Hold the reparations.
The debt America supposedly owes its black slave descendants will be paid for in kind – by destroying the criminal justice system.
All black criminal suspects are hereby freed of all suspicion. You don’t have to pull over for any police officer. You don’t have to answer your door for any police officer – even if they have a search warrant or an arrest warrant.
Warrants no longer apply to black folk. Go ahead and blow off your court dates. (Sadly, Jamarcus Glover, Breonna Taylor’s old drug-dealing boyfriend failed to appear in court, and it had repercussions on her. It was the cops’ fault, though.)
And weapons violations? If you’re black and you’re a convicted felon, go ahead and acquire a gun. If you stole it and use it in a crime, it’s not your fault. It’s the owner’s fault for not locking it up properly – especially if the owner is white.
If all else fails and you find yourself in an encounter with police, remember these magic words: “I can’t breathe.”
This is our racial reckoning, the reformed America that our major media and some politicians are pushing. White criminal suspects will coat-tail on this new approach to “law enforcement.” It especially will benefit any criminal activity committed after the sun goes down, when skin color can’t be easily determined.
Is it worth the hassle for a cop to try and pull over a driver going 60 mph in a residential area at 9 p.m.? If you’re the speeding driver, it might be worth hitting the gas pedal. Why stop for a cop?
Almost immediately after the Chauvin verdict, The New York Times swept in with an updated body count (six) of how many more people had been killed by police since the verdict. The assumption seemed to be they were all killed just because cops can. A black teenage girl with a knife, poised to stab another girl, was cast as a victim.
“Private Autopsy Shows N. Carolina Deputies Shot Andrew Brown Jr. 5 Times” said one headline. “California Man Dies After Officers Pin Him to Ground for 5 Minutes” said another.
Locally, The Portland Tribune offered “City Reels from Police Shooting in Lents” about a white, homeless man who appeared to be armed with a gun and was acting erratically. The gun turned out to be a replica pistol. What Portland was actually “reeling” from was the usual rioting that a hard-core group of anarchists now stage when there is news of an officer-involved killing.
Media coverage of these deaths typically suggests that the person was killed for being mentally ill, on drugs or black.
It’s had a predictable effect.
This week two members of the Seattle Police Department were asked to leave Chocolati Cafe on N. 45th Street. A white woman working behind the counter ignored the officer who was next in line. When he finally got her attention and asked for a box of chocolates, she said she wouldn’t serve him.
Also this week, Jessica Beauvais, 32, a black radio host struck and killed a New York City police officer Anastasios Tsakos, who was directing traffic. A few hours earlier she filmed herself on Facebook as part of her Face the Reality radio show, downing vodka shots and vaping, playing “F*ck Tha Police” by NWA and ranting about the Chauvin trial.
When people become cops, she said, it’s like “signing up for potential death like in the Army” and that it is “part of the job” that people might try to kill you. She signed off on her rant with “Fuck the police.”
America’s new N-word is cops.
How ironic that President Biden – after urging a guilty verdict in Chauvin’s trial – should issue a very different declaration a few days later. Biden formally recognized the mass killings of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians during World War I at the hands of the Turks on the 106th anniversary of the massacre.
“We remember so that we remain ever vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms,” was Biden’s official statement.
Hate in all its forms? Does that include people who automatically hate cops?
Famed civil rights attorney Charles Garry, who represented the Black Panthers – including cop killer Huey Newton – once explained to me how hate works.
It was 1987, and I was living in Oakland when I met Garry. I told him I didn’t understand how a Black Panther could say, as Newton supposedly did, “The only place for a woman in the revolution is on her back.” It seemed to me that a black man would be more empathetic towards women considering how black men were treated.
“Everybody’s gotta have a nigger to look down upon,” Garry replied, “For a black man, woman is the nigger.”
I later read that Garry thought he had been cast as a “nigger” in his early life. His parents were Armenian and had fled the Turkish massacre for the safety of the U.S. He was born Garabed Robutlay Garabedian and grew up outside Fresno where Armenians were unwelcome. As a child, Garry was routinely subjected to ethnic slurs.
