Minneapolis: the Un-Chicago

 Five and-a-half years ago, I watched in disbelief the video of Laquan McDonald's murder at the hands of Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke. Given the obviousness of the event, I assumed a conviction and a long jail sentence were forgone conclusions.

What I failed to remember was that this was Chicago, where the fix is always in. While it's true that Van Dyke was convicted, he received a slap-on-the-wrist sentence of just six and three-quarters years for shooting McDonald sixteen times in the back.

(Which I think you'll agree is what you and I would have received had we done the same.)

Even more stunning was the dismissal of all charges by judge Domenica Stephenson for the four cops central to the police-sanctioned cover-up. Combined, these cases represented an abyssal failure of justice, and if Chicago cops didn't feel immune from prosecution beforehand they certainly did afterwards.

So I am relieved that Minneapolis was able to conduct a trial unblemished by political influence and pandering.

Of course, it helps that the circumstances were very different. McDonald's murder came late on a Monday night on an empty stretch of Pulsaki Road. Floyd's came mid-afternoon in a neighborhood populated with stores—and shoppers

While the Chicago police sat on the McDonald footage until a court order forced its release, that was never an option for the Minneapolis PD. Cell phone video was posted to social media within minutes.

And finally, the defense's argument that Floyd's medical conditions killed him—not Derek Chauvin's knee pressing on his neck for nine minutes—was ludicrous. Seriously? Turned inside-out, that argument implies George Floyd would have died that day even had he not encountered Derek Chauvin.

Wow.

They must've thought they were addressing a CPAC convention, because I can't imagine another forum where such lunacy would be given a second thought. Never mind a first one.

The mind reels.

So congratulations to all concerned. Again, it is deeply satisfying to see reason and evidence triumph over political expediency.

With so much yet to be done, I fear this post is premature. Chauvin has yet to be sentenced (as a first-time offender with only a second-degree murder conviction, he's probably looking at a little over a decade in prison) and the trial of his accomplices won't happen until August.

As a hard-bitten cynic I'd say plenty of track remains for this train to go off the rails. 

But it is my desperate wish that communities of color and the police departments who serve them could meet, speak honestly and discover a mutual sense of respect and understanding. Of when police need to do certain things and why, and perhaps even discover a better way forward.

 

The Shimmering Sentience of the Social Media Commentariat

In defiance of practically every 2021 social norm, they act as one. United in their unswerving belief that they alone know. That they alone understand. That they alone possess the power to divine the true nature of a given incident.

Yes, even in the absence of facts they are somehow able to puzzle-out what really happened, based on—I don't know—their biases? Their prejudices?

In the aftermath of the shooting death of a thirteen year-old Latino youth by the Chicago Police Department, social media exploded with accusations and finger-pointing. This is another example of systemic racism! This is another example of a police department out of control!

As a sign at a subsequent demonstration read “Stop Killing Us!”

Seriously? Is that what we're doing? Am I permitted an eye roll?

As actual facts have been made available, it has become apparent that Adam Toledo wasn't the virginal innocent Black Lives Matter and other activists have painted him as. He wasn't a “baby”. He wasn't a “victim”.

He was a wayward youth embarking on a path that predicted his violent death.

You see, young Adam had just entered into a gang-banger internship. That's why he was out at 2:30 AM on a Sunday night, accompanied by an over twenty-one accomplice and shooting at cars. The gunpowder residue on Adam's gloves proves as much.

Gang-bangers like to employ young'uns because they are far less culpable.

After a prolonged foot chase, young Adam chose to turn towards a police officer with gun in hand. Acting in kind, that police officer shot Adam in the chest. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Go ahead. Call me a hater. Call me a racist. Even worse, call me a podium-pounding law-and-order Republican.

But I can't get too broken up about the death of a gang-banger-in-training. Sorry.

The intuitive geniuses on social media clearly know better. You know, the kind who believe that every police shooting of a person of color is unjustified and absolute proof of systemic racism. The kind who carry hysterically overblown signs reading Stop Killing Us!

I wonder if it has ever occurred to them that they act as blindly and as recklessly as the police they accuse.

I pity the decisions young Adam made. I pity the Chicago Police Department officer who will have to live with this memory for the rest of their life. I pity Adam's parents. I pity his family. No one is doing a jig.

