Morning. Happy Juneteenth. I’m once again not into trying to dig something up to write about this morning. So this is just a placeholder until probably this evening. Nothing particularly new is grabbing my attention and I’m not up to doing a week’s wrap up just yet.
We’ll see. In the meantime, check out this slab of Gibberish on why the whole militarization of the nation’s fuzz is bad enough but the bloodthirsty glee some of Our Fellow American are hoping for chaos in the cities is really, really unsettling. They’ve already hinted at an armed insurrection if Trump loses or any meaningful gun control goes down and they’ve quit pretending they care who dies from COVID-19 much less gets sick from it.
What a revoltin’ development.
7:30 p.m. That same day.
Okay, so this is the least professional this has been in months, but what the hell, eh? Life isn’t always to be lived by-the-book and even a routine as loose as mine could stand shaking up now and again. It’s been almost an hour since I wrote those words, and there’s still nothing grabbing me by the short-&-curlies. So, a wrap up it is.
Trump’s getting to start back up his volksgemeinschaft tomorrow and there’s a lot of bullshit surrounding it, and I don’t care. Yes, it’s tacky it’s on Juneteenth and, yes, it’s incredibly tacky it’s taking place in Tulsa, but he’s a douchebag. We all know this, he’s never hidden it, and it’s why the Base loves him, and they really love the not-at-all thinly veiled threats against anyone who thinks the First Amendment applies to them, as well.. This is not even taking into account the spike in COVID-19 cases in Oklahoma, but we’ve given up on that anyway.
One of the cops who murdered Breonna Taylor was fired. As empty a gesture as that sounds, apparently it’s a bit of an accomplishment. According to their contract with the Fraternal Order of Police, firing cops is like pulling teeth for the City of Louisville. They can just sue to get their job back, and that’s usually how it works.
Maybe the biggest problem with modern policing in America – apart from the outright racism and, in a lesser way, classism – is the structural issues. Police departments are stuck on most municipalities like a tick on a hound dog but much, much more difficult to remove. The power of and deference to police unions – as opposed to almost any other union – is a brick wall, and if you get over that, you have to deal with “qualified immunity”. Within my lifetime, at least, we’ve not only let the cops get enough military-grade equipment to invade a modest-sized European country, we’ve molded the law to the point where the public has more responsibility than they do. We have to know the law when they don’t, that sort of thing. That’s what “defund the police” means.
Moving sideways a bit, a number of black men have been found hanging from trees in California and in almost every case the local authorities dismiss them as suicides. Well… maybe? There was a case of a Latino gentleman but his family told authorities he was suicidal. However, the families of Robert Fuller, Malcolm Harsch, and the others aren’t accepting that excuse. It’s hard to tell this early and horrific to contemplate, but to pretend this country doesn’t have a history of white folks hanging black men from trees just because they could is woefully naive. Just because it’s not as common or consider a primo family outing opportunity anymore doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
Finally, the NCAA has told the State of Mississippi that its state flag does indeed fall under their ban. What this means is they will hold no championship games in places that fly the Confederate flag. The ban was enacted in 2001 when South Carolina still flew the flag at the Statehouse before Bree Newsome yanked it down. Now the only state the ban affects is Mississippi, which is in the middle of trying to decide if they want to keep a racist symbol to represent the entire state and all the citizens or not.
This comes on the heels of SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey condemning the flag and threatening to ban conference championships in the Magnolia State. For all the caterwauling we’re hearing from dead-enders about this, this is perfectly acceptable for both the NCAA and SEC to make this call according to the bylaws Mississippi universities agreed to for participation in college athletics.
We are in the middle of a Thing – I think it’s time to capitalize it – and we in Mississippi have to follow along or get left even further behind. In short, the poorest state in the union really doesn’t need anymore strikes against it, especially when this isn’t a hill worth dying on. The only reason the Confederate flag is even known is white resentment at having to treat black people like humans.
It’s part of my “heritage,” maybe, but I don’t see why I have to celebrate it or honor it.
Dear Y'all 