In a 1969 interview with The New York Times, Garry said by the time he finished grammar school, “I could handle my dukes, and I could lick my weight in wildcats.”
His autobiography was called “Street Fighter in the Courtroom” because that’s how he practiced law. He didn’t try to clean up the bad facts surrounding his clients – he turned them into righteous causes. His defense of Newton, accused of murdering Oakland Police Officer John Frey in 1967, ended in a conviction of manslaughter. Newton served all of two years in prison, and the case was overturned on appeal.
A profile by Time Magazine noted that when the Black Panthers were looking for a lawyer to defend Newton they interviewed Garry at length.
“Are you as good as Perry Mason?” one of them asked.
“I’m better,” Garry said. “Both of us get our clients off, but Mason’s are innocent.”
How would Garry have defended Derek Chauvin in his encounter with George Floyd? How would he have turned it into a righteous cause?
Perhaps Garry would have portrayed Chauvin as a workaholic cop dedicated to protecting the public from a large, unruly man high on drugs and trying to drive away. What if Floyd had gone on his way and killed someone? Chauvin was the kind of guy you’d want to answer your 9-1-1 call. A guy who didn’t back down even when he was outnumbered by an angry crowd surrounding him, videotaping him. A guy who was trying to help an agitated bruiser calm down, using a control maneuver he had used successfully before on others. Unfortunately, Chauvin had no idea how much Fentanyl this man had ingested.
Chauvin also was trying to help a man who was technically a co-worker. He and Floyd worked as bouncers at the same bar.
Garry might have seized on that fact as a class issue. Why is a cop working as a bouncer? He and Floyd, in some ways, were of the same class. They were called upon to handle the riffraff and troublemakers that other people didn’t want to touch.
Given the judge’s rulings in Chauvin’s trial, Garry would have had a hard time building a defense based on a righteous cause. The judge would not let Chauvin’s attorney even bring up Floyd’s criminal history. And, of course, there was race.
Chauvin became the stand-in for every dirty cop who ever framed a black suspect. He was one of the white men who got away with killing Emmett Till.
The vengeance directed at Chauvin was stunning. He offered to plead guilty in exchange for a 10-year sentence, but Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is black, took over the prosecution from the local District Attorney and insisted on going to trial.
When Chauvin is sentenced June 25, prosecutors will push for “upward sentencing departures” meaning the high end of a sentence that could range from 10 to 40 years.
Beauvais, the black radio host accused of killing a New York City police officer in a gruesome hit-and-run, is facing a maximum of 15 years.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
Related:
Turning Police Into Uber Drivers
Say her name?
Secoriea Turner, 8,
Unfortunately, HTA is on target.
From a time, just 50 years ago when MLK saw a day when men “were judged by the content of their character. not the color of their skin,” we have no arrived at a time when “Black” in the context of an accusation of criminality automatically means “innocent, oppressed, and wronged.” And “white” automatically means “horribly prejudicied, morally compromised, if not outright evil.”
Just 30 years ago would-be journalists were taught to never identify the race of a person unless it was absolutely vital to the context of the story. But now, we can infer that not mentioning a victim (of either crime or alleged police violence) means they are likely white.
Ultimately this will drive much of America back into a segregated, silo-ed version of an America that people like my great grandfather (who fought as a Union soldier in the Civil War) sought desperately to NOT regard race as a primary characteristic.
I’m sorry to say I’ve not heard of Secoriea Turner. I had to Google her.
George Floyd is worth $25 million. That little girl, I guess, is worth not so much. The media doesn’t care about her. Neither does BLM. Floyd is their man. No pressure put on Secoriea’s killers.
Believe that it was BLM that shot the child.
Good muscular column coordinated and direct in its intent, declarations, and inquiries.
Brought to mind, among other things Mr Cleaver’s insurrectionary reparation for slavery: raping white women.
I have respect and sympathy for Chauvin. I suspect that all cops present that day were congratulating themselves for not introducing violence into the arrest.
