Marching to Black Lives Matter with the first black president sitting in the White House — was that a smart move? The answer should be abundantly clear and yet the question is not even considered. I’ve been blocked on Twitter for just politely suggesting that BLM is a counterproductive cause.
Instead of considering how you could fight for justice more intelligently — you act like I’m saying you shouldn’t fight for it at all.
Was that smart move?
Instantly firing back with boilerplate beliefs is not an indicator of understanding the premise of that question (or even caring to). Such inquiry requires reflection and the willingness to examine the efficacy of your efforts: And what role you play in harming your own interests by the manner in which you pursue them.
The Yellow Brick Road is the path of America’s predictably counterproductive pursuits.
The moment Obama caved on the Democratic Party playbook on race — he put Trump on the path to the presidency. It’s quite possible that Comey’s cover-his-ass actions in the 11th hour tipped the scales. Given the possibility that a single event like that could alter the atmosphere of an election — what do you think pouring fuel on the fire for years did?
If the indiscriminate approach of BLM pisses me off: What do you think it did for people gunning to bring Obama down?
You overplayed your hand
He had golden opportunities to take the country forward, but instead of leading the way — he followed his base and went backwards. Given the tight margins — there’s not a doubt in my mind that their ploys put Trump in the White House.
And still — you don’t learn
At the core of our country’s decline — is the unrelenting refusal to get to the bottom of anything.
Like this 1619 business: You wanna draw correlations from the past while flagrantly ignoring crystal-clear connections in the present. Black Lives Matter, monuments, kneeling, and now this?
You’re all over the place — and you’ve got company:
As with Kaepernick’s kneeling, Black Lives Matter, and the removal of monuments — what are you really gonna gain out of 1619? Even if you could miraculously get what you want:
And you have a better chance of walking on water.
What’s it gonna take for you to see the unintended consequences that come with it? Therein lies the folly of it all. This consortium of causes has no chance of achieving anything remotely in the realm of its loosely defined aims — and you’re doing catastrophic damage to the very thing you’re trying to remedy.
I don’t care if Kaepernick kneels: I care that you can’t solve multidimensional problems with one-dimensional gestures.
I ask a different question . . .
I do that a lot
What if Kaepernick kneeled and acknowledged that they need to do their part while asking the police to do theirs? And right on cue:
Hold the phone — you want us to share some responsibility?
Kneel, but couple your message with Kobe’s below — and you change the game. In the right hands, this game changer would be as big as it gets.
I won’t react to something just because I’m supposed to, because I’m an African-American. That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. So we want to advance as a society and a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African-American, we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we’ve progressed as a society? Well, then don’t jump to somebody’s defense just because they’re African-American.
Had Obama said those words instead, POTUS would have put us on a new path. And wasn’t that the point of his presidency? With one paragraph, the probability that throwing down the gauntlet would have thwarted Trump’s rise to the White House and prevented America’s plunge into the abyss:
More importantly . . .
Obama would have changed the trajectory of the country far beyond that. To be sure , how they pounced on Kobe for his response to Trayvon would be a picnic compared to the beating that Obama would get. But any loss on the Left would be vastly outweighed by the gains on the Right:
Wait a minute, the black guy’s gonna go against his base on an issue at the bedrock of the party platform?
Republicans would still find plenty to complain about, but showing some guts goes a long way in changing the dynamic of debate. We’d be living in a very world right now had he delivered on his promise.
There’s a galactic waste of time and energy on monuments and other symbols to make you think you’re making progress (firing up the base for fleeting gain). We’ve got serious problems plaguing this country — and you’re concerned about some statue in a park? I’ll put the power of that paragraph spoken by Obama back then — over wiping the face of the earth of every contentious symbol in America. My track record for the truth and seeing the lay of the land is impeccable. How’s yours?
I won’t react to something just because I’m supposed to . . .
Overreacting is all America does. Kobe was right and you’re all wrong — as you pull that stunt every single day.
Speaking of overreacting
My view of police officers these days: They’re overly protective of their own safety — in a job that by definition, comes with a certain degree of danger.
If you’re unwilling to take that extra split-second to ascertain a threat — you have no business being in that job. The officer in Castile’s case was clearly out of control. Even if Philando didn’t do something exactly as the officer expected — the slightest misunderstanding is not grounds for shooting someone (not to mention the absurd number of shots).
