Black History Month: Being About It

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Richard Milhous Nixon

Talking about what might’ve been and thinking about what used to be only goes so far. Certainly not one opposed to reminiscing, I was wracked with grief over the comments of yesteryear by largely isolated voices that nonetheless were well-positioned within an American minority group near and dear to both my heart and my roots. For those who know me, it goes without saying the sort of family I was raised in and the type of people I’ve associated with (even during rougher times in my life) thoroughly underline my long-standing friendships with members of the black community and my ongoing cultural appreciation for all that my neighbors from said community have brought into my life’s experience.

I regret that I let a few misguided voices influence me by saying things like, “Martin Luther King Day isn’t yours to celebrate.” I won’t be drawn into some bizarre dispute by brazen attempts at race-baiting which are not only off-base but, in all honesty, saddening.

Here’s what I’m not going to do: I’m not going to talk about how my parents raised me to treat everyone this or that way and be colorblind in my approach to people, and I’m not going to unnecessarily attempt to further “defend” my record by citing all of the momentous occasions during which I’ve had true fellowship with the black Americans I grew up embracing as one of us (fellow Americans). Furthermore, I’m not going to reference my friends within the community in a “Oh, they can tell you that…” way.

The truth is, I don’t have to. Again, those who know me are keenly aware of my “record” and those who don’t know me yet are predisposed to scrutinize what should be apparent from my published (editorial and multimedia) work aren’t going to be convinced regardless. Furthermore, no matter what I put down here concerning my thoughts on my friendships, experiences and history with the black community will be labeled pandering, “White Guilt”, tone deaf, et cetera, and we know what was written millennia ago about those “who have ears to hear…”

So, if you’re one (regardless of ethnic background) who believes that despite Caucasians being a global minority that we’re all born bigots, then you’re not going to have any patience for my being proud of my European heritage. That last statement has you confirming all you think you need to know about me and “my kind,” and, well, you know where the proverbial door is. Feel free to stop reading now. Go trifle somewhere else.

For the vast majority of Americans, whether of black, white, Hispanic, Native American or whatever derivation you strengthen the greater whole hailing from, you didn’t read my appreciating my own heritage as being a racist attending (or hosting) secret meetings preaching the virtues of genocide. You see that I’m willing to have a genuine conversation about something I’m sorry I didn’t address before now: Black History Month. You also see that I openly recognize that while I can (and do) sympathize with my fellow Americans, my fellow man, I also know that there are some things (both blessings and instances of suffering) that no amount of research, be it academic or anecdotal, will allow me to truly understand. That’s the truth be it where someone else is coming from, where they’ve been, how they feel, how they’re treated differently, how desperately they wish things were different, et al.

To those of you who “get” what I’m talking about here, please, by all means, let’s continue. As much as I don’t deem the under-40 crowd of Americans as capable of winning World War II or being ready to assume the proverbial mantle of power in our nation, none of that matters given the simple fact that we are about to assume said mantle.

Life isn’t fair. It’s a zero-sum game. As much as I’ve waxed eloquent in my studies, my editorial ramblings and elaborated upon during episodes of the ModState podcast, no amount of pleading will convince the vast majority of my fellow aspiring entrepreneurs and business types to see the world, their enterprise or their fellow man in the egalitarian manner I do. In my mind, what good does it do me to conquer the world and lose my own soul? You can’t take it with you; once my time is up, whenever that occurs, the dollars, the battles, this that and the other won’t matter so much. My investment (on all accounts, in terms of personal energy, time and, yes, my fiscal resources) in my fellow man is paramount. What good is any great struggle won if I didn’t love my neighbor? What good is any of that if I didn’t live the love I said I had?

It wouldn’t be worth printing, burning and then forgetting about. My words would be worthless.

Before I bore everyone to tears, I’m going to go ahead and admit I don’t know how to perfectly craft my entry into a modern racial discussion due to the increasingly hostile dynamics in our culture, and I don’t have a perfect framework to let me be all things to all people. Therefore, I’ll try to do neither.

I intend to conclude this article with examples, instances (or whatever other label is more apropos for the reader) of the kinship I have with my fellow man from the black community, of the affinity that I have for them amongst my neighbors to this day. It’s an imperfect formula, but I’ve yet to see a flawless path to discussing something this sensitive.

I get it. No, I’m not going to be caught dead saying I’m “woke” because I simply do not see that deliberately using poor grammar is the way for me to show how enlightened I am.

