Race and the Color of Money Part III (Minutiae and Magnitude)

Minutiae and Magnitude

(continued numbering from last time)

8. Minutiae- I’m going to preface this next number with- Aisha told Davis to go eff himself and then Brittany and Zay backed Davis up and Aisha was like uh-uh, I don’t play like that bich! Here is the skinny on the actual hubbub- Drew Brees said something regrettable about kneeling rather than standing for the national anthem and flag presentation- Brees on the flag; Aaron Rodgers and Lebron James offered a rebuttal on Brees’ overshight. Laura Ingraham told Lebron James to “shut up and dribble!” just dribble

Let me put my response to all that as succinctly as possible . . . hey, rich famous people- shut
up and sit down- all you all. Let’s hear from people who are going to help fix the problem. If
you’re famous, I probably care less about your opinion by default because odds are you’re
probably a self-important jackasses.

9. Governor Walz- the week of the George Floyd protests in Minnesota stated that Minnesota is a great place to live- economically, educationally, if you’re white. How is Minnesota if you’re rich? My dad worked as an auto body repairman (from which he was laid off multiple times) for most of his life and a janitor his last decade of employment. I received no scholarships for being white and was denied a low-income loan because my mom had her retirement money in the bank (inheritance from the death of her mother). I have been let go from decent jobs twice because companies in this state either 1) sent my job overseas or 2) the woman deciding my employment had a vendetta against someone rightfully challenging her authority. 

I was an English major, who a month out from graduation from college learned that my future
prospects for yearly salary just out of college and ten years in the future was N/A (not applicable). I made it into the information technology area because I made a favorable impression in the work ethic department and was hired based on past performance. So, Mr. Governor, qualify your remarks. Look at the disparity between rich and middle class and poor a little closer. Look at education level as it equates to one’s economic prospects- I have. Don’t tell me it is as simple as black and white. The problem color is green. I have not been at the right place at the right time and gotten zero breaks because of the color of my skin.

I’m not saying the racial divide wasn’t ever the biggest problem this country has had to face.
I’m saying it isn’t anymore. There are millions of white people, still not enough however,
speaking out on behalf of black people, how many rich people speak out on behalf of them?
And people please, I’m not talking about people who worked harder than I have to get where
they are. I’ve got white relatives who do work/have worked 50 and 60 hour weeks routinely,
working on vacations, to get what they have. I’m not calling anyone out assuming I know how
they contribute to society or financially to worthy causes.

10. Bring to mind the scene in “Good Will Hunting”, where  Sean (played by Robin Williams), tells Will “It’s not your fault,” over and over again, until Will breaks down. That’s how I feel on the issue of where we are with this race issue. My wife on Facebook was following someone who had a friend of theirs comment on the race issue. He wrote, to paraphrase- if I’m a guy, with his daughter and a fluffy dog on a leash out for a walk, I’m a father, but if I’m by myself, I’m a black man. NO, no you’re not. Not to me. If you are a guy by yourself in my neighborhood with a skull cap on, pants down to the back of your knees, walking with an attitude and a scowl, and you’re black, you have my attention. But if you have that same gangster attitude, same scowl, same attire and you’re white, you also have my attention. I can’t help with the black man’s uneasiness, chip on their shoulderness, or insecurity; I got enough of my own because nothing was handed to me either. I have “won” what I have worked for.

11. Jimmy Kimmel just apologized for his use of the N-Word 25 years ago- Kimmel. Good, he should. He should have known better. But apologizing for wearing black face simply impersonating George Wallace, Oprah Winfrey, Karl Malone, etc. That’s ridiculous. Again, where are all the black comedians coming to apologize for uptight whitey cracker comments? Yeah, I didn’t think so. John Wayne (“The Conqueror”) played friggin’ Genghis Khan for Christ’s sake. Stupid stuff happens. Donald Trump’s been pretending to be president of the United States for almost four years and at least twelve percent of the country is pretending to be just fine with it.