And yet, Adam is a victim only in the sense that he fell prey to the world's worst role model—the ghetto. He was seduced by illusory images of gang life as being fatally and tragically heroic. That dying young would make him a martyr. 

I regret he will forever be unable to apply its final lesson.

Instead of making false and wildly misguided accusations, let's combat the reason why kids find gangs so alluring. Let's give them a sense of belonging that isn't centered on murder and mayhem.

Ya think?

Proof

Donald Trump throws a lot of sticks and expects us to chase each one. His ability to feint, distract and stir the cocktail of chaos borders on a kind of genius. I mean, Trump couldn't lead a parade. But he can reliably be counted on to turn a group of Buddhist monks into a howling, finger-pointing mob.

On the surface, he appears to at least acknowledge women—even when he isn't grabbing their pussies. He's installed several within his administration and recently tossed the electorate a bone by naming a woman to the Supreme Court, even if she's as conservative as a pair of beige khakis.

He's also placed a smattering of minority males within his administration, having discovered outliers like Herman Cain and Hispanics who are somehow able to look past Trump's wholesale demonization and repeated attempts to bar them from entering the U.S.

But Donald is too misshapen, too angry, too transparent to hide his true feelings. No, those emerge like the creature that popped out of John Hurt's belly in Alien. They emerge, squawk and scurry off before anyone is able to recover and process exactly what they've seen.

Donald then plays a game of yes I did/no I didn't with the media and that sentient portion of America's citizenry who are disinclined to wear MAGA gear. When that doesn't work, he throws another stick.

But it's not so easy to walk back an executive order.

Whatever his skills at manipulation, President Petulant can't claim his was quoted out of context or misinterpreted when the words are from his own hand.

In a lightly-reported story buried in last week's Chicago Tribune, Donald Trump recently signed-off on an executive order demanding that all government contractors cease sensitivity and diversity training and that failure to do so will result in the cancellation of their big, fat government contracts.

The administration maintains that such concepts are divisive and anti-American and adds that any program Trump, Inc. deems divisive (which I imagine is anything that doesn't include your lips and his flabby, corpulent ass) will be stripped of government funding.

There it is, ladies and gentlemen. Trump laid bare.

Donald can hem and haw and play dumb about the Proud Boys and have his pretty little blonde designated liar lie until she doesn't know which end is up. But the next time you hear a Black person speaking of systemic racism or a woman speaking of institutionalized sexism, instead of sneering 'get a job' try rolling their words around in your head. 

Then roll the words in this executive order around the same space. Donald's tacit approval of white supremacy and misogyny oozes from every line.  

Hundreds of millions of years of success in the natural world aren't proof enough of the inherent value and viability of diversity.

No. Per usual, the biggest turd in the MAGA toilet knows best.

Black Privilege?

Not so long ago, I didn't know who Jussie Smollett was. I wish I still didn't.

One of the most self-centered and unlikable celebrities ever to besmirch the city of Chicago, Smollett deemed it appropriate to utilize its overworked police force in a bid to extract a raise from his employer, the producers of Empire, after a homemade death threat failed to generate adequate concern for the attention-starved actor's financial well-being.

Deep in the me-first recesses of Smollett's brain, another scheme was hatched. Like any right-thinking American, he reasoned that if a death threat wouldn't land him a bigger paycheck, being the victim of a hate crime would.

The restless creative forces within Smollett were soon at work. He cast two forlorn brothers as his attackers and elected to stage the drama amid the upscale high-rises which populate the near-north neighborhood of Streeterville.

Then, on one of the coldest nights of the year, Smollett ventured out to visit an area Subway sandwich shop.

He never made it.

He was supposedly accosted by two men, who took exception to Smollett's seeking to satiate a nocturnal craving on such a chilly night. They bit, kicked and punched Smollett, shouted racial and homophobic slurs and poured an unknown liquid over him. Then they placed a noose around his neck.

Before I credit the two goon's diligence in keeping a liquid in liquid form in sub-zero weather (the temperature at the time of the attack was zero degrees, with sustained winds of fifteen to twenty miles an hour leading to a wind chill of twenty degrees below), I have to marvel at such a highly-personal attack happening on what Smollett maintains was a spontaneous, unplanned trip to grab a sandwich.