That aside
We all have a responsibility when dealing with the police. If you cop an attitude (especially in today’s climate) — you are radically increasing your chances of getting gunned down. That doesn’t necessarily mean they deserved it — but they played a role in what happened. If you really wanna have a conversation on race — you can’t cherry-pick the root causes that work for you.
You’ve gotta take a hard look at the entire problem — ugliness and all. By miserably failing to do so, you just create more ugliness. It’s not like I invented this idea any more than ‘ol Bill did:
Yes, you can find examples where blacks did everything right and got killed anyway. But I’m betting that number pales in comparison to the times where they didn’t follow instructions. In many cases, they didn’t deserve to be shot, but they played a role in what happened. Properly following instructions would have most likely produced a different outcome.
This officer in Castile’s case was clearly out of control. Even if Philando didn’t do something exactly as the officer expected — the slightest misunderstanding is not grounds for shooting someone (not to mention the absurd number of shots). By that standard, you could justify anything — like invading a Middle Eastern country because you feel like it.
Imagining a threat is not enough.
And it’s all the more outrageous given that the guy acknowledged he had a weapon. This person’s comment nailed it:
If someone is trying to get the drop on you, I don’t think they would calmly say “I just want to let you know that I have a gun”
Yanez stated that his justification for the shooting was based on fear for his own life because he believed that Castile’s behavior was abusive toward a young girl passenger (Reynolds’ daughter) in the car.[43]
Yanez said: “I thought, I was gonna die, and I thought if he’s, if he has the, the guts and the audacity to smoke marijuana in front of the five-year-old girl and risk her lungs and risk her life by giving her secondhand smoke and the front seat passenger doing the same thing, then what, what care does he give about me?”[43]
That’s an awful lot of analysis for something that happened so fast. His argument is absolutely ridiculous — I don’t buy it for a second. You cannot make sweeping assumptions like that in ascertaining a threat. And it’s absurd that an officer would fear for his life over the perception of a person’s character regarding secondhand smoke.
I’d rather go to prison than come up with such a stupid excuse.
Speaking of excuses
This notion that compliance and respectability can save someone’s life in an encounter with police is not the reality for black men in this country
— Charles Coleman, Jr.
Worked out well for this guy:
To be sure, “compliance and respectability” doesn’t always pan out — but it’s the smart move, the right thing to do, and it gives you the best shot of walking away unharmed. When you act like the one on the right below, you’re not only endangering yourself — you’re helping to create the atmosphere of confrontation for others by putting the police on edge.
The attitude on the left would do no such thing. Charles Coleman, Jr. is flat-out wrong, as the importance of attitude cannot be overstated.
Race relations do not exist in a vacuum any more than mass shootings or anything else. The mental health of America is central to the story of all that surrounds us. What I have illustrated throughout this site and my documentary — is not the mark of a healthy nation: It’s the . . .
If an entire nation of “normal” people refuse to work together to solve problems — and delight in rapid-fire ridicule against any challenge to their beliefs (baseless or otherwise): How do you think that impacts those who are already inclined to mow people down? Speaking of shootings — you wanna put trigger-happy cops in prison (and rightly so when warranted). I’m interested in how they became trigger-happy. That behavior often factors into it does not necessarily mean that race wasn’t involved as well.
But you don’t allow for anything outside of what you instantly perceive.
If race is part of the story — you make it the entire story.
Keyboard commandos are on edge across the country. So what makes you think that people who live their lives in danger every day — aren’t overreacting partly as a reflection of a country that overreacts on everything? My aim is not to absolve the police, it’s to paint the possibility that race may not be as much of a factor as you think it is. Chris Rock didn’t come up with this sketch out of thin air. But for me to suggest this is the entire problem — would be as preposterous as you denying it’s part of it.
If you don’t want to get shot . . . just do what I tell you. . . . Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?
But no, you wanna debate that too
Even a multi-millionaire like Don Lemon’s got a chip on his shoulder.
I am one who always says that should comply with police officers — especially as a man of color. When I’m stopped by a police officer: “Officer, why are you stopping me?” Yes, officer or whatever. Now, I’m an American — I shouldn’t have to do that. I shouldn’t have to be “Yes, sir” to anybody. I’m a grown, ‘you know what’ man.” But I do it because I want to stay alive. That’s why I do it. I shouldn’t have to.
How about just doing it out of courtesy and respect?
How hard is it to just put yourself in their shoes — and consider the crap that cops deal with day in and day out? Yeah, they signed up for it — but you can do your part to make the situation go as smoothly as possible. And Don — your audience blew right by that bit about complying and seized on “I shouldn’t have to.”
