Freedom To Think? Not In Florida

 

Some may think I spend too much time these days writing about the Benighted United States of America. Perhaps I do, but its seemingly inexorable slide into ignorance and autocracy is surely something that needs to be monitored and fought against. The latter, of course is not my battle directly, but any movement that works to restrict access to information that all democratic countries need to make wise choices should face universal condemnation.

While many states qualify for such censure, Florida seems to be the leading poster-state in this regard. Governor Ron DeSantis, using his "anti-woke' rhetoric to garner votes from the ignorant and stupid, seems to be leading the charge against good citizenship in general, and education in particular by ensuring that people are kept in the dark about that country's dark, racist past and present.

 I have been doing considerable study in the past few months of Black American history. A National Geographic documentary, Rise Again: Tulsa and The Red Summer, informed me of things I had no idea of. While many have heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre, I would imagine many (and I was one of them) have no idea of the number of massacres that preceded Tulsa. The full documentary is now available on YouTube, and I place it at the end of this post.

The above, and anything else that would result in an informed populace is now anathema in Florida. The redoubtable TizzyEnt explains:

For those who believe in being well-informed, here is the Tulsa video which I hope you get a chance to view at some point.

As well, allow me to make one more recommendation. Reconstruction: The Accident of Race and Color is a book that taught me things I had no idea of regarding the history of race in the U.S., including the fact that in the antebellum South, there were places such as Charleston and New Orleans that had mixed-race communities with thriving, prosperous and essentially integrated communities. It was, in fact, the Reconstruction Era that robbed them of those conditions and rights that they had long enjoyed.

It is this kind of knowledge that DeSantis and his ilk are working very hard to suppress.

Strange Fruit

H/t Michael De Adder

Those who say the police are just doing their job are just not paying attention.

Be warned. Both of these videos are hard to watch:

This is Fucking nuts! How is this even a reasonable thing to do by police. This was murder. https://t.co/HxKHVOhnaB

— Rick Barnes (@queerthoughts) June 15, 2020

And lest we feel smug in thinking that violent, corrupt and racially-biased policing is just an American blight, Clyde McDonald of Bracebridge, Ont. sets us straight:

Heartbroken and conflicted: Canada’s Black police officers open up about George Floyd’s death and anti-racism protests, June 7

Sorry, I am not buying the “Ninety-nine per cent … are good men and women police officers” and the “few bad apples” excuses.

The ninety-nine per cent continually protect the bad apples, so they are accomplices, and just as guilty as the bad apples.

Officer Cartright says he is being pulled in both directions.

Why?

There is only right and wrong.

There is nothing to wrestle with.

The Toronto Police are a disgrace. Phone video showed Consts. Piara Dhaliwal and Akin Gul lied about Abdi Sheik-Qasim’s arrest. Toronto Const. Robert Warrener had “deliberately fabricated” the drug transaction — “inexcusable deceptive conduct” in a case against Pankaj Bedi. The Star has had many, many other articles on corrupt police officers, most of whom are still employed by the force.

Despite all of the scandals and shootings, Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack has never met a bad officer.

McCormack defends them …, even when there is irrefutable video evidence.

He does not recognize that keeping bad officers on the force tarnishes the reputation of all of the other officers.

If the ninety-nine per cent truly wanted to protect their reputations, they would vote McCormack out of office.

It is their own reputations that are at stake, and they should be proactive in wanting the bad apples removed.

The fact that they actually protect and defend the bad apples speaks volumes about these supposed “good men and women police officers.”

You can criticize the Americans all you want, but when they have bad cops caught on video, they fire them.

With A Humble Heart

These past many weeks have been difficult ones. We have been largely confined to our homes; social ties we have nurtured for years are under stress, if for no other reason than our inability to be in the presence of those we love and care about. Compounding our sense of helplessness, the racial ructions in the United States have confronted us with some unpleasant but oft-ignored truths. The public spectacle of George Floyd's murder caused deep anguish for all right-thinking people.

The fact that his murder was a spectacle made it easy to feel horror, outrage, and deep sadness. The hard part will be sustaining those reactions and demanding that constructive, structural changes be implemented. In that, we all have a role to play, and that role begins not with the shedding of more tears, but educating ourselves deeply about the daily truths people of color and other minorities confront.

And that takes work, and it takes commitment. In some of my forthcoming posts, I would like to share some of the things I have watched and some of the things I have read that may help bring us closer to a real understanding of, even some empathy for, the daily lives of others. I tried to do that recently in a post about black parents having "the talk' with their kids, as well as a followup post about former Argo player Orlando Bowen and his traumatic encounter with Peel undercover cops back in 2004. As well, I reposted on the murder of Emmett Till.

Below is something culled from NBC Nightly News. If you advance to the 18-minute mark, you will see a story about ow systemic racism affects both the physical and mental health of its victims, many of whom are collateral ones.



It would be both supremely arrogant and supremely naive to suggest that my small efforts can make a difference in the larger scheme of things. The real lesson here, for me, is to approach the learning with a humble heart, fully acknowledging that as a white person, I can never truly know what it is to be in the skin of another, but to make every effort to understand, to bear witness, and to support changes that will improve people's lives everywhere.

When In The Wrong, Go On The Attack

Here is a how-to lesson:

“Everybody’s trying to shame us.” pic.twitter.com/T1ISTiZpEe

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) June 9, 2020