Is there a bookie in Vegas who could even lay odds on that?

Regardless, Smollett fought them off, ending up in an emergency room where he was later released in good condition. Despite the brutality of the two-on-one confrontation, Smollett had only a fine, horizontal scratch beneath his eye to show for the assault.

Within hours, the knee-jerk wheels of the social media court were in motion.

Poor, poor Jussie! Bad, bad Chicago! Among the most-commonly expressed sentiments was “Give that man a raise!”

Alas, as the mass of CPD detectives assigned to this high-profile case went to work, Smollett's contentions began to unravel like a sweater from K-Mart.

It being very, very late on a very cold Monday night, pedestrian traffic was, as you can imagine, light. Pedestrians armed with unidentified fluids and nooses were especially scarce. In fact, the area's network of public and private security cameras didn't detect them at all.

Despite maintaining that he had spoken with his manager on his cell phone just before the attack, Smollett refused to surrender his phone as evidence. Which was certainly curious for someone victimized to the extent Jussie claimed to be.

And then there was the $3,500 which had recently changed hands, and the footage of the Nigerian brothers buying the rope and ski masks used in the attack. It wasn't long before the unavoidable conclusion could no longer be avoided.

In the aftermath, Smollett was rightly charged with sixteen felony counts of filing a false police report. He was dumped from Empire. All seemed right with the world.

Until yesterday. Out of the blue, Illinois state prosecutors announced they were dropping all charges against Smollett. While they maintained this didn't amount to an exoneration, Smollett's record has nevertheless been expunged and the case files sealed.

Hmmm.

If your eyesight happens to be better than mine, could show me where the part about it not being an exoneration kicks in? Because I can't see it.

Somewhere, an uneaten Subway sandwich molders. And we are again left to wonder whether our traditional notion of justice belongs on the endangered species list.

The Not-So-Merry Christmas

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for clarifying who is to blame for our third government shut-down: the Democrats. 

Which is certainly interesting given that Republicans control two-thirds of the Executive branch. And that not so long ago, you publicly stated you'd be “proud” to initiate a government shutdown over funding for your border wall.

I understand your ire, Mr. President. Nothing like having to backpedal after running a campaign based on the exploitation of racist fears, is there?

Yes, you went all bravado in the summer of 2016, telling your base that not only were you going to build the Berlin Wall of immigration, but that Mexico was going to pay for it. And the high school drop-outs slash opioid-addicts who put you over the top ate it up.

Making America Hate Again, indeed.

And for a long time, all was well. Like the arena rock star who could count on a reaction merely by mentioning the city he (or she) was performing in, you could liven-up those dead spots in your rallies by asking “Who's going to pay for the wall?”

But for those of us not infected with the Trump virus, this was a load of fertilizer as obvious as it was odorous. It was only a matter of time before reality would rear its ugly head.

And here's the reality: After a botched trade war with China, speeding up—if not instigating outright—the end of the economic recovery, losing untold staffers because you are—to put it mildly—difficult, suffering public humiliation over the paucity of people willing to fill those vacancies and, finally, the ongoing pressure of the Mueller investigation, you have your Secretary of Defense not only resign but openly question your judgement and maturity in the process.

Good times, eh Mr. President?

But there was always the lectern-pounding distraction of The Wall. That would get the base going, wouldn't it?

Unfortunately, your base doesn't (and couldn't ever hope to) occupy seats in the House and Senate. And the faint support your wall enjoyed in an all-Republican legislature disintegrated still-further when those damn Democrats were voted in, probably by the millions of illegal aliens streaming across an unsecured border still bereft of your indomitable wall.

Which is both a good and a bad thing. Like the United States with a reinvigorated Russia, you now have a viable enemy. Someone outside of your party you can point to and blame all of your failures on, even if those failures are nearing their second birthday.

But who's counting?

So what's a billionaire president to do?

Tweet.

Yes, tweet about your solitary confinement. Tweet about your abandonment and your intractable enemies and the fake-news media. Everything is everybody else's fault. You are a genius none of us can see.

In an incredible and remarkably symbolic moment, a charter member of the one-percent is cutting off paychecks for roughly 800,000 workers. On Christmas. If that doesn't scream 2018 America, what does?