12. Magnitude- an Oliver Twist. Jon Oliver featured the Police- similar to what Colbert did, for all 33 minutes of his June 7th (2020) episode of Last Week Tonight. Oliver June 7th I was predominantly disgusted by what I saw- from numbers of arrests, stops and killings (of black people), to footage of irresponsible and violent acts by police, to interviews of cops (particularly of clueless Bob Kroll the president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis). I was also pretty disappointed in the tenor of the chastisement which Oliver provided. A couple times I was amused by Oliver’s disparagement of anyone who wasn’t apologizing for earning a paycheck who wears blue and is expected to protect and serve. That type of one-sided presentation is part of the problem. At one point however, and I’m proud of him, he even lowered the boom on former president Clinton (in five different state of the union addresses) for thinking just putting 100,000 more cops out on the street would solve the problem. It is tirades, or even measured dressing downs, of the police, which will discourage more people from being interested in becoming cops. Quite a roller-coaster of emotions, as evidenced by the tangled summation I’m failing at definitively offering. I'm lauding the respected and adept messenger, yet frustrated by his overall assessment, because he so often delivers. His commentary was devoid of the accessory of objectivity which must be responsibly included in any investigation of that length and type.

At one point Oliver lambastes the country wide glorification of stereotypical renegade
cinematic and television representations of police officers and mostly chooses white targets,
who have traditionally acted with the requisite amount of insurgency in the protocol, department
often endearing them to Americans. I friggin’ love Jon Oliver’s chutzpah, approach, rapid-fire
delivery, intensity and even his accent. However, I don’t think the almost exclusive use of
white cinematic versions of cops makes a lot of sense. Unless you are going to include the
renegade cinematic versions of black cops, you’re shortchanging full disclosure. The list of
fictional Hollywood renegade cops is incomplete without Eddie Murphy in three "Beverly Hills
Cop" movies, Chris Tucker in two "Rush Hour" movies, then there’s Will Smith from three
“Men in Black” movies and three “Bad Boys” movies, which also feature Martin Lawrence.
The title of that last example is indicative of this whole point. Oh and the original black
renegade cop- John Shaft- he surely did everything on the up and up and to date there are
five Shaft movies dating back to 1971. Again, let’s qualify our criticism a bit shall we? And two
“Ride Along” movies starring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart; “Central Intelligence” starring The
Rock and Kevin Hart . . . and oh, what about “Training Day”, with Denzel Washington- talk
about your renegade- so, mainstream as a renegade cop, he won an Oscar for his performance.

In that feature of Oliver’s from June 7th, he aptly calls out the toothlessness of misconduct
firings, the joke of Qualified Immunity, touches on the disenfranchisement and marginalization
of blacks. I was already convinced we had a white cop v. black man problem. But whipping
people into a categorical frenzy without quid pro quo concessions is not my idea of the whole
story. Here's the problem- he leads off like Colbert did, by being too distracted with what the
police were wearing, riot gear, etc. and how intimidating they looked. And again, let me be clear,
the video clips shown of the collected offenses of the police are despicable, and we need real
reform all over the country- there’s no way to avoid it, excepting police unions and administrators
and cops with tenure will try.

But I have this question after watching the last two minutes of that episode of Last Week Tonight
where Oliver yielded some of his time to a representative of the black anger coursing through the
minds, streets and veins of all black people. It is important to keep in mind that not all protests
in the wake of George Floyd’s murder were non-violent- plenty of them weren’t. When you lead
off a presentation of the missteps and obvious gross misconduct not only recently, but
semi-historically, of the police and their dealings with people of color, and skewer them for
dressing for an expectation of the worst behavior any of this country’s citizens could exhibit for
the cameras and not include a history of this country’s violent protests, your overall declaration
of who is right and who is wrong is woefully incomplete.

It is socially irresponsible to use your platform, as a rich famous person to mock and complain
about how law enforcement personnel are dressed, and end by showing a video of a black
woman advocating burning everything to the ground on a show dedicated to emphasizing the
despicable acts of the police, ripped for dressing in riot gear. Because, if this woman is
representative of a large number of other black people and I’m a cop, my son or daughter, wife,
sister or brother, or friend is a cop . . . how do you think I’d advocate me and my thousand
closest peers dress for a night out standing opposite five thousand people just as rightfully irate
as her?

