Donald's Tulsa, Oklahoma Adventure

There was a great to-do surrounding Sir Lies A-Lot's campaign rally over the weekend in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

First, it was scheduled on Juneteenth, a celebration of the emancipation of all slaves living in Texas. Secondly, it also fell uncomfortably close to the ninety-ninth anniversary of the race-based massacre which scarred the city for decades.

Trump's handlers said it was an unfortunate coincidence and re-scheduled the rally for the next night.

However much I want to believe it was a deliberate provocation of black America, given the abundant ignorance that exists within the Trump administration I tend to believe them—this time.

And after all, it's an election year. And as that fact slowly dawns on us, it was expedient for Trump to make nice. 

But nothing beginning with Trump ever ends nice, does it?

There was the obnoxious tweet to “protestors, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes” that they would not be treated as kindly as they had been in the (presumably) soft-on-crime liberal enclaves of New York City, Seattle and Minneapolis.

Now that's the Donald we all know and love.

But my favorite moment was the introduction of the waiver. People wanting to attend Trump's rally had to sign a waiver forfeiting their right to sue Trump and/or his re-election campaign should they contract the Corona virus.

For an administration bent on denying the existence of the pandemic and its extended stay in the United States, it was a curious admission that yes, it's still out there. More specifically, that it is blowing up in Oklahoma.

But this begs a couple of questions. One, when has Trump ever taken responsibility for anything? And two, when has his base ever held him accountable for anything?

Let's face it: Sir Lies-A-Lot could infect their daughters with chlamydia and they'd only pat him on the back and ask was it good for you?

Oh, the irony.

But the punch line for this sad and sordid event didn't arrive until Sunday, when Trump's designated explainer-away told us that the reason for the one-third full arena wasn't the Corona virus or Trump's fading appeal but the threat presented by protestors.

You know, the same protestors Trump promised would be beaten into next week if they dared showed their wretched, socialist faces at his showcase event. It's interesting that those out-of-control hordes never materialized, which leaves me wondering how they obstructed would-be attendees.

I guess you have to be Republican.

The story just gets sadder. And funnier. And sadder.

When will it end?

Rayshard Brooks Is a Martyr? Seriously?

The dynamics of a police shooting are so skewed when viewed by, well, us. We often only see law enforcement's reaction rather than the provocation which initiated it, giving us a really crappy and incomplete idea of what actually happened.

Again, I don't send three-figure donations to the Fraternal Order of Police. But neither do I subscribe to the idea that every single police shooting of a black man is unjustified murder.

Atlanta's Rayshard Brooks makes a nice case in point. And for a change, there is lots of video available.

Okay. Rayshard had too much to drink. Now he's ferociously hungry. He's jonsing for a double cheeseburger (never frozen) with fries and pulls into the local Wendy's drive-through.

Everything is sweet and dandy.

Except for one thing. He passes out. The police are called.

They administer a completely legal and by-the-book sobriety test, which includes a breathalyzer sample. Brooks fails.

Again, all of this is completely legitimate and above board. There is no profiling. There is no stereotyping. Rayshard is drunk and behind the wheel of a car. It's open and shut.

Even 2020 Americans can agree DUI is not a good thing, right?

But as the police attempt to handcuff Rayshard, he resists. He hits the cops seeking to make an entirely-justifiable arrest and manages to steal one of their tasers. He runs away.

When the cops pursue him, he fires their taser at them.

Seriously, Rayshard? You're snagged passed out behind the wheel of your car and you're going to fire tasers at the police for catching you? Really? Put down the meth pipe, bro. You're really fucking messed up.

Let me ask you, good readers of The Square Peg: what are police to do when they encounter a law breaker who gives every indication of doing whatever he needs to do to extract himself from the situation?

Invite him (or her) out for beer and pizza?

Buy them the newest, most up-to-date video gaming console in the hopes it will keep said offender off the streets?

Realize it's break time and head for the nearest Dunkin' Donuts?

Or detain them for arrest and pending charges?

We need to think very, very carefully about what we are asking of our police. I, for one, don't want them neutered when they encounter a law-breaker. Or a violent felon. 

Do we really want anyone who resists arrest to be let off the hook, scot-free? Really? Is that the desired outcome?

