playing the race card

Earlier this week Trevor Noah posted on Instagram about how Amy Cooper “weaponized” racism, and how society isn’t holding up its end of the bargain in the social contract with blacks. In the comments feed, a troll threw shade at Noah for “race-baiting”. Which exposes just how vast the chasm is between what I perceive as rational and obvious truths and the cretins who are focused on the protests and looting and, IMHO, totally missing the fucking point. And it led me to fixate on this as the topic for this installment of the blog by selecting the cliche: “playing the race card.”

Today’s headlines show how out of touch much of white America is about what is going on here: “Minnesota governor says violent unrest is no longer in any way about the murder of George Floyd”.

But you know what? I beg to differ. I think it is about George Floyd. And Ahmaud Arbery. And Breonna Taylor. And a long list of black victims that you have seen circulating on Facebook that is just the tip of the iceberg, the “I have privilege as a white person because I can do all of these things” list, and worse, all the victims we don’t know about, who were abused and didn’t die. Those who suffered, but weren’t captured on a video that went viral.

In my mind, things wouldn’t have exploded the way they did this week if all the police officers involved in the most recent atrocity in Minneapolis had been arrested at the scene of the crime and brought up on appropriate charges.

(Manslaughter?!? Really?!? It might not have been premeditated but there was clearly intent. And gross negligence of all the police officers on the scene. Talk about depraved indifference!) Apparently legal precedent is firmly on the side of bad cops. Ever heard of “qualified immunity”? How the Supreme Court Lets Cops Get Away With Murder

“By sanctioning a ‘shoot first, think later’ approach to policing, the Court renders the protections of the Fourth Amendment hollow” — Justice Sotomayor

Or if Ahmaud’s murderers had been arrested at the scene of the crime and brought up on appropriate charges. Immediately. Not months later.

Or if Freddie Gray’s killers had not been acquitted.

If Sandra Bland hadn’t been racially profiled in Texas and ended up dead in a jail cell three days later with the arresting officer cleared of all charges.

And if practically the exact same thing hadn’t already happened to Eric Garner. In New York City. Six years ago. “I can’t breathe.”

How is it possible another black man can be killed in eerily similar circumstances in the same eon or lifetime, let alone in the same generation?

And if Kapernek hadn’t been persecuted for trying to peacefully protest exactly this kind of violence against blacks and the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators. For taking a knee in the NFL, he was ostracized. Ironically, you could say he was blackballed.

I just moved from Haiti, a nation that has been debilitated by civil unrest, and the attendant opportunistic looting that sadly tends to accompany riots and natural disasters, for the better part of two years (see the moving images of it captured by brave photographers, finalists for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize). If I have learned anything from this miserable set of circumstances, it’s that the violence will continue until the conditions that give rise to it change. What do the rioters, be they Haitian or American, have to lose? Specifically in America, what more can we take from African Americans when we strip them of their lives and humanity on a regular basis with little to no consequences for the abusers?

And we white Americans need to take a beat before we try to shift the narrative and take the moral high ground and start tsk-tsking when there is foreseeable and avoidable backlash to the latest outrage. I am not impressed with the negative reactions from upstanding citizens who are shocked at the wanton destruction of property and looting. This article Violence Never Works? Really? points out the hypocrisy of our recent and historical behavior that I hope will encourage silence, sympathy and empathy rather than judgment.

I do not condone or endorse the violence like this week’s that leads to more injury and death. But seriously, what do we expect? Shit happens during protests when police turn on the tear gas and rubber bullets. Muckrakers and low lifes infiltrate and take advantage of the situation out of desperation or to stir the pot like this gas-masked white guy agent provocateur who broke windows at Minneapolis Auto Zone.

And to the white people who are STILL responding with “all lives matter” I just want to say that they are at best tone deaf to the relentlessness of the injustice. I no longer feel like giving them the benefit of the doubt that they mean it in a kumbaya kind of way “to which no one could object.”

Given the abominable treatment of blacks in the Americas over the past 400 years and the modern day lynchings that are, astonishingly and shamefully, still happening now, it makes me want to get up in the grill of the all lives matter folks and ask them: “Have you no sense of decency?!?”  

“Because of the brutalizing and killing of black people at the hands of the police and the indifference of society in general and the criminal justice system in particular, it is important that we say that…”     

The above are the implicit words that precede Black Lives Matter per a law professor cited in this Vox article

There is very little that could get me to abandon isolation and physical distancing at the moment given my fear and respect for Covid 19, but if I was in the US right now, I think this would draw me out to the streets. Enough is enough.

dial a cliche

Greetings all. First of all, it goes without saying, I hope this missive finds you and your families navigating covid19 as well as possible. I know some of you are fighting on the front lines of it, some have suffered through it, some of you have lost family members to it. I send my heartfelt condolences and best wishes to you all to survive and recover from the pain and disorientation caused by the pandemic and efforts to stop its spread.

The blog is taking a detour from its original intent, which was just to stay in touch with family and friends while I was abroad working on humanitarian initiatives and provide glimpses into the trials and tribulations of my privileged existence as an expat in some of the more troubled spots on earth. But now that every spot on earth seems to be troubled it doesn’t seem as necessary or interesting. Hence a change in modus operandi of read the tea leaves.