But I do get it.

Election Day 2008, I spent the entire period (after I went and voted for the Libertarian candidate, former U.S. Representative Bob Barr) with friends of mine from the black community in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Past Edwards, drifting over to Palmer’s Crossing, to “The Field” for an “Old Gold” (Old English) and a bonfire before concluding the historic occasion watching President-elect Barack Obama’s acceptance speech amidst a surreal environment. The roar of crowds across America, Hell, worldwide, at what happened was unforgettable, to be sure, but that’s not what I mean.

There I was, sitting at a table in the nearly exact middle of hip-hop and R&B club, “The High Hat 2000,” knowing full well that this was one of those moments in one’s life where you know you won’t pass that way again. Sure, I could (and did) go back to that nightclub, I could (and did) spend the day with my friends from the neighborhood juxtaposed to my own, and so on. But being there, not amongst the authors of the cause of the day but certainly being aware of the stakes and of the boundless reasons for celebration by the black community.

My sister and I had a conversation in the days following that historic Election Day in 2008, and we both agreed: had we grown up where those of European descent were the vast minority in both numbers and in the value placed upon us by the majority culture for over two-hundred years, if he (or she) was qualified for the job then, yes, we both agreed we would say it was time for a leader to be elected from amongst our own ethnicity or race (depending upon the circumstances of this scenario).

I also get the duplicity with which the line is uttered, “well his [Barack Obama’s] mother is white, so he’s just as much white as he is black.” While technically true, there’s something called the “One Drop Theory” that’s more or less a sociological paradox. To be sure, any significant percentage of African heritage tends to result in the black community claiming said “brother” or “sister” as “one of us.” But on the other hand, let’s not get it twisted: the white community, the Caucasians, we “European Americans”? Oh, rest assured, we know who’s white. So, yeah, that door swings both ways and…

…again, I get it.

But I also get there remain friendships in my life with my friends from the black community that are irreplaceable. One such friendship is with someone who rode with me to community college many days for a whole academic year. Fact is, he’d’ve done the same for me and endeared himself to my family to the degree that my mother said that he was undoubtedly someone I should never willingly let leave my life. Better still, in late 2010, he was my friend who showed up at my door and convinced me to go ahead and wrap up my paperwork and enlist. He’d recently joined the Army and so I went ahead and joined the Navy. Events and the nuances of our varying paths of service took us different places with unique stories, but recent calls from my original stomping ground of New Orleans to his residence in Jacksonville have rung true just how deep our bond was and remains.

It has been a long seven-plus years since he gave me that final push to join, but looking back another seven years to when we met in 2003 at Jones County Junior College (yes, that Jones, “The Free State of Jones), I’m sorry my book won’t do the narrative in-between then and now. A decade and a half can make putting a cohesive story together tough, but he’ll get the picture: we’ve both grown, yet the song remains the same.

It’s of little value to go on ad nauseam about my affinity (after twenty-ish years of playing piano and my eventual obsession with blues and Motown R&B). If I don’t get voted into exile from Earth for this outrage I’m writing, maybe I’ll do a part two on the black community and me.

Because, why not? If this seems a painstaking effort and a bit awkward coming out of the wash, maybe that’s because it is.

New Orleans, nigh to celebrating its tricentennial, is far from perfect. But “Las Vegas South” it is not; we know how to party. Being born in and returning to New Orleans after my five-year stint in the Navy, this is a metropolitan area where, if you can’t tolerate being in the immediate vicinity with a wide cross-section of different groups of people, I’ve known since I was “knee-high to a chicken” (as Stevie Wonder sang in ‘I Was Made to Love Her’) the party isn’t a really fun place for any of us to be at unless isn’t a place that’s really fun for all of us to be at.

However awkward and discombobulated my rambling is at this point, what is clear to me is the value in steering clear of those who, regardless of their background, can’t acknowledge that these are not easy topics to address. I’m sure there’s any number of ways I’ve disappointed my dear reader by failing to smoothly transition through the climate I find myself uniquely positioned in. Everyone’s joy and pain is unique, their position, their stratus, their struggle, their rapport with their fellow man, it’s all unique to their person. I am no expert on the way forward here. But I do promise to continue in the same spirit as this article: with an open mind ready to listen to solutions based in fashioning a better America today and tomorrow, not bogged down in the universal angst of the past.