So while you, Mr. President, attempt to save face, the rest of us are left to enjoy the irony of our oldest-ever president acting like the youngest.

Santa? If you're out there, all I want for Christmas is a grown-up in the White House.

Retail Racism?

Back in the early-nineties, while attempting to nudge a part-time gig in my chosen field (book publishing) into a full-time one, I worked a second part-time job in retail. Fortunately, it didn't demand that I sell Dockers at Sears or patio furniture at Montgomery Wards. 

I worked in a record store.

It was ideal in a way, having a foot in both the book and music worlds. But working six days a week and literally morning, noon and night for two or three days per without health insurance or paid time off was wearying.

But not so wearying that I didn't notice thieves in my record store.

“Teresa? Watch that woman in the jean jacket and long skirt, will you?” I ducked beneath the counter. Despite being an amazingly attractive man, I knew the men and women eying me weren't seeking a hook-up.

Nope. They wanted to know when it would be safe to stuff a CD down their pants. Or under a jacket. Or in a bag suspended between their legs beneath an oversized skirt. At the time, only cosmetics were pilfered more often than CDs in the United States.

“Oh my god!” gasped Teresa. Bingo.

I accosted the woman outside. I took her by the arm and urged her towards the store. Just then an Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight squealed to a stop in front of the store. “LaWanda! Get in!”

Raised in an environment where I was taught it was wrong to manhandle women, I wasn't as forceful as I should have been with LaWanda. She broke free and made it to the car.

I memorized the license plate and called the police.

This scenario played itself out many times. Most-disturbing to me was that the thieves were almost always African-American. And by almost always I mean over ninety-percent of the time.

An idealistic but naive co-worker chastised me for watching African-Americans more-closely than Caucasians. He called me a racist.

I shrugged my shoulders. 

Was I acting on accumulated experience? Or was I profiling? Maybe it's just that African-Americans were really crappy thieves?

I ask because in the wake of the recent brouhaha over a denied restroom visit at a Starbuck's in Philadelphia and the attendant accusations of retail racism, I have to question the M.O. of the offenders.

There exists a persistent and unfortunate ethos in the ghetto that demands that its inhabitants constantly prove their “blackness”. This usually involves acting in such a way that is one-hundred and eighty-degrees removed from the societal norms of white America.

Once upon a time, I had a big, giant chip on my shoulders about employers. After being unjustly removed from a job I loved because I didn't bestow a sufficient number of pliant kisses on a director's ample bottom, I grew my hair and dressed in jeans and inflammatory political t-shirts as I waited for responses to my resume.

I was hurt. I was angry. I was frustrated. I wanted my appearance to scream “I am not a cubicle drone! I am not an office automaton!”

In the words of our greatest president, mission accomplished.

On visits to retail establishments (especially upmarket ones in fancy neighborhoods), I was treated accordingly, no matter how innocent my intent. Since I didn't conform to the norm I was regarded as a threat.

Like all sentient organisms, human beings learn from experience. If a yellow snake with red stripes inflicts us with a painful and life-threatening bite, we will act very, very carefully the next time we encounter one, our motivation being to stay alive.

To that end, one of the men involved in the Philadelphia Starbuck's incident speaks of dressing in hoodies and Timberland boots, the better to prove he is an “authentic” African-American and not some media-manipulated Oreo.

To which I say great. Have at it. Dress like a thug—get treated like a thug.

It's just that simple.

But before you label me as a racist or accuse me of endorsing mindless conformity, read on.

In 2018 America there is a deep and collective sense of angst. We are a society undone by terrorism and random gun violence and the willful chaos of the Trump White House and the seething bipartisanship that underlays every facet of our lives. 

Then there is the looming spectre of climate change and a vague unease about the future and who it will include—and exclude.

None of us know what really happened at the Starbuck's in Philadelphia. We don't know what the manager's frame of reference was. We don't know how she felt. We don't know how the denied men looked at or spoke to her.

There is no complete audio or visual record of the incident.

But I doubt that manager called the police solely because the men were black. She called the police because she felt threatened. And being responsible for the safety of virtually every person in that store, acted in kind.

She is no more a racist than I was, or am.