Also to continue to blithely continue to provide updates on pura vida in Costa Rica while I’m blissfully ensconced here is sure to become redundant and tedious, or worse, potentially engender resentment as many of you are still giving your all on the front lines, and in your homes with your children, and navigating the new normal of zoom fatigue, etc., or worse really struggling through diminished incomes and fearful for how you will continue to keep body and soul together through the coming economic downturn until we are through the worst of the pandemic and maybe on the uptick in the swoosh recovery. I feel you on that last bit, but am just more fortunate in where I’m waiting it out.

Going forward for a while I am going to pick one cliché per post, and then expound on it, either related to (hopefully humorous or poignant) episodes in my own life, or, share my opinion on topical events. I’ll take requests! Feel free to use the comment box to suggest a cliché. I’ve included a very short list below in case you want to use as a pick list.

The title of this blog “Dial a Cliché” might be recognizable to some of you Karens or other members of my Gen-X demo (btw I strenously object to personally being a Karen, except in rare moments when I am asserting my rights as a consumer with obdurate customer service reps or gate agents…oh crap…I think I just incriminated myself? (“Methinks thou dost protest too much” much?!)) Anyway, Dial a Cliché is a Morrissey song from his 1988 album Viva Hate. He and his original band, The Smiths, were like the pied piper of the angst-filled and melancholy stages of my adolescence.

I’m really not a Karen!!! But this usage had me ROFL

And so today’s blog is taking you on a tangent with me down memory lane, or at least the corridors of Schenley High School, because It reminds me of the time in Freshman or Sophomore year when a bunch of us showed up at school pushing a soundtrack we had all independently discovered after going record shopping (in very High Fidelity-looking record stores like the one on Forbes Avenue in Oakland where I found my copy). It was a soundtrack for a movie none of us had seen yet, John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink.

As an aside, Pretty in Pink, while a fine “other side of the tracks” film, with a heartbreakingly pouty lower-lipped Andrew McCarthy and a pathologically nonplussed James Spader as the rich kids to Molly Ringwald’s poor orphaned but one-of-a-kind bohemian earnest urchin was not the best effort of his brat pack movies of the 80s, which were pretty important pop cultural mileposts in the middle school and high school era of the 80s. It did not hold a candle (haha – see what I did there?) to The Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles or even Weird Science. However, the soundtrack with tracks by all of our favorite up and coming alternative Brit bands really was of the moment and we all immediately and simultaneously latched onto it.

As another aside, a really catchy Smiths song was on the Pretty in Pink soundtrack and is like top 20 Smiths (maybe even cracking Top 10): Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want  although it doesn’t come close to as good as the anthem How Soon is Now #amiright. Incidentally How Soon is Now was sampled in Hippychick which was also an adorable early 90s song. But I digress…

Dear Schenley High 1986

So after said weekend of record shopping, we all turn up at school on the stairs that we used to hang out on between classes with the cassette tape of the soundtrack, but none of us was able to take credit for introducing the rest of us to what we each independently thought was unicorn of a find that our friends would be so delighted and amazed to learn about. It took a little out of the wind of our sails as would-be music influencers (eons before that was a thing). I wonder if that could happen now – I mean outside of when Taylor Swift or Queen B drop albums that are downloaded by millions concurrently, are kids organically stumbling on music by potentially less-than-headline acts that speaks to broad subsets of their peers on spotify or apple beats1 playlists? Seems like sources of new, up-and-coming musicians and other pop cultural references are more diffuse now. Or maybe I only think that because I’m not on IG and am not influenced by any influencers. Or please correct me are influencers now so much of a thing they’re with a capital “I”?

A cliché, or cliche (UK: /ˈkliːʃeɪ/ or US: /kliˈʃeɪ/), is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.

It’s been observed that I tend to drop more than my fair share of clichés into conversation (in fact there are two or three above {sigh} not even done on purpose) so I don’t deny it. Not sure why I’m so stuck on clichés I guess a lack of originality? Or a more positive spin, an abililty to draw connections and land on an apt expression to encapsulate common occurrences in our day-to-day lives.

Short List of Cliches:

  • The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
  • Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.
  • I’m like a kid in a candy store.
  • I lost track of time.
  • Roses are red, violets are blue…
  • Time heals all wounds.
  • We’re not laughing at you, we’re laughing with you.
  • Play your cards right.
  • Read between the lines.
  • Beauty is only skin deep.
  • Birds of a feather flock together.
  • Let’s touch base.
  • When you’re between a rock and a hard place.
  • It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
  • The proof is in the pudding.
  • When it rains it pours.
  • Lightning never strikes in the same place twice.
  • It is what it is.
  • Business is business.
  • Rules are rules.
  • Whatever happens, happens.
  • The who’s who.
  • When you know what’s what.
  • A deal’s a deal.

Incidentally hose last five on the list came from the most recent Seinfeld comedy special on Netflix 23 Hours to Kill which was entertaining, but maybe funnier for married men of the OK Boomer versus Karen age brackets.

Here are some write-in cliches (thanks peanut gallery!):

  • More than you can shake a stick at.
  • A chip off the ole block.
  • All’s well that ends well.
  • Between a rock and a hard place.
  • Fit as a fiddle.
  • The writing’s on the wall.
  • A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
  • Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
  • Strange times.
  • The simple things in life.