I don't like laws and regulations any more than you do, but I will admit that yes, we kinda sorta need them. A society needs a framework within which to exist. And we need really skilled people to keep us within it. 

For whatever reason, Rayshard Brooks couldn't man-up to the simple, uncontestable charge that he was DUI. He escalated the entire stop by fighting, stealing an officer's taser, running away and then and firing that taser at police, which I hope we can all agree is a fairly aggressive act.

Sadly, the officer chasing Brooks didn't enjoy the same option, as his taser had been, well, you know.

Rayshard, I'm sorry you weren't the sharpest knife in the drawer. I'm sorry you panicked. If you hadn't, you'd probably still be alive today. But you're not.

Even worse, an engorged society already filled with legitimate indignation over police brutality has unthinkingly included you in their pantheon of social injustice victims. But we know differently, don't we? 

Let's be clear, people. Rayshard Brooks is not Laquan McDonald. He isn't Ahmaud Arbery. Not George Floyd. Nor Breonna Taylor. Bestowing martyrdom on a man who wanted to fuck with the police for (correctly) arresting him is questionable at best and blindingly ignorant at worst. 

Exactly what are we telling our children?

Boomers vs. Millennials

Apparently, there can't be two demographics of Americans who aren't debating each other. This after coming across multiple articles recently that either feature millennials disparaging boomers as the recipients of unending wealth and good fortune or ones that are pleas to the world at large to understand and stop trashing millennials.

In response, I offer this.

When I'm not apologizing to millennials for allowing global warming to happen, I do things they don't.

Like not spend my workday breaks sitting in an idling car as I update my social media accounts and look for revenge porn.

(We all appreciate the generous contribution of extra greenhouse gases. But um, don't expect a thank you note.)

Or vote.

Finger-pointers that they are, millennials have identified baby boomers as the generation we should loathe. Boomers have lived a life of ease while theirs has been a ceaseless struggle to survive.

Fine. If you must.

Despite your compulsive need to be and do things differently, you're just like us.

I can safely say that at a certain age, yes, we disrespected the previous generation, too. We ignored their accomplishments and instead, focused on how unlike us they were (as if that ought to mandate a stretch in prison).

By our standards, they were racist and sexist and hideously unevolved. What was their problem, anyway? Ignorant of history, we ignored their evolution from the generation which proceeded them.

Sorry to again make you seem less-singular and amazing than you are, but does that sound familiar?

Yes, you have been buffeted by two economic maelstroms, the Great Recession and now the fall-out from the COVID19 pandemic. And yes, it sucks.

But you know what? Thousands of boomers graduated straight into the Reagan recession of the early-eighties. And if someone with a degree in accounting or education was having a tough time landing a job, imagine the uphill climb of someone armed with an English degree.

And as you are (presumably) so well aware, job gaps scare would-be employers even more than unannounced IRS audits.

Despite being a boomer, another downturn occurred in the early-nineties. And another one following 9/11. You of course remember the Great Recession.

So. Let's see, that's one, two, three, four, FIVE recessions my fellow boomers and I have had to gut out.

If that's your definition of a life of ease, fine.

It's not mine.

Want to hear about how my life as a college-educated candidate for living-wage jobs ended at fifty because I happened to have been in the middle of a cross-country move and was thus unemployed when the recession hit in 2008?

Didn't think so.

Want to hear about the jobs I've had since? Or about the humiliation I endured watching sitcom after sitcom making the same insipid joke about people living in their parent's basement (which my wife and I were sadly forced to do)?

Yes, we had affordable college tuition and childhoods in which we played freely in parks with whomever happened to be there, because our parent's lives were blissfully free of the fear and suspicion incubated on social media.

We enjoyed affordable concerts and sporting events. Ditto family vacations, which we somehow survived without individual DVD players or the joy found in mindlessly scrolling through a phone.

We didn't suffer the insidiousness of social media cruelty when classmates found us not sufficiently identical to them.

Yes, your college tuition is absurd. Your debt load an outrage. And life without a degree has gotten tougher. Owing to ever-increasing levels of automation and the off-shoring of jobs, finding living-wage work that doesn't require a college degree is harder than locating a reasonable Trumper.