CRT and BLM and the whole abacadabra alphabet grievance soup that obtains today would excite awe from J. Goebbels. It is a fraud as vile as the Protocols, the Salem Witch Trials, and McCarthy’s worst efforts.
We are in real trouble as a city and as a nation. I really do not think that we will recover ourselves.
From “Soul on Ice” by Eldridge Cleaver: “I became a rapist. To refine my technique and modus operandi I practiced on black girls in the ghetto — in the black ghetto where dark and vicious deeds appear not as aberrations or deviations from the norm, but as part of the sufficiency of the Evil of a day — and when I considered myself smooth enough, I crossed the tracks and sought out white prey.”
He acknowledges, “I know that if I had not been apprehended I would have slit some white throats.”
In this same chapter, Cleaver states a simple truth that our politicians and media today have forgotten: “I also learned that it is easier to do evil than it is to do good.”
With all the excuses offered today, it is more easier than ever to do evil.
I’m glad to read your research into the history of so many of our problems. It’s not ancient history, but many people don’t or aren’t interested.
Larry’s right about Eldridge Cleaver. He bragged about raping white women. Kids, even some adults think the Black Panthers are a movie about a superhero.
I was impressed President Biden acknowledged the Armenian genocide. Hitler made a famous about nobody remembering the Armenians. It should be taught during Black History Month so Blacks can know they haven’t been singled out for cruel and inhuman treatment. It’s the history of all of us.
About 10 years ago the Red and Black Cafe told a Portland cop to leave who stopped in for a cup of coffee. A few years later, the same place called 911 to report an overdose and warned dispatch not to send a cop.
Seattle’s got nothing on discriminating against cops. Portland’s been a leader.
There are other establishments that welcome cops. I think you once wrote that most people would like to have a cop for a neighbor. Kinda like having a nurse for neighbor. Can come in handy when things go to shit.
A local man attempts illustrating how it works;of course, the comments are what make the inquiry fulfilling.
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1386903154915258371
“Is it worth the hassle for a cop to try and pull over a driver going 60 mph in a residential area at 9 p.m.?”
No.
…and then just wait until HB 2002 gets passed. The first sections alter Measure 11 to the point of repeal. Scrolling down to section 21 however, one sees where society is heading. Officers shall cite (ie no arrest) for most misdemeanor crimes to include: non-sexual harassment (ie slapping you across the face, pushing you to the ground, or even punching you in the face as long as no injury occurs), theft under $1,000, all trespass –to include your house– as long as no additional crime occurred (ie just wanted to sleep in your bed or maybe hadn’t had a chance to steal anything yet), vandalism causing less than $1,000… the list goes on.
The person trespassing in your bed? He gets a ticket; there is no provision for what happens if he doesn’t leave because Section 22 includes “notwithstanding ORS 133.310” which is the law allows officers to make arrests for crimes occurring in their presence. If the suspect doesn’t want to stop and be identified? or worse just refuses to identify themselves and stays in your bed? Officers can only cite for that too (Interfering with a Police Officer). If they resist the officer’s attempt to physically restrain them or take their fingerprint in order to identify them? That too is a citable offense only. There is a exception for these “unless there is an accompanying charge” but it is left to judicial review whether that means all charges or only arrestable charges. There is no provision that the officer can remove the trespasser from your property; apparently that’s the homeowner’s job. Don’t worry though, if the criminal causes injury to you while protecting your property, Rep Bynum says the cops can then step in and do something… of course who says the criminal now can’t sue you for whatever injury or emotional distress you might cause them.
Section 24 gets into traffic stops. There is a list of violations for which officers are not allowed to initiate a stop. I really don’t understand this, why use this tactic rather than simply repeal the statutes making these offenses a violation. I see only two reasons: 1. almost no one believes these restrictions on police are good ideas and they want to be able to repeal them with one simple bill, and 2. the point is to declaw police and limiting their power while things remain illegal in order to further delegitimize them.