I mentioned there would be only 3 of these and I lied, because I haven’t gotten to the turn yet, the
reason I think the problem color in this country is tied more to the color green than those obvious,
instantly incendiary shadows of black and white. People haven’t done enough research- not even
Mr. Oliver’s crew. The police are not at the heart of this systemic problem, though they are a very
significant component. I’m not contending that Oliver, Colbert, Kimmel, Fallon, Rock, Chappelle,
Walz, et al are wrong, but that their views and conclusions are incomplete. Next time, I will show
why.

If Oliver and others focusing on the police misconduct, the number of black incarcerations, deaths,
traffic stops, etc. really want to get to the heart of the matter, they would focus on those who have
institutionalized greed and power throughout this nation’s history. But that might require they go
after the groups of people who own HBO, CBS Time-Warner, NBC, Disney, Apple, the
Rockefellers, the J.P. Morgan types in older times, and even dating back to Alexander Hamilton,
John Adams, and most everyone who signed the constitution. You want to see a systemic
problem, then much more research is required.

Race and the Color of Money - Part II (And on the Other Hand)

Formatting disclaimer: Blogger has a mind of its own. It's certifiably possessed. It's like if Sherman
Klump went into Kohls to try on some clothes with the guarantee that in a five minute span, he'd
shrink to a normal sized-man and bloat to the size of a hippo twelve times.

There is fault everywhere, EVERYWHERE in this contemptible crusade of dubious inaction given
George Floyd’s precursors. Let’s take the sometimes appalling, sometimes regrettable, but still
noteworthy instances, I've hand-selected from news over the last three weeks, one at a time and
qualify and quantify the self-righteous overreach on both sides:

1. Sure, sure, your Jimmy Fallon’s will needlessly apologize Fallon as Rock for a two

decades old black-faced impersonation of Chris Rock. I love, love Chris Rock, but there is a

tired history which no white person is talking about where the socially aware, talented black

comedian targets entitled uptight whitey by mocking a white man’s voice, his demeanor and

his entitlement- (circa Richard Prior, Rock himself, and Dave Chappelle, among others). I'm

waiting for a time when a black comedian doesn't hide his talent by nesting in the shadow of a

white man's "sins".

I don’t know if they let you on stage if you’re black and can’t passive-aggressively rip whitey
and then if accused of being a black racist, probably state some crap about how you can’t be
a racist if you aren’t in power. If your hand is holding a gun in front of one person, or a
microphone in front of fifty, let alone five-hundred while your performance is being recorded,
and you offer nonchalance and hypocrisy at a rate of exchange no white comedian would get
away with, you’re a cheat, you're powerful, and you're a racist, and benefiting from the same
white oversight and complacency, the same brand of double-standard you’re calling out on
stage, I don’t care what color you are, I've got every right to say at least that.

If you’re paying attention and too afraid to trade in reality for some altruistic version of 21st
century social wokeness- get a tattoo so we know who you are before you unleash some
tirade of anecdotal evidence where guilt on the topic of race is the exclusive domain of white
people. Hell, Eddie Murphy put on white face in an amusing sketch comedy skit, “White Like
Me” Murphy white on SNL from Saturday Night Live in 1984, which is twice the run-time of
Fallon’s Rock skit. I haven’t seen any apologies for that mockumentary showing a white
businessman (Murphy) getting a free newspaper and a free loan from a bank without an ID,
given the instruction that he never has to pay it back simply for being light-skinned. Neither
Fallon, nor Murphy, need to apologize. Fallon is so annoyingly fawning over every guest
on his show, and he laughs at everything they say, that I lost what little respect I had left for
him with that apology.

PS. when are white trash faux-celebretants like Kim Kardashian and Pit Boss going to
apologize for acting like black people?