Nice work!
Does the Democratic Party have a history of manipulating racially charged incidents? Undeniably! Has the left-leaning side of the cable clans increasingly accommodated Democrats over the years? Without question! Can you conclude what happened to Trayvon and Michael Brown with the same certainty as the death of George Floyd?
No way — but ya did, and in lickety-split fashion.
Once you acknowledge that you’re being played — you have to be willing to ask, “How much of what I see was manufactured for my benefit?” And it should abundantly clear by now that the Right rolls the same way.
Nobody nailed Obama better than Matt Damon:
A one-term president with some balls . . . [would have been] much better
When one of your most ardent supporters is questioning your manhood, it’s time to take a long, hard look in the mirror. But past is prologue — which is why I knew Obama wouldn’t be the candidate he claimed. Someone without a record of risk is not a catalyst for change.
Nevertheless, I gave him a shot in 2008. He blew it — and I don’t reward people for poor performance and dishonesty. I’m old-fashioned that way.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Nothing in the atmosphere of America is improving on any front. In fact, it’s worsening by the day. But hey . . .
We’ve got 24 million visitors to our website, an email list of 2 million & growing, fundraising on the rise, and a million actions taken.
Has it ever occurred to anyone in BLM that simply calling it something else would have served your interests far better? “All Lives Matter”: How could you not see that tit for tat in taglines coming?
You predictably damaged the debate on the name alone.
And now, even now
The cat . . . TOTALLY out of the BAG!
Right on cue, they let Republicans steamroll ‘em on Iraq — playing it safe thereby helping to poison political discourse for generations to come (not to mention wasting mountains of money, untold lives lost, and unspeakable destruction in buildings, bodies, and families). Hillary threw away her first shot at the presidency the moment she voted for the Iraq War Resolution.
How can you make the case for “good judgment” when you go along on something so dishonest and chock-full of folly?
The rotor speed required to separate uranium isotopes doesn’t care who’s president, and when it comes to ascertaining the truth, neither do I. In order to maintain such speeds, the material properties of centrifuges are as critical as it gets. You don’t need to interview a world-renowned nuclear scientist to figure that out — but I like to be thorough. To claim that Iraq WMD wasn’t a lie should be like saying we didn’t land on the moon.
As I wrote and produced the most exhaustive documentary ever done on WMD, I would know.
D.O.E.’s standard is to spin a tube at 20% above 90,000 RPM before failure — so 48,000 short is a pretty loose definition of ‘rough indication.’ Out of 31 tubes in subsequent testing, only one was successfully spun to 90,000 RPM for 65 minutes — which the C.I.A. seized on as evidence in their favor.
One D.O.E. analyst offered a superb analogy of that contorted conclusion: “Running your car up to 6,500 RPM briefly does not prove that you can run your car at 6,500 RPM cross country. It just doesn’t. Your car’s not going to make it.”
In an industry where fractions of a millimeter matter, these guys were playing horseshoes with centrifuge physics . . .
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
That sounds worthy of consideration — don’t ya think?
Behold your best . . .
The world you have created:
With your kin who came before you:
It is as though with some people — those who most avidly embrace the “we are right” view — have minds that are closed from the very get-go, and they are entirely incapable of opening them, even just a crack.
There is no curiosity in them. There are no questions in their minds. There are no “what ifs?” or “maybes.”
— Laura Knight-Jadczyk
Leaving aside her dealing on the moment — a Hillary/Obama ticket was still the smart move in 2008. He wasn’t ready (nor do I think he was presidential material anyway — but let’s leave that aside too). She’d most likely get 8 years — and in the meantime, Obama would be groomed for the next 8. That’s a high probability of 16 years of Democratic rule — and who knows from there.
You wanted a plant when you could have had a crop — and all you had to do was sacrifice a little longer.
But ya just had to have your “first black president” — instead of getting him as a seasoned candidate 8 years later. This ain’t Monday-morning quarterbacking — I said so at the time. But you weren’t done dealing on the moment — and no matter how many times it backfires, you never learn.
Nobody nails Democrats better than Glenn Greenwald’s gold-standard from a 2008 article on Salon.com:
Here we have a perfect expression of the most self-destructive Democratic disease which they seem unable to cure. More than anything — they fear looking weak. To avoid this, they cave, surrender, capitulate — and stand for nothing.
One Voice Became Two 