The past’ll make you sick, and it leads nowhere. I’ll continue to be real, not always right, not always wrong, but transparent, upfront and determined to make things better to the extent I am able for those the sovereign God (in whom “…we trust”) has brought into my life’s journey.

Former Hattiesburg, Mississippi mayor Johnny DuPree (D-MS), longtime friend to our managing editor and co-founder, J. DeViney (R-LA) and his family

Well over a decade ago, I met with Hattiesburg’s then-mayor Johnny DuPree (D-MS) on four separate occasions in his office. The first time, the city’s administrative individuals attempted to send me away, citing the mayor’s schedule (which I am certain was intense, in all seriousness). Overhearing the dialogue outside his office proper, Mr. DuPree emerged and invited me inside. Now and again I would stop by to offer words of encouragement, and to discuss matters of sociopolitical relevance to the Gulf South region. A year or so after my late 2010 enlistment in the US Navy, my mother was out and about in South Mississippi and saw Mayor DuPree at a downtown civic function, and she went across the room to speak to him and thank him for attending. When she began to introduce herself, the mayor smiled and graciously interrupted, “Oh, I remember you: you’re Jonathan DeViney’s mother.”

I’m sure some folks could try, so I’d love to hear the arguments made about how this sort of discourse couldn’t/shouldn’t/wouldn’t happen between a white kid in his late high school and early college years and a black mayor of a Gulf South town.

But it did.

And, for future reference, Dr. King is someone for me to celebrate and embrace, and I do. Was he perfect? Oh, well on that note, when are our icons perfect? Only in the reruns.

As an enlisted team lead while stationed at Walter Reed, I agreed that the black Sailors on duty the day Dr. King’s monument was unveiled in DC should’ve been granted “special liberty” (military-speak for time off without taking earned leave) to attend the ceremony. Our chief was not in the mood to give my urgings any significant weight, but that’s besides the point: I saw the value in it and made the effort.

Dr. King embodied the value of strength under reserve, of realizing the ability to violently reinforce one’s point of view didn’t mean you should. Similarly, Rosa Parks showed incredible restraint by merely remaining seated and not punching the imbecile harassing her in the throat. Senator Edward Brooke (R-MA) [Edward William Brooke III] stood by both his party and his convictions throughout the years. Perhaps a topic for next time, if I’m permitted that latitude, is how very near Senator Brooke came to being Vice President when Spiro Agnew (R-MD) resigned on 10 October, 1973.

My point?

If you’re still with me, consider what would’ve happened, then, when Richard Nixon (R-CA) resigned on 09 August, 1974.

Why not? It’s a far better fiction to dwell on than the nightly news.

DeViney, Jack

Gonzo State: [Untitled]

“Bentley! Bentley. I suggest…I suggest that you do something different with your life right now.” This instruction was delivered by my boss (at the time) to his unruly Huskie, but it might as well have been given to my entire generation.

As always, the day had given way to night and my mind had wrestled with itself long enough. I needed sanctuary, strong drink and a blank expression with which to watch the news on screens behind the heads of the locals. With the mind of a fried pie I careened my car down a thoroughfare of an unincorporated town in West Virginia, roughly sixty miles from Washington D.C.

“Babylon,” I came to call D.C. as a Sailor stationed in Bethesda, which was appropriate enough that no one cares to question the nickname. It was by a sense of awe, despair, disgust and reverence that I came by it the hard way some years ago.

The Christmas lights around Arlington had shone brightly on my most sentimental evening, awash with history and the sort of romance that saw my Army counterpart’s cheek against mine, her words in my ear accompanied by my kiss on her neck.

Then, the other shoe dropped and zang! I’m departing the parking garage of Target near P.F. Chang’s, a sudden desperate attempt to keep a fellow servicemember alive and out of trouble, and barely having arrived in Rockville, Maryland, found myself in the company of a remarkable amount of police officers. While all was eventually sorted out (one way or another), I did discover that being handcuffed, face down on the pavement amidst a soft rain gave me an amazing opportunity to learn and reevaluate the nonsense I’d allowed a foothold in my life. “Teachable moments,” I’ve come to call such events with a wince oft confused for a smile, and rightfully so.

Let no good deed go unpunished.

“It was all downhill from there,” I uttered to my glass and coaster on the bar, awaiting another potent haul of ethanol. “Or is it, ‘down on the bed’ from there? Not nearly as catchy.” The general uproar that passed for ambience as karaoke loomed large made my private social commentaries a non-factor.