2. Speaking of Rock- Largely, his 2018 Netflix special Tamborine is a disgrace for reasons I already highlighted in #1 above- plenty of anger, a lot of tired whitey talk and less funny because of his incessant preoccupation with race rather than commentary about what it is like to be human. If a white guy prowled around on stage like that, mouthing out how to prepare for life dealing with black people, he'd be ostracized to another effing planet. Here is just one example: "I been gettin' my kids ready for the white man since they was born. . . at my house we don't have fire drills, we have whitey drills." You wanna see something that should be taken off the television, or removed from a streaming service, that is at the top of the list. So, if we removed statues of Columbus (no problem with that) and statues of former major league baseball owners for racist comments from the late 1970s (no problem there either) Griffith statue removed, then Netflix should take down racist diatribes like Rock's or edit them for content, relevance, or precede those sections with the type of disclaimer I refer to below. That special should have been titled- "F*** You Whitey." He barely mentions the tambourine.

But the lines I knew when I watched that special were going to live forever, and be most applicable to all our lives going forward were these, and you see them all over social media:

“I don’t think they pay cops enough . . . And, you get what you pay for. Here’s the thing, man.
Whenever the cops gun down an innocent black man, they always say the same thing: ‘Well,
it’s not most cops. It’s just a few bad apples. It’s just a few bad apples. 

“Bad apple? That’s a lovely name for murderer. That almost sounds nice. I mean, I’ve had a
bad apple. It was tart, but it didn’t choke me out. Here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. I know being
a cop is hard. I know that shit’s dangerous. I know it is, okay? But some jobs can’t have bad
apples.

“Ok, some jobs, everybody gotta be good. Like . . . pilots. Ya know, American Airlines can’t be
like, ‘You know most of our pilots like to land. We just got a few bad apples that like to crash
into mountains.’Please bear with us.' ”

Top 20 all time. All time- the line and the comedian. He's so insightful, honest and truthful,
and funny with so much of his other material . . . you know it's hard to be a comedian, I know
it is, I know it is, but there's a reason we got white keys and black keys that sound ridiculously
high and terribly low way off to the edges of the piano, its' cuz you don't need listen to that shit
so often; lets keep that shit we wanna here all the time right there in the middle.

He’s too circumspectly irreverent to be ignored and that is what I love. I just wish that he’d
restrict his commentary to what it is like to be human rather than to always rely on the crutch
of what it is like to not be white. We aren't going to agree with everything everyone has to say,
but one of those things we shouldn't have to not agree with is a black racist up on stage doing
15 minutes on why whitey is hate-worthy, every single time someone hands them a microphone.
Don’t get me wrong; I’ve laughed at plenty of it, because of the delivery and the truth, but at a
certain point, even the Germans stopped bombing the British. This is a line for enough is
enough, but some yahoo is going to think I’m comparing him to the Nazis. You can’t fix stupid
and that person is probably shaking their head rather than thinking with it.

3. An irate New York police union chief, rightfully so, lost it. (NYPD union chief) Completely lost it. And his speech can go up against almost any impassioned speech by a white or black person speaking out against the police. I too have seen enough about how hateful the cops all are and very few in the news media qualify those attacks, almost none of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) types do. Defund the police is the common refrain. I bet you 80% of the people who have climbed aboard that bandwagon either have no idea what that means, or stand to gain a lot more by looting, firing weapons indiscriminately into residential neighborhoods, igniting passions or buildings without having to answer for their insolence due to the threat of justifiable aggressive police protections for the victims of the rioter’s brand of fairness. 

Neither side has the moral high ground, and they should both stop pretending that they do.
I’ve seen and heard too much in the way of reports of innocents being pepper-sprayed,
rubber-bulleted, or night-sticked at the knees to know the cops shouldn’t have any
spokesperson sanctioned to speak on their behalf with a preface comprised of the words Chris
Rock used in his all-timer from #2 above. But I have also seen an inordinate number of BLM
types wanting racial segregation- the type of segregation where all the whiteys are put to death
for things we couldn’t keep our grandfathers from saying, doing or thinking, because we weren’t
effing even born yet. 

Comedians, short-sighted BLMers, selective revisionist talk-show hosts on HBO, and bigoted,
racist cops can get away with swearing, I should be able to.