In addition to being anxious, we are angry. And often seem to view everyone who isn't a clone as a potential enemy. Nurtured by reality TV and the anonymity of the Internet, we confront. As our TV listings confirm, every interaction is a potential 'War'.

So there are African-Americans who refuse to kowtow to any perceived influence or dictate of white America, it being in their minds a symbolic act of surrender. Of giving in. And their defiance has reached epic proportions.

Not that they don't have an abundance of reasons for doing so. Only someone without a soul would deny that African-Americans have been treated with something less than fairness by the citizenry and government of the United States of America.

But in 2018 America we throw accusations around like confetti. We rarely stop and ask is this truly legitimate? Is this going to dilute the pool of genuine grievances?

The shooting of Laquan McDonald by the Chicago Police Department is absolutely worthy of strident and nationwide protest.

Not being able to loiter at a Starbuck's because you're dressed like a thug? Not so much.

When every perceived slight is met with the same towering rage, I hear the rivets on the Titanic popping. I hear the cables on a suspension bridge snapping. I hear the carefully-constructed infrastructure of our civilization giving way.

In our blind, freely-distributed and frequently disproportionate anger I hear the Tower of Babel being built.

Michael Brown and Ferguson

I am not convinced that Michael Brown is a martyr. 

This in spite of the fact that I can't pick up a newspaper, turn on a radio or watch a TV and consume a story about him which doesn't contain the phrase “unarmed black teenager.”

Michael Brown was a teenage male. Not only that, he was a big teenaged male. And as teenagers are wont to do, he was capable of acting colossally stupid.

One day, Brown got it into his head that it would be a good idea if he went to the local convenience store and stole stuff. And when a clerk intervened, it would be an even better idea if he used his enormous height and weight advantage to push the clerk around.

Upon watching the video from the store's security camera, it is clear that Brown was feeling his oats, and received a powerful sense of superiority by exploiting his size advantage. It isn't very difficult to imagine him carrying this swollen sense of self into the surrounding neighborhood, more than willing to challenge anything and anyone who got in his way.

Yes, this is supposition. I was not there. But I was once a teenaged male, and am familiar with the heightened sense of invincibility they can entertain.

Again provoked by some combination of an accomplice, music and/or an intoxicant (his autopsy revealed the presence of marijuana), he eventually decided to challenge a cop. Which also isn't a very good idea—especially if you have something to hide.

(Not to be flippant, but this is precisely why there are laws in the U.S. Constitution which forbid teenagers from holding elected office.)

What happened next isn't clear. But at some point in their confrontation, a police officer named Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown six times.

Yes, you could argue that being young and stupid isn't a crime. And you'd be right. 

Except when it becomes a matter of life and death, which it would be if it is ever proven conclusively that Brown attempted to grab Wilson's gun. And given his previous actions, such an act isn't entirely inconceivable, is it? 

In my humble opinion, Michael Brown was spoiling for a fight.

Let me say that I don't have unconditional love for police. As in any other profession, there are good cops and there are bad cops. And I have experience with both. And with the unforgettable sense of betrayal you receive when confronted with the latter.

But I harbor no love (much less unconditional) for people who feel entitled to go on rampages, either. I don't care what Brown stole or how old he was. To put it nicely, on this day he was acting like a shit.

One of the immutable tragedies of life is that one error in judgment, one mistake can be all it takes to bring said life to an end.

In a perfect world Michael Brown never would have felt the need to push the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior to fulfill a momentary need to fuck with people. And officer Wilson would have pulled a taser on Brown instead of a gun.

But the world is so very far from perfect, isn't it?

I'm convinced this was the tragic confluence of a young kid engorged with feelings of invincibility and a cop not entirely patient or understanding of young black men.

There is much to regret.

I'm dismayed by officer Wilson's statement that his conscience is clear. That he has no regrets. I am also dismayed by the black community's candidate for martyrdom, given the marginal behavior exhibited by Michael Brown in the hours before his death.

Having gained at least a partial understanding of what discrimination is like via long-term unemployment, I understand only too well the helplessness and rage that well-up when repeatedly confronted with blind, inaccurate, knee-jerk characterizations.

But burning and looting your neighborhood isn't the answer.

My hope on this Thanksgiving is that one day we will find what is.