“Hell,” I continued, mulling over the equal parts glory and horror of yesteryear, “if I was a woman they’d’ve labeled me a slut.” This was most certainly true, as I had responded to the eventual collapse of the genuine, heartmelting romance that blossomed in Arlington by carousing. I went on to live up to the archetype of heathen in the Navy, only I hadn’t needed a new port. D.C. had an endless supply of trysts for me to temporarily bind the wound of heartbreak with. I had largely imploded things with she myself, but damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, aye?

“Aye, got it!” I said, louder than intended as my libation arrived. Few noticed, none cared. But I digress.

Every single horror of the corruption of public life crept its way into Walter Reed the two years I’d been there as the primary Army and Navy hospitals merged there in Maryland. It was a handful of miles from the epicenter of our Federal Republic, our Representative Democracy. Whatever label you prefer, the genuine, tender romance and the unnecessary legal crucible were equal parts of the same story.

So it was yesterday and is today and will be tomorrow. Wars and rumors of wars will abound along with the usual ugliness, while the bountiful opportunities, resplendence, and monuments sacred to America and Her Republic will ring hollow for any looking for that chapter. However, for those with a soul not set for self-destruct, there was the beauty and elegance and love that I discovered in Babylon. For my part, I vacillated between the cauldron of brutality and the essence of hallowed humanity.

Lucifer and a third of his fellow angels rebelled (at least in part) over the perception that God valued something fashioned from dirt over them; we hamstrung ourselves with our humanity during that time (2011-2013) in Bethesda, both our frailties and our strengths.

Did we make the case against humanity with our failures? I’m not so sure. The defeatism and Apocalypticism of the admittedly conflicted era that was the “new” Walter Reed circa 2011-2013 stands apart from now in several ways. Without the deflating drudgery of rattling them all off, at the very least one could look their friends and enemies in the eye. Betrayal and intrigue might be lurking around the next corner (per the modus operandi of Babylon and the government circuit as a whole) but those seeming eons ago politics was still the art of compromise. Then-POTUS Obama (D-IL) and then-House Speaker Boehner (R-OH) can hardly be soberly accused of engaging in the politics of blood sport we’ve now.

Now? Depending on their background, looking one’s enemies and/or friends in the eye might get you flagged on any number of social media platforms and could very well get you labeled with some sort of “-ism”, as one type of “-ist” or another. A whole decade ago Section 230 was applied within the spirit of its creation, lending the happenings online a sort of Wild West vibe when juxtaposed to the great cosmic gag-reel taking place now.

“What is Section 230?” one might ask. This, too, is a well-placed and unscripted question, but it makes little difference when Louis Farrakhan can spit his vile verbal excrement at hapless passerby on social media, but not Donald Trump. No, indeed. Hardly an avid defender of the former POTUS, I nonetheless present our Federal support and protections for our Silicon Valley overlords as Exhibit A for the how/why (either/and/or) the Federal Communications Commission has adequate pretext to cry foul. This is tantamount to “collateral censorship”, or censorship by proxy. That’s the biggest item George Orwell didn’t foresee in my favorite novel, “1984”: private enterprise conducting the censorship, and not the state itself.

Since I’ve likely lost anyone who hates The Donald for my defending his First Amendment rights, I might as well toss a grenade in this burgeoning dumpster fire. Wouldn’t Joe Manchin lead off that way?

“The wind only blows sometimes.” “He’s exactly right!”

While hardly the binary option both the Communists of the Far Left and the Fascists of the Far Right want all the Sheeple to give an “Amen!” and believe, the conflict between being a John Locke liberal in favor of largely laissez-faire capitalism (not the crony kind) with a strong, (but) limited Federal government and in wanting a respectable return on our investment in Section 230 protections granted Silicon Valley (and company), it is amusing on a perverse level.

“Afterall,” I told myself, “everyone hates a centrist, so you might as well enjoy it, Jack. The good news is, only White elitists are storming off after closing your column a few paragraphs back. They can kick rocks. There’s surely a Mother Jones article or athletic mutant defecating on the very flag that enables their miserable existence out there, somewhere, that they can flee to. Still miserable, but they showed me! No First Amendment for the people who make us think and shit.”

It was only at the end of this paragraph that I realized I wasn’t just thinking this as I tapped it into a note on my phone for later insertion into this very diatribe. I was muttering much of it out loud.