Now, unfortunately, enough of those “bad apples”, which refunded police departments could
perform psych-evals on, are dressed for battle and armed like soldiers. Too many of them are
eager to use their weapons and what they feel is their prerogative, to protect themselves,
others, and property that hasn’t even been threatened yet. One acting irresponsibly is too many.
And that union police chief better not have anyone behind him with a history of saying, doing,
or thinking the wrong way on this issue. He was speaking in front of a contingent of white
officers; he better be right and not self-righteous. His record better be pristine, or else he
should sit the hell down and shut the hell up. We should be able to audit the citation, arrests
and consent decree (reviews of police violations) numbers of the collected officers he’s
speaking for, or any cop anywhere in the country and determine their fitness to hold weapons
and jobs.

4. “Stephen Colbert addresses Violent Police Response to Peaceful Protests: ‘Why Is The Government Afraid Of Its Own Citizens?’” Colbert police He makes me want to hug him and bitch-slap him across the face often at the same time. I always wished he was less liberal, now I just wish he were more objective. He is so spot on and so off-base back to back it is like watching a cartoon superhero and his equally famous nemesis play tennis with a basketball. He never quite puts his points over the net. 

His speech has some great lines, but seriously- “Why is the Government afraid of its own
citizens?” Man, you can’t ask questions like that in your ivory tower. You have to concede
where your points are weak before going on an insulting, backseat driver-laden tirade like that.
Because some of those citizens were frickin’ zombies. There was no difference between a
crowd of U.S. Citizens (enough of whom were imported from parts unknown, if the Minnesota
contingent of government spokespeople were to be believed) and a mob of zombies. He
legitimately asked the question, why are the police coming to “peaceful protests” in riot gear.
Because the police don’t always know when the protests might turn violent, and it is always a
bigger pain in the ass to go back to get your coat, when you’re cold than to just bring the damn
thing on a three mile walk in the wind from the outset. Translation- bring the riot gear because
at least you have it if you need it.

Were there too many unforgivable, idiotic, irresponsible and hateful acts the police perpetrated
on innocent people caught on tape? My god yes. But, but, but- if rioters weren’t coming to the
protests with fireworks, socks filled with batteries, the intent to make a scene, the inclination to
throw rocks and the strength to rip away barricades, I’d be on your side Mr. Colbert. Did you
watch the protest outside the gates of the White House on May 28th and 29th?

Can the protestors guarantee the peaceful protests won’t turn violent? No, they can’t. We
saw enough evidence of that the week of May 25th, etc. Curfews were ignored, buildings
were burned to the ground. What are police supposed to defend themselves with . . . queued-up
hugs and the ability to duck with regularity?

5. This one, relatively speaking, falls under the heading of pa-lease- HBO Max removed “Gone with the Wind” from its streaming service due to its portrayal of black people, what’s next, book burning To Kill a Mockingbird, or Huckleberry Finn? Upon its return, at an unspecified date GWTW will be accompanied by “a discussion of its historical context.” Jim Henson made a career out of his inaccurate portrayal of a talking, singing, bike-pedaling amphibian who can sit erect and fall into extreme like with a pig? I made that joke before I caught wind of an article talking about cancelling a show called “Paw Patrol”- a cartoon, targeting 4-year-olds which portrays dog cops in a favorable light. Talk now is about banning cop shows altogether that are overrepresented portrayals of the police in a positive light. Should West Wing, Veep, or Madame Secretary be taken off of streaming services and network television because their competence doesn’t realistically depict the farce represented by the Trump presidency?

6. Police portrayals: Check this quote out- from- Cancel cop shows? “Too often police are beacons of morality who never do wrong. Too often criminals are people of color, particularly Black men. The article makes several references to the CSI franchise. I’ve seen that goofy show enough to tell you they barely ever concluded without a white man in custody, admitting his guilt.

And this quote: “A January report by advocacy group Color of Change studied the effects of
this kind of glorified portrayal of law enforcement. The study said “the crime TV genre – the
main way that tens of millions of people learn to think about the criminal justice system –
advanced debunked ideas about crime, a false hero narrative about law enforcement, and
distorted representations about black people, other people of color and women. These
shows rendered racism invisible and dismissed any need for police accountability.”

Episodes of “The Dukes of Hazzard” with unrealistic representations of rural Georgian cops
can probably stay I imagine. Still, that brand of mean-spirited incorrigible ruffian, almost
makes Roscoe P. Coltrane likable. Better pull that off the air too. “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”
and “NYPD Blue”, out, “Hill Street Blues”, gone “Blue Bloods” . . . bye bye. In fact, let’s just
ban the color blue altogether.

