The tale of this weekend was told not just on television but on Twitter.
The vast majority of activists protesting peacefully for equal justice are being sabotaged by a handful of anarchists, arsonists, looters, and assholes with bows and semi-trucks. Within days, many of each will be waylaid by COVID-19. This is soul-sucking.
That’s bad enough. But I’m not walking around in black skin in the so-called land of the free:
But in all the mayhem, someone with a soul will, at least for a few moments, restore your faith that this too shall pass, that Americans’ aspirations of more perfect union are still alive.
Houston police chief Art Acevedo is one one. Watch him stand with his majority-minority town:
“As an immigrant, you know what? We built this country!” Acevedo shouts. “And I got news for them. We ain’t goin’ nowhere! That ship has sailed!”
Or watch Genesee County, Michigan Sheriff Chris Swanson strip off his gear to march with protesters in Flint:
Protesters putting themselves on the line to demand equal justice find themselves undermined by Antifa-types there just to create mayhem. They’re not having it:
And it wasn’t just Antifa. Cops in Flatbush covered their badge numbers; they were planning for mayhem. Others police in Louisville looted and destroyed private property.
Occasionally, some mature adult reinforces your faith that the world is not completely mad. I could have listened to this Secret Service officer all day. Great engagement. Listening. Responding. Letting protesters vent without taking it personally. Keeping his cool. (There is much more in the live feed) :
While these officers show what’s possible, others, including those who sparked these wildfires by killing George Floyd, make the protesters case that the racist, two-tiered system of justice in this country must end.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Sunday the legal system he has heard of from protesters “works perfectly as designed” to “deny justice to communities of color.” To address that, Walz appointed Keith Ellison, the state’s attorney general, to lead investigation into George Floyd killing.
Sen. Kamala Harris of California appeared Sunday on the Rev. Al Sharpton’s “Politics Nation” to argue that bad cops should go to jail. But that’s only one facet of the problem.
It’s not just bad police officers not going to jail. Nor is it simply systemic racism. Rich, white criminals from coast to coast exist in an alternate justice universe from the rest of us. Money talks, they walk. Two systems of justice and not enough done to change it. That’s the problem. One America for the lords of the manor (and their paid enforcers) and another for the serfs, especially the non-white ones. That America is as phony as Trump University. Having Donald Trump leading it simply ices the cake.
Trump the Brave hasn’t come out of his bunker.
Anyone voting for acting president Donald J. Trump this November is voting for another four years of this, or worse. Possibly, for ending the United States as a global power and a source of global stability, if that hasn’t already happened. But so long as his red hats survive to attend his rallies, he’s fine with that.
Danielle Allen addresses the “slow-moving legitimacy crisis” we are experiencing: “When you have a legitimacy crisis, and cycles of disempowerment across society, not only for black and brown citizens but also for white, for rural as well as urban, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when you have revolution in your streets.”
Well, you know
We’re doing what we can
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way by June, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.