“Ignore the madness of a world that has made this swashbuckler appear normal. Ignore the celebutante-rejects aghast at those not absorbed in Chinese spyware ‘social’ apps available on any mainstream App Store.”

And why not? Afterall, the Communists now want the populace to swallow the latest swill their Thought Police have puked out, and nod slowly, basking in the wisdom of the notion that Black children being taught mathematics is racist. Conversely, the Fascists want the citizenry at-large to embrace their latest, unintelligible Reductio Ad Absurdum that beating cops to a pulp while shouting racist terms at the non-White officers is okay as long as they’re patriots. Thin Blue Line and all. “Thin Blue Line”, you ingrates? Put the straw down.

“Dear God Almighty,” I mumbled into my Long Island Iced Tea, nearly gone due to the urgent need to anesthetize myself. No reply, and not because He wants us to forget He exists, but because it’s the pizza we ordered, and it has arrived with all the trappings. Whose fault is that?

The lunacy in the former example is in those on the Far Left who by proxy think the Black intellect is so dormant, psyche so timid, that there need be no Black doctors, economists, engineers, et cetera, in the future. Mathematics is a rather integral part of the process of those career paths. Who’s holding who back with racist ideology again, exactly?

The madness in the latter example is at least as vivid and particularly poignant from people on the Far Right who think cops can do no wrong. You say The Filth went too far in Example X? “I say they didn’t go too far enough!” some neo-Successionist will bleat with the fervor of a patriot, by God. Just a patriot to another country, and not this one. But why quibble about it? Sure, seems reasonable enough to pass muster on “Squidbillies.”

Imitation being the highest form of flattery, the method to the unorthodoxy of this publication has never been less necessary. Both extremes in the sadly binary world of Castro and Mussolini neophytes demand the long-term vision, the sort of engaging in politics (again, “The Art of Compromise”) as a year-round endeavor that there is no app or “hack” for. The marathon, not the sprint, is what is at hand. I’d rather flatter the Edward Brooke III, the Alexander Hamilton, the Barbra Streisand, the Hunter S. Thompson and even the Master Shake with imitation than embrace the intellectual suicide of either Irredeemable America or Exceptional American Unilateralism.

Whichever clown car takes the stage from either extremist wing of discourse, they both will assure us that we’d feel so much better if only we’d embrace their brand of groupthink. Tsk, tsk, I know, but such is the rot of the putrescence we’ve inexplicably opted to wallow in.

What both teams of malcontents mean is we’ll feel much better carrying all of our favorite shows with us on all of our devices as they continue embezzling and funneling money to the duopoly in Babylon. The royalty on Capitol Hill will then reward our wholehearted faith with continued malignant governance and further insolvency on every level (social, fiscal, geopolitical, et al).

“Who knows?” I mumbled with a shrug. “With any luck, the dead will walk again and we’ll have an existential reason to disallow the Neanderthals in Congress from fucking the same coconut over and over while saying they’re carrying out the people’s business. All, naturally, with a straight face. And pursed lips. Can’t forget the ‘duck face.’ Gotta meet my fellow Millennials halfway.”

“You say something, Hun?”

The bartender had taken notice of my glass being devoid of strong drink, and grew concerned. Animals entering sexual congress with fruit, however, passed muster.

‘Of course it did,’ I thought, but could only reply with a low rasp as I exited my barstool.

“Yes, Ma’am. Check please.”

And on the 8th day, God made bears. Lots and lots of bears.

Does this era need introduction? Or, rather, may a suitable introduction be written? I report, you deride.

1: In any rational era, the sudden appearance of lurid photographs of well-known public figures tends to happen without the consent of those captured in the images. Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Anthony Weiner, et al. Notable exceptions to this are of the celebutante variety who sport last names such as Hilton and Kardashian, but then, their deliberate release of self-incriminating material isn’t indicative of a rational era.

That there’s a Stairway to Heaven but a Highway to Hell is indicative of expected traffic volume.