Or, more even-evenhandedly let’s leave the shows on the air, let art imitate life, let cop
dramas rip from the headlines about the treatment of black people, of white people, of
non-green people, leave the shows on the air, do not further edit sensitive material, leave
the scenes that are potentially offensive to people and precede each return to the show from
commercial breaks with a warning like the industry would before any show with violence,
profane language, nudity, or gore. For example: “Due to the nature of the portrayal of the
scenes and human interactions, racial stereotypes and socioeconomic factors featured in the
upcoming content, viewer discretion is advised.”

7. Plenty of sensible people, including a radio talk show host, (and I can see why, as I’m trying to pass myself off as sensible by referring to it), will allude to many of the racist maneuvers, as he did on the air, found in this article- racial housing covenants, redlining, highway and infrastructure impediments, and other forms of racial segregation racial housing covenants. I responded on twitter to his research by telling him he wasn’t done yet- unless you’ve looked into the problems we’re overlooking. Who do you think funded those roads? Who voted on where to place them? Who wrote those racial housing covenants into those agreements? Poor or middle class white people, or influential, well-connected rich people?

Read this article about restrictive racial covenants and show me where the problem is- black v.
white or green- more racial covenants. We have a representative republic for a government,
which means that largely, candidates with the most money get elected. Those elections are
funded by lobbyist groups- “private deeds and developer plat maps are not similarly affected
by the Fourteenth Amendment.” Who is drawing those maps? Who normally falls into the
classification of “developer” in the context of land ownership. Who would normally be involved
in zoning ordinances? Elected politicians, realtors and/or property owners (i.e. people with
money), or lower and middle class white people? Read about Corrigan v. Buckley (1926),
the National Housing Act of 1934, and Shelley v. Kramer (1948) and tell me that doesn’t
piss you off, unless of course you stand to lose something by agreeing, and by agreeing to
put your money where your mouth is.

Consider this nugget:

“ . . . according to the Code of Ethics for the National Association of Real Estate
Boards that was enforced in Seattle in the early 1950’s, a realtor “should never be
instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy,
members of any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly
be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood.” As the “residential security
maps” illustrated, it was genuinely believed that the presence of racial minorities in
Seattle neighborhoods would bring down real estate values. Therefore, realtors
encouraged racial segregation in order to maintain property values and sell housing.”

And on the other hand- if I’m a middle class citizen in 1930, 1940 or 1970 and the
neighborhood I’ve lived in for 15-20 years is getting run down and the property I’ve
invested thousands of dollars in is losing its cache, its value, its comfort level, its viability,
or is no longer a safe place to live, I’d move too. If I got a new job and/or had a couple kids
and the space/property I lived in when I was younger is no longer suitable to my economic
circumstances because of crime, drugs and general degradation, I’d move too. But, but,
but, I’d move because I don’t want to be shot by a white or a black man and because I
don’t want to live right next to, or on top of, anyone, no matter their race. My parents
moved from Bloomington, MN (a first tier suburb of Minneapolis) in the early 1970s to
Rosemount, a 3rd tier suburb of St. Paul. Rosemount borders a township still with fewer
than 200 residents according to the 2010 census. 

Houses in these suburbs are going up so quickly (not just the construction, but the prices)
and are so close together, they have virtually no yards, no space to breathe. I don’t like
feeling claustrophobic, paying for parking or having no garage. I don’t want to live right
next to, or on top of anyone, no matter what color they are. We moved from the last place,
in the same city we reside in now, because the white neighbors were a bunch of ignorant,
psychotic hypocritical losers, and we lived on the corner of a busy street.

I like quiet, safety, comfort, trees, birds, space, no congestion and neighbor upgrades.
You can’t get space in the city. In the city- black people’s vehicles aren’t the only ones
which make noise, and theirs aren’t the only guns which shoot bullets; blacks aren’t the
only ones with a big city attitude, and also not the only ones whose opinions should be
heard on this topic.