -- and found himself confronted by a police officer, he'd want to shoot first and ask questions later, "like they say the cop ought to do."
Gov. Pete Ricketts weighed in on the discussion from outside the legislative chamber by issuing a news release urging Chambers to "issue a full apology for his remarks (and) condemn all violence against law enforcement."
During an interview after the Legislature adjourned for the week, Chambers said "there's not a person in my (legislative) district who thinks I would want to shoot a cop."
"The kids in my community are too smart to put that interpretation on those words," he said.
During the debate, Chambers said he's "used to be being piled on" after growing up as a black youth in a white culture and later during a public career of confronting senators in a Legislature in which he usually was the sole black senator. Two of the 49 current senators are black.
"I don't expect you to understand what I'm talking about," he said.
A number of senators who took exception to Chambers' comments last week defended his right to express his views even if they disagreed with him.
"It's a wonderful opportunity to pile onto Sen. Chambers," Sen. Dave Bloomfield of Hoskins said after the flood of criticism had begun.
"I do not condone what Sen. Chambers said, (but) let those among us who are without sin cast the first stone."
Chambers, he said, has "done a great service to this body for 40 years."
Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha said he now regrets that he didn't "nudge Senator Chambers and express my disappointment" when he made the remarks during last week's Judiciary Committee hearing, but he said he also needs to be prepared to call a colleague to account the next time he hears a reference to "a retard."
Sen. Ken Haar of Malcolm said he has heard a senator refer to people who receive public assistance as "leeches," and he reminded colleagues that Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha, who initiated Thursday's debate, dismissively knocked a bobblehead doll rendition of President Barack Obama off a fence post in one of his 2014 gubernatorial campaign TV ads.
THIS AD. I wonder whether McCoy regrets his symbolic act of violence against the president of the United States.
I wonder whether he wonders whether he planted a seed in the fertile soil of a future assassin's warped mind. Because, after all, actions matter. And Sen. McCoy whacked that Obama bobblehead. I'm seeing people from politicians to regular slobs on Facebook demand that people like Ernie Chambers "walk a mile in cops' shoes." Bullshit. You don't get to say that unless you equally insist that cops -- and Republican politicians, for that matter -- walk a mile in the shoes of Chambers' north Omaha constituents. So far, I haven't heard anybody meekly suggest that cops might, if they have time someday, and if it really isn't too much trouble, walk a block in the shoes of ordinary black folk in the 'hood. Like people say, "Fair is fair." Unless that depends on what the definition of "is" is. FOR THE RECORD, here is what Chambers actually said a week ago. Unedited for political effect or for outrage generation in the Internet age:
My ISIS is the police. And you know what the county attorney said, Don Kleine: If the officer makes a mistake, if he's wrong but he had reason to think that he was right, then he's clear. I cannot get away with that and shoot you and say, well, I thought he was going to do something. They say, uh-uh, buddy, that doesn't work.
Well, now we presume that these officers are trained. To show how little their training means and how they hide behind it, some guy out east was fired because he was dealing with a guy who had a mental problem and wound up...he was on duty, shot the guy 14 times, and he was fired. Now he's trying to get his job back. And you know what the lawyer is arguing? And he's justified in view of the not finding any fault in what these cops are doing. He said, yes, he shot the man 14 times, but it was within his training.
So now, if the police are trained to shoot somebody in the back, then the cop who shoots in the back says, it was pursuant to my training, and he's home free. That's what's happening. I would tell young people: If you tell somebody to go across the world to fight for ISIS, they can put you in jail if you just talk about it. If you want to fight injustice, don't...you don't have to go around the world to find the ISIS mentality. Your ISIS is in America and you're likely to die over there, one way or the other. So if you're going to die, die making your home safe. My home is not threatened by ISIS. Mine is threatened by the police. The police are licensed to kill us, children, old people.
They showed a guy on a highway. The highway trooper, he had this elderly black woman down on the ground, just beating the stew out of her, and nothing was done to him. That's what I see. Now suppose somebody told me somebody from ISIS did that. Then everybody is up in arms: See what cowards they are? They beat women in broad daylight. But when a cop does it, it's all right. I don't feel that way.
And if I were going to do something -- but I'm not a man of violence -- I wouldn't go to Syria, I wouldn't go to Iraq, I wouldn't go to Afghanistan, I wouldn't go to Yemen, I wouldn't go to Tunisia, I wouldn't go to Lebanon, I wouldn't go to Jordan. I would do it right here.
Nobody from ISIS ever terrorized us as a people, as the police do daily. And they get away with it and they've been given the license now. And people don't like me to say this. Then you rein in your cops. And you know what they say, the racism of the cops is merely reflective of the racism in this society and they accept the existence of racism to excuse the cop.
But then when I say there is racism in the society, they say, you're playing the race card, your talking about it makes it happen. But when they want to justify the cop, they say, he's merely reflective of the community where there is white racism. And that's what I look . . . you don't have to deal with that. You're privileged. You're free of that. You don't have to think about it every day. If I was going to carry a weapon, it wouldn't be against you, it wouldn't be against these people who come here that I might have a dispute with. Mine would be for the police. And if I carried a gun, I'd want to shoot him first and then ask questions later, like they say the cop ought to do. But could I get away with it? You know I couldn't get away with it. They'd better hope I never lose my mind and find out that I'm on my way out of here.
(Laughter)
NOW, WOULD I have made this point in the manner the senator made it? No. No, I wouldn't have.I always get into trouble when exercising my right to hyperbole. On the other hand, I suck at attracting attention, too. But I will say this. If somebody shoots Ernie Chambers because of this latest God 'n' country "two-minute hate," I hope that when people riot, they burn city hall and the police headquarters in Omaha, and then the state capitol in Lincoln rather than lay waste to their own neighborhoods.