The great Jerry Falwell, Jr., well his undeniable greatness as an Evangelical Christian minister and university president is so ineffable, so vast, that he was no longer able to be confined by any notion of modern decency. If that’s still a thing, that is. Either way, the photograph posted containing the erstwhile head of Liberty University (and descendent of the late and decent Jerry Falwell) is disturbing on several counts. Let’s take a look:

Now, I’m not sure if it’s the ghastly attempt at humor (yeah, “black water”, haw haw haw!), the self-caricature of the gut and the unzipped pants combined with the awful rug on his counterpart (who is not his wife, for those keeping score at home), the fact that students of said Evangelical university get expelled for drinking and/or extra-marital sexual encounters, or that this wasn’t a leak at all that makes this such a disgrace. He could’ve just said it was a faux Black Dog in his glass and been done with it.

The man (so-called) “leaked” it via his own social media aperture, and then delivered a truly abysmal mockery of an apology on-air, and I quote: “I’ve promised my kids I’m going to try to be…I’m gonna try to be a good boy from here on out.” Rock and Roll, Jerry!

Oh and Mrs. Falwell, when your marriage does end, remember: you [expletive deleted] your rebound, and that’s it. You don’t permanently abscond from reality and keep [expletive deleted] them long-term and/or marry them. Especially, I might add, if you plucked them from the extras of “The Walking Dead.”

Silly me. But seriously, though: booze and Evangelicals and social media shouldn’t mix.

2: At times, the headlines write themselves. In their own attempt to swing loose with reality, as it were, Iran has a fabricated aircraft carrier resembling one of those wielded by the United States Navy. “Why”, you ask? An entirely unscripted and well-placed question. For their own propaganda purposes that is, until the entire experiment blew up in their faces. Living out their own version of “delirium tremens”, Iran was so successful in this charade that their accidental destruction of a prop US Navy aircraft carrier poses a threat to a major thoroughfare in the oil trade. Posing an existential threat to traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and things apparently unbeknownst to Iran such as tides can shift the wreckage, endangering oil tankers.

Give the Ayatollah our best. Speaking of “the best”, if you’re going to challenge the world’s preeminent naval power, you’d better come correct. The Battle of Evermore this is not.

3: Biden must face Trump in debate(s). Yes, it’s answering a “double dog dare” from the POTUS and no, you don’t want to give in to the whims of a bully. But if you don’t follow through then it looks like you’re hiding in a basement and afraid to face Donald J. Trump on the stage. What’s the worst that could happen? They then “triple dog dare” one another to a lindy hop dance-off to the “Misty Mountain Hop” or hand out four sticks (one to both members of each ticket) to swing with? Why would you be afraid of that if you’re in the Biden camp unless, per the Trump camp’s assertions, the former Vice President will be unable to remember whether he’s going to California, or another, “y’know, the thing” that the Founding Fathers said? The great equalizer is the human ego. They’ll debate.

This is an event waiting to go wrong. Don’t hang out with bears. [image credit to Daily Caller & Barstool Sports]

4: Meanwhile, the National Park Service has posted a warning urging American adventurers not to confront bears but, if they do, to not take advantage of their slower companions. And no, this is not made up. Nor is the response of a pack of humans, recently, to a bear arriving in their midst. They didn’t flee or otherwise attempt to discourage the bear; instead they took pictures of their merry band whilst feeding the bear. Good call, ‘Murica.

5: Bill Barr’s appearance was a disgrace for everyone except the Attorney General. For committee chairman Nadler, to open the hearing with that statement was an outrage; and Jordan, thanks for the monologue on things that happened before Barr was back on the job and for God’s sake put your damn coat on!

6: Stat of the Week: the POTUS’ campaign is knocking on 1 million doors a week; the former VPOTUS’ camp is knocking on 0. As in ZERO. Z-E-R-O. This sort of nonsense only seems like nonsenseuntil the time when the levee breaks. Underestimate the mad media genius of The Donald at your peril.

Y’know what? Let’s just cancel everything. If everything’s priority one, then nothing is priority one.

7 June 2020

Black Lives Matter: Let’s cut through the fat together, shall we? Yes or yes? Good. With that, we have a problem in America. Several, actually. We live in a police state, for one thing, and for another, paramount now, is said police state taking a particular interest in African Americans.

Let’s also consider the unbelievable, highly-classified powers of FISA courts to spy unopposed on our own people without their knowledge indefinitely, the ability of the Federal government to suspend the Constitutional rights of American citizens suspected of terrorism via the Patriot Act and the inexplicable repeal of the Smith-Mundt Act (which forbade the Federal Government from using propaganda on American soil). Are you drinking what I’m pouring?

With no malice in my heart toward the many fine police officers across the land (a few I’ve known personally), I say again: we live in a police state.