But you can blame almost all of that on the Republicans you can't quite motivate yourself to vote against.

True fact: the meteoric rise in college tuition began with one Ronald Reagan, whose conceptualization of the presidency was to cut spending. And he kinda sorta did. Yes, he indulged every Star Wars-inspired defense scheme presented to him by our selfless defense contractors, but he did slash federal support for higher education, too.

And that set a long line of dominoes falling leading to our current outrageousness.

So that's a good thing, right?

(Don't forget: this is the same guy who had ketchup declared as a vegetable so federally-funded school lunches would appear more healthy than they actually were. Beginning to see a pattern here?)

But I digress.

So. Where were we? Oh yeah. Your life sucks. And mine has been a magic carpet ride.

You have been showered with expensive gifts from overly-indulgent parents all your life: cars, computers, cell phones, video gaming devices, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

When you were in high school you “slept” (wink wink) with your girlfriend under her parent's roof.

Seriously?

Ever try to have sex in a car when you're 6'3” and it's twenty-two degrees out because there was no where else to go?

You're gay? Bi-sexual? Suffer from gender identity issues or are polyamorous? Wow. You get a parade. We were faggots, dykes, queers, transvestites, sluts, whores et. al.

You got a trophy for going to school? Really?

Speaking of which, did you ever walk there?

Millennial males never had to learn how to seduce a woman. They simply dumped something in her drink while she was in the ladies room and voila! Compliant (if unconscious) partner.

(Which isn't to infer that I in any way, shape or form endorse this or envy you. I don't. Those of you who partook in this are feral sub-humans.)

Your mommy and daddy sued your teacher, the school district and the district's superintendent because you didn't get an 'A' in Applied Physics?

I got yelled at and was told to shape up or prepare for a life busing tables.

There was the millennial female who shone a brief ray of light by suggesting that boomers were too materialistic and should value experience over stuff. Alas, she said this while camping out overnight at an Apple store waiting for the next generation iPhone.

Sigh.

Dear millennial, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I'm sorry you feel another generation had it exponentially easier than you. That must make getting out of bed really hard.

Yes, your lives are fraught with insecurity and uncertainty. Global Warming alone is a game-changer.

But you have to admit: you're awfully faint-hearted when it comes to voting. No, Democrats don't have all the answers. But they're certainly less-toxic than the vermin on the other side of the aisle.

Instead of focusing on which generation is most-deserving of your contempt, why not puzzle-out the answer that will unite Americans in a concerted effort to preserve the radiant blue-green jewel we call Earth?

Change the culture!

Should you prove to be the better generation at getting that done, no one would be happier than I.

Have at it.

Convergence

A population driven mad by months of relentless anxiety. Isolation. Job loss. Rumor. Fear. Divisiveness.

A cop.

And a black man passing counterfeit bills.

It shouldn't have gone this far. But it did.

I am aware that black people do not trust law enforcement to the degree that white people do. And yet, I find myself still needing to ask this question: why do so many black men and women resist police? Why do so many fight law enforcement every step of the way in each and every encounter?

Has no one ever told you that when you come across an agitated dog the worst thing you can do is run? That this is only excites the dog's chase instinct and increases the likelihood that you will know what it's like to have a portion of your anatomy inside a dog's mouth?

I often wonder if there's a cause-and-effect problem at work here. Do black people resist because they fear the worst in any encounter with police? Or do cops get tough with blacks because they resist so frequently?

I have had encounters with police, too. And let me make this clear: I don't harbor unconditional love for law enforcement. They are a necessary evil. But if you're smart, you chill. You put a lid on it. You clench. 

Believe it or not, you're in control. You can either agitate the police or you can de-escalate the situation.

For all police know, you're Crazy Luther. And you've murdered seventeen people and cooked 'em over a spit by the railroad tracks.

Show them your ID. Tell them what you're doing in this part of town. Again, chill. The cops are only doing their job. You want to sleep in your own bed tonight, right?

Of course, if you are Crazy Luther, you won't see this as the best way forward. And your actions will scream “Guilty!” to the police. They will react in kind.

The snippets of video I've seen indicate that prior to being put on the pavement, George Floyd was combative. He provoked law enforcement's chase reflex to find, subdue and arrest the bad guy.

