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.

Here Are Your 2019 Chicago Cubs!

In the wake of perhaps the most disappointing 95-win season in baseball history, the Chicago Cubs begin another season today. Even with the ascendant Bears garnering disproportionate amounts of media attention, the Cubs remain the topic on everyone's lips.

Why didn't they pursue Bryce Harper? Why didn't they pursue Manny Machado? Why didn't they sign a front-line reliever? Why didn't they extend Joe Maddon's contract? Why didn't they can Joe Maddon? How are they going to compete by standing still?

Cubulous Nervosa generates many, many questions. The only known cure is to take a deep breath and slowly exhale.

Yes, last season was one of the most perplexing and aggravating on record. An offense that would vanish like a magician's prop. The disastrous signings of not one, but two, free-agent pitchers. A profound early-season slump by the usually reliable Anthony Rizzo and an injury-plagued, below-par year from Kris Bryant.

Not to mention late-season injuries to Brandon Morrow and Pedro Strop.

And yet the Cubs still won 95 games. Contended for the division flag until the last day of the season against the surging Milwaukee Brewers. A run here and a run there and that irksome wild card game against the Colorado Rockies never would have happened.

If Maddon didn't prove his worth and the Cubs their mettle last season, I don't know when they have.

Alas, we live in a microwave culture. Expectations rise like the temperature inside a parked car. 2016 might as well be 1908. 

And when these new expectations aren't met, the people take to social media and howl.

As your friendly, web-based contrarian, I'm going to suggest that 2018 was an aberration, not the beginning of a trend. I'm going to suggest that we should be praising Theo Epstein for resisting the public mania for brand name free-agents.

Not that Epstein is without fault. I'm not crazy about his public calling-out of Maddon. But as Maddon himself would admit, it's the manager's lot to take the blame for whatever perceived failure his team accrues.

Not winning the 2018 World Series doesn't constitute heresy in my book. And I'm not sure not winning the 2019 edition qualifies, either. I think the Cub nation needs to take a deep breath and consider where it is.

It has evolved from wondering if haplessness is a permanent condition to demanding world championships every year. It must remember the quantum leap the objects of its affection have made.

My two-cents says that if fans can't quit obsessing whenever the Cubs don't pitch a no-hitter every time out and if certain quarters of the media don't stop turning every molehill into a tabloid-worthy mountain, all assembled might have seen their last World Series trophy.

I'll say it again: the Cubs have scaled heights unseen at Wrigley Field since the Great Depression, and ones unimaginable as recently as 2013. You remember 2013, don't you?

But they need a little breathing room. They need a little less scrutiny. It's okay if Hendricks occasionally goes four innings or if Bryant is hitless in four at bats. It's not the end of the world.

Counter to Mr. Epstein's appraisal, consistently winning two out of three would be wildly and exuberantly splendiferous. My therapist assures me 108 wins would give the Cubs the NL Central title and home field for as long as they want it.

Last year was just.....weird. It's not going to happen again. And with the season-long presence of a fully rehabilitated Yu Darvish, the Cubs effectively have a new free-agent signee. Not to mention one of the best managers in the biz.

But Theo, we (that's you) need to let him be. Excepting Jussie Smollett, I've never seen anyone perform well with a noose around their neck.

Go Cubs!

Early Exits

In keeping with the sort of lighthearted subject matter normally found on The Square Peg, we turn today to yet another—suicide.

A disturbing report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention not only reports that suicide is up 24% since 2001, but that it is up across all demographics. Age. Race. Gender. The biggest increases were seen among middle-aged white men aged 45 to 64 and young girls between the ages of 10 and 14.

Of course, the overarching question is why? Why, in a country we are told from birth is the greatest in the world, are people voluntarily ending their lives in record numbers? Unrealistic expectations? The economic realities of post-recession America? Hopelessness?

Teens have traditionally suffered from a high incidence of suicide. At a stage of life that can be confusing and even terrifying, high hormonal levels can abet intense emotional swings which escalate uncomfortable events into tragedies.

Historically, the elderly have also suffered, the most obvious reason being declining health. Coupled with limited financial resources, an inability to live independently and a lost sense of purpose it can be a time of deep distress and despair.

The appearance of pre-teen girls and middle-aged men is new.

I will speculate that this group of girls may be extremely apprehensive about the onset of puberty, and whether they will be physically attractive and otherwise able to fulfill the increasingly high expectations our society holds for women.

Be a Nobel Prize-winning physicist-slash-model and raise Nobel Prize-winning children or risk being considered a failure. 

No worries. 
 

The last group I am quite familiar with. A group that constitutes 18% of the population now accounts for 33% of all suicides. In certain quarters, this might elicit muted satisfaction. Or even not-so-muted satisfaction. 