Over the past decade alone, we have seen increasing examples of the use of excessive force on a disproportionate number of black Americans. Data clearly shows that Whites compose 76.5% of America’s citizenry while Blacks make up 13.4% of it, the former were shot to death by police 370 times versus 235 for the latter.

For those who want to bring out FBI data displaying prevalence of crime amongst inner city black neighborhoods, recall the negligible difference in drug use between whites and blacks and the parity in gun culture between the two.

America glorifies violence, and that crosses ethnic lines. Don’t believe me? Look at what I call “Dollar Voting”, in essence, what we value and spend our money on. What does our art and culture reflect? If we’re being real, it ain’t peace. Does hip hop culture lend itself to violence? Listen to the top ten hits of the genre and get back to me; but before you get back to me, let me know what Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Reed and “The Dukes of Hazzard” were all about while you’re at it.

As for the movement itself, “Black Lives Matter” is driving home a simple point: yes, every house in the neighborhood matters but only one of them is on fire.

We hardly need a hashtag for Blue (Police) Lives Matter; they roam about largely unopposed, vested with a badge and lethal weaponry, and we provide a safety net (union, pension, et cetera) and, in general, blanket support to include the high probability that bad actors aren’t held accountable in court.

All Lives Matter? Do they? Maybe I’d be more decisive in answering these questions if every new episode of “Death By Cop” didn’t always star a black man.

– Jack DeViney

*************

New Orleans Police Department preps for ongoing confrontation and protest throughout downtown.

All Lives Matter(?): Two things can be true at once. In fact, very few things in our world are mutually exclusive of themselves. One can, for example, be in favor of the events in the George Floyd case never happening again and find the phrase “Black Lives Matters” offensive. They are not mutually exclusive. Both can be true. This depends on your definitions of words. Words matter. Words have meaning. Facts matter. Facts have meaning.

If by any definition, one is not a racist, but they will not stand shoulder to shoulder with Black Lives Matter signs, or they won’t kneel down in front of a mob of protestors, they become….what? Insensitive? Divisive?

To be true to this point, I believe “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter” are equally asinine. We don’t protest on things we agree upon. We don’t stand outside and shout “the sky is blue”!

Are things worse now than the mid-1960’s? Or do we see public discord in 3D now? We report, you deride.

The assertion that a black man can not step from his home without fear of imminent death from a racist ‘Mericuh is as equally preposterous as the media’s “1619” narrative that America is as systemically racist as at any time in our history. Really? Where’s the poll of young, black men asking them if they’d rather live in 1865, 1965 or 2020? I must’ve missed that astute revelation.

Instead of regurgitated statistics that the left/media refuse to acknowledge anyway, how about we come at this from a novel approach. [So] what is your suggestion? I mean, with all of the statistics stating the exact opposite of your point, what are we doing wrong? Are our hiring standards too low? Is training being swept aside to fast-track officers onto beats? Do we provide immunity to officers that is unnecessary and counter-productive? Let’s get to the “nut cutting” as they say.

If we want to turn this into another narrative where the right just refuses to admit there is a substantial issue and is instead hiding behind years of conservative practices…show me! Where are the statistics that support any of this nonsense? That show America is systemically racist and prejudiced against black Americans? Where are the politicians that you are particularly citing as responsible for these aggressions? Or is it just “orange man bad”, with his “basket of deplorables”?

Once again, the left/media have overplayed their hands. We were told millions of Americans would die if we didn’t shut the world down indefinitely. Now if you have a small business and want to re-open smartly so that you don’t lose everything, you’re killing grandma! We were told that if we would just allow LGBT marriages, all examples of bigotry would be history. Now if you’re a Millennial male that won’t go out with a trans-woman (a man by all scientific facts and definitions), you’re a homophobe! And now, if you won’t march to the beat of this drum, well, you’re just a racist. Or worse, an “Uncle Tom.”

It’s tiring. It’s divisive. It’s unnecessary. This issue is one we must agree on, or we don’t have a country. You cannot have law and order if one group is being systematically hunted down and killed by those sworn to protect us.

Facts matter. Statistics matter. Two things can be true at once.

– Michael R. DeViney, Jr.

Black History Month: Being About It

DeViney, Jack

Gonzo State: [Untitled]

Six Degrees of Knowin’ Nothin’: [Untitled]

Contrast: Black Lives Matter v. All Lives Matter (et al)