Acting White

If nothing else, Milwaukee is rich in racial tension. The divide between blacks and whites is palpable. I’ve encountered hostile clerks in stores who plainly resent waiting on white folk. I’ve felt the heat of their glares and been the object of their contempt.

Likewise, I’ve seen the withering looks whites cast upon blacks. I've listened to whites complain bitterly about blacks and their effects on crime and housing and employment. But neither side has a monopoly. Like checkers and war, racial divides take two.

I wish I were an exception. But I struggle hourly to resist tagging an entire population with an unpleasant epithet based on the actions of a few. I live behind a multi-family housing unit populated with individuals seemingly bent on living down to every negative stereotype whites hold towards blacks.

The incessant rumble of hip-hop from car stereos, drunken parking lot pugilists and four AM rides who announces their presence with a car horn over and over again do little to foster a good night’s sleep, much less understanding and tolerance.

Yet I feel empathy when I read that unemployment among inner-city black males stands at fifty-percent. Or of another fatal shooting between warring gangs. Or the pathetic story of a desperate single mother with no alternative but to leave her infant in the care of an addict because she had to go to work or lose her job.

2009 has given me a great big taste of what it’s like to be black. As an over-forty male, I belong to a group that has absorbed more than its share of job loss. I have been marginalized. I am invisible. The frustration and the rage are incessant. The world’s primary interest in me is monetary. And if I don’t have any, I should just fuck off.

It is a struggle to keep hope alive. It is a struggle to resist mood-altering substances. It is a struggle to believe there’s a difference between looking for work and not looking for work, despite the abundant evidence to the contrary.

Being poor and unemployed is hard.

So when I hear the worst elements of black society dictating behavior and beliefs, it saddens me. It saddens me because I'm beginning to understand downtrodden. I'm beginning to understand being kicked when you're down.

Gangsters call getting an education acting white. As they do anything beyond being a street thug or a dealer. Success is white. Unless of course you play professional basketball or football or your name is Jay Z, Beyonce or Lil’ Wayne. That kind of success apparently isn't too threatening to gangsters.

Imagine the fall-out if I—as a white man—had condemned an entire population to such a narrow and unflattering definition. We would have needed bomb shelters—and rightly so. It’s demeaning and pathetic and a cultural death sentence the Klu Klux Klan itself would applaud. Wildly.

So why is it when gangsters tell blacks not to snitch, they comply? Why is it when gangsters point a finger at an office manager or an accountant or even a president and say they’re not black-enough, they’re listened to?

What isn’t black about being a doctor? What isn't black about being a department manager? Isn’t that uncomfortably close to what the good folk of Mississippi and Alabama and Georgia used to believe? That black people just weren’t good for much?

I’ve got more problems than an arithmetic text, and more issues than National Geographic. But in the music of black culture I found a mirror of my own struggles as a misfit. It was medicine, and it helped me. So when I see the culture responsible for that music embrace this destructive lowest common denominator, it bothers me.

It is a troubling irony that those who most need to look up are looking down.

Profiling

Liberals are upset that proposed security measures for people boarding flights in the Middle East will subject them to ‘profiling’. In other words, these policies could victimize Middle Eastern populations by making them the objects of racism.

One-hundred percent of airplane-related terrorist acts have originated in the Middle East. Yet applying more-stringent security measures there and no where else is racist. Is that correct?

Presumably, the answer is to apply our boundless financial and physical resources equally throughout the globe, if only to avoid the appearance of profiling. Heighten our presence in al Qaeda hot spots like New Zealand, Mongolia and Switzerland.

Okay. Got it. And yes, I’d like fries with that.

If a woman has her purse ripped from her shoulder by a male of a certain appearance, is she sexist or racist if she holds her purse a little tighter when approached by individuals matching the description of the thief, or is she a sentient human being applying the knowledge of experience?

If a store clerk apprehends half-a-dozen people for shoplifting, is he biased if he watches people matching their description more-closely, or is he applying what he has learned through past events?

Terrorism and war are ugly. They are humanity at its worst. Life's sad constant. But to suggest we're racist in our pursuit of a threat that originates in a specific part of the world amongst a specific population is insane.

And in 1944, I suppose these same critics would have pursued Nazis in Bangladesh.

Please. Spare me.

There’s enough genuine racism in the world. We don't need to manufacture it.