Before you nominate me for an honorary membership in the Klu Klux Klan, let me continue.

Derek Chauvin was a cop. And like the rest of us, he was probably feeling pretty pent-up himself.

We Americans react very poorly when we are told we can't do something. It is (or was) Derek Chauvin's job to keep us on the straight and narrow.

As a cop, he is lied to regularly. Every person he detains is innocent. Every person he restrains can't breathe.

George Floyd was just another belligerent black guy trying to manipulate him and the circumstances of his detention. What reason did Chauvin have to believe that Floyd truly couldn't breathe after hearing “Wolf!” so very many times before?

Chauvin's fatal error was in not realizing that Floyd couldn't breathe. That Floyd's pleas were genuine. The hardened cop kept his knee on Floyd's neck for upwards of eight minutes. Deprived of oxygen, Floyd died.

We have here the intersection of massive stereotyping. Prejudice. Floyd's assumption that as a black man he would only receive the worst from police and not be given the slightest opportunity to prove otherwise.

And Chauvin's assumption that Floyd was lying. And that since he continued to resist, he required severe tactics meant to lock-down his detention.

It is a book of sorrow.

Stir in an agitated population rife with cabin fever and anxiety and looking for something, anything to take the edge off and along comes a made-to-order disaster.

Yes, the death of George Floyd was cause for a civil rights demonstration.

And it worked. All involved have been fired from the Minneapolis Police Department. The lead culprit has been arrested and is facing second-degree murder charges. Let's hope the ensuing trial doesn't turn into the farce a similar trial did here in Chicago.

Okay. So the object of your derision is in jail. You got what you wanted. Go home.

But you couldn't. And didn't.

Too often, a demonstration is an excuse to burn stuff and break windows. And if the broken window happens to be at a department store, that entitles you to a free pasta maker. Or sheets. Or a case of giardiniera.

Whatever you can get your hands on.

I used to work in downtown Chicago. And I happened to be returning to work after lunch when the news broke that Harold Washington (Chicago's first black mayor) had died.

Let me add he wasn't hung from a tree by guys in white robes. The cause of death was a heart attack.

Nevertheless, a small-scale riot broke out. Windows were smashed. Cars were stopped. Windows and sheet metal were banged on. A liquor store's windows were shattered. Bottles were snatched.

I watched in disbelief.

This wasn't an expression of grief. It was an excuse to act like a shit and get free stuff.

So I find myself in the awkward position of kinda sorta agreeing with (gulp) Donald Trump's tweet. Demonstrating doesn't mean complimentary consumer goods. Ever. I feel no empathy for those exploiting this event to burn and loot.

But whatever our view of Trump, we are a nation riled-up by him. He thrives on that. Distraction. Sleights of hand. Provocation. Feints. Loud voices. Anger. Chaos.

It is what he does best.

Ensconced in the hot house bubble of a pandemic, we are even more susceptible to him. And while we're screaming at each other, Trump wants to forbid the government from issuing economic reports until after the election. He is issuing executive orders prohibiting social media from fact-checking him.

“We're here today to defend free speech from one of the gravest dangers it has faced in American history” he said last week without a trace of irony. Even as he demands his lies go unchecked and his failures as a president stay hidden and unreported.

Toxicity has never been so transparent.

If you're white, you need to acknowledge something: if America weren't a sexist and racist nation, Donald Trump would not be president. He....this....is the price of our hatred. Our prejudice.

We are a nation in desperate need of healing. Two groups of extremists who need to back away from the edges.

But how do we do this? Where do we begin?

Maturing would be a good start. You know, acting like grown-ups. Adulting. Realizing that the definition of 'tyranny' so many of us are throwing around is the equivalent of a tween calling his parents 'fascists' after their smartphone privileges have been revoked for a weekend.

Oh that we should ever know real, honest-to-God tyranny.

It's easy to hate people you don't know. It's even easier to reduce them to one-dimensional caricatures. Like I do with conservatives and folks who belong to the NRA.

Which is why I advocate for leaving our hyper-demographic social media bubbles. Engaging with whomever we define as the enemy. Get to know them. And find another way forward.

Because this isn't working. In fact, it will likely destroy us.