White men have enjoyed the best of everything and are to blame for everything, so it's only fair that now they kill themselves in record numbers, right? This is cultural payback. A societal market correction.

Before we sign off on this conclusion and move on to the next thing, I'd like to point out that the white men terminating themselves aren't the white guys you hate. The white guys you hate are still in positions of power, immensely wealthy policy-makers largely untouched by the ravages of the Great Recession.

The middle-aged white men killing themselves are being cast into the insidiousness of poverty despite spending 35, 40, or even 45 years doing all the stuff they were told would prevent it.

It's one helluva mind-fuck.

So. Our kids and our dads and just about everyone else are killing themselves in numbers never seen before, leaving behind a scarred and grieving trail of friends and parents and siblings and children.

Are we going to take a long, hard look into the mirror and ask why? Are we going to ask ourselves how do we stop this?

Or does this conflict with the 'It's all good' ethos? 

Just asking. 

Waiting on a Friend

Sometimes, everything is difficult. Even your friends.

It should have been a good thing when Lucky called Sunday night. It should have been an opportunity to catch up on each other’s lives. Share a laugh. Commiserate about work and aging parents. A pause in the rat race.

But Lucky is feeling the sting of late middle-age. And with it, the realization that whatever he hasn’t done will, at this point, likely remain that way. It has its talons deep into his flesh, especially in this, the age of diminished opportunities.

While marveling at his quarter-century with a single employer, I realize it was hiding more than anything. A college degree should have been a fresh start. But there was a fear in Lucky, a fear of leaving his comfort zone and trying something new.

Despite what we say on Facebook and on Twitter, change provokes anxiety in all of us. But in Lucky’s case, it was something more. It was paralyzing. And now his sense of life having passed him by has curdled into something ugly. Anger. Rage. Jealousy.

Sunday night, it careened into finger-pointing and accusations. He brought up a long-ago dinner he paid for, a dinner I had in no way, shape or form solicited. "It's on me" he said with a casual wave of his hand.

Now I know better. It was on me—for accepting it. It made me a parasite in Lucky's eyes.

It was a shot so cheap it deserved shelf-space at Wal-Mart.

Thankfully, there's another side to the story.

Understanding is an awesome responsibility. Sometimes, it asks us to tolerate the intolerable. In this case, knowing the depths of my friend’s discontent made it difficult to respond as I normally would.

But you can only do so much. You can only listen and try to empathize and offer the hoped-for solace of shared feelings and experiences.

It's not always enough.

Like my friend, I am in many ways embittered and sour. I struggle to subvert my anger and cynicism and jealousy at those around me who I perceive to have better, more-fulfilling lives. At those who, through no fault of their own, haven’t suffered the ravages of the Great Recession to the extent I have.

But Lucky left me something. Unintentional as it was, Lucky gave me a refresher course in what we become when the worst elements of our personality get the best of us. How we sound when the howling beast of regret takes center stage.

And how we so often (and so unwittingly) can subject those who care about us most to the worst we have to offer.

It was a cold, hard look in the mirror.

And that may be the greatest gift friendship has to offer.

Poised to Panic

If you’re an observer of the American landscape, you probably know that Proposition 19 failed in California. If you aren’t, Proposition 19 sought to legalize marijuana, thereby allowing its legal cultivation, distribution and sale.

But what interests me isn’t whether it passed of failed, but how it failed.

Borrowing a page from the conservative playbook, the opposition employed the panic strategy. Television ads featured stoned school bus drivers and nurses showing up to work with employers helpless to do anything about it!

Wow. That hits all the right panic buttons, doesn’t it? Children at risk, intoxicated nurses and employers rendered mute by (gasp) big government.

And people bought it. As usual, the reality is one-hundred-eighty degrees removed from these Chicken Little, the-sky-is-falling scenarios.

The image of employers forced to watch helplessly as their drug-addled employees wreck havoc in the workplace belongs on Saturday Night Live, not in considered political debate.

Have any of the voters swayed by this argument ever looked at their employee handbook? The truth is that owing to ‘at will’ employment, employers can pretty much fire you for anything: Your socks don’t match. Ravioli is spelled with one ‘l’. It’s Thursday.

So. How did voters connect this argument to reality? The fact is, they didn’t. They reacted to it. With abject, unthinking, underwear-soiling fear.

We’ve seen this before. Most notably in the 2004 presidential election, in which Republicans convinced housewives that Muslim terrorists were everywhere, just waiting for an opportune moment to send aircraft plowing into cul-de-sacs from Tacoma to Tallahassee.

From weather bulletins bordering on hysteria to amber alerts, we are a society perpetually on the edge of panic. Overloaded and over-stimulated by media and communications, we are ideal targets for button pushing (and button pushers.)

I wonder what it will make us vote for next.