Section 26 states that anyone displaying signs of acute mental illness shall not be taken to jail and must be taken to a hospital. This fundamentally misunderstands the ability to put people on mental health holds (immediate risk of danger to self/others) In other words if the mentally ill guy breaks down your door and defecates on your bed because he thinks demons are originating from there, he can’t go to jail, but these actions do not meet the standard of immediate danger to self/others. So… he gets a ticket? Nothing? There is so much here that shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the practice of policing and criminals.
I couldn’t even continue reading past this point as it was not good for me, so who knows what other goodies are tucked away in this threat to society.
I am well-acquainted with HB 2002. It is now in its fourth iteration with the “dash four” amendments, thus HB 2002-4. This is Rep. Bynum’s baby.
Last Friday, she and other supporters appeared before the House Rules Committee for a public hearing on HB 2002-4. Bynum started off talking about how, after a former officer justifiably was convicted of murdering George Floyd, there was no time for a sigh of relief “before another black child was killed by their government.”
If I understand the -4 iteration correctly and based on Bynum’s testimony, it sounds like the Measure 11, mandatory minimum content has taken a back seat to some of the stuff the BIPOC caucus is particularly interested in — micromanaging police to the point where they can’t do anything. The very examples you have highlighted.
Since Measure 11 was approved by the voters, it could require a two-thirds vote to blatantly overturn it. The legislature has been chipping away at it for years. If the legislation ends up focusing on police practices, it would only need a simple majority.
I have observed other public hearings related to this issue. Last week’s Rules Committee had some classic moments:
Trish Jordan, of Red Lodge Transition Services, talked about how in 1491 the country we are occupying was called Turtle Island, and there were no prisons. Native American tribes practiced “restorative justice.”
Shani Harris-Bagwell of Bagwell Consulting, a black woman who immediately announced that her pronouns were “she, they and Queen.” I don’t need to tell you where she stands on HB-2002 in any of its iterations.
Dean Westwood, a creepy guy whose video was on from the moment the meeting was called to order. I don’t know why the committee chair, Rep. Barbara Smith-Warner, didn’t tell him to shut it down until he was called to testify. He was doing so many weird movements with his arms, I texted a friend of mine who was also watching and asked, “Is he about to do a Jeffrey Toobin?”
My friend had already googled Mr. Westwood and came back with his criminal history. He had been convicted of extensive welfare fraud and sentenced to 18 months in prison. When he finally testified, Westwood complained that when he was in prison, they did not have proper accommodations to accommodate him as a quadriplegic.
There was one person who spoke in opposition to HB 2002-4, and that was Amanda Dalton of the Oregon District Attorneys Association. She is a paid mouthpiece, not a prosecutor. She spoke with no passion. She has other special interests she also represents, from ophthalmologists and orthopedic surgeons to the Oregon Wheat Growers.
This is how our laws are written.
I’m sure you noticed that HB 2002 has an “emergency clause.” It goes into effect upon passage, and the people cannot refer it to a vote by petition.
Sorry, my link to the text of HB 2002 didn’t work. Here it is:
https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2021R1/Downloads/MeasureDocument/HB2002
This is a link to the dash-4 amendments discussed at last week’s hearing: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2021R1/Downloads/ProposedAmendment/20522
For some legislative hypocrisy, this is the press release by the BIPOC caucus demanding that Rep. Nearman resign because when he exited the state Capitol, some right-wing protesters gained access to the building:
https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/housedemocrats/Documents/PRESS%20RELEASE%20BIPOC%20Legislators%20Call%20on%20Rep.%20Nearman%20to%20Resign.pdf
Note they conclude by stating Nearman’s resignation is needed because “Our right to feel safe depends on it.”
All of these legislators will likely vote for HB 2002 in some iteration, thereby threatening the safety of Oregonians who may need the police.
This HB 2002 defies rational thought. I cannot think how it is possible to resist it as it is constructed in defiance of reason, lived experience, and any practical hope of self preservation.
I visited the PPB twitter feed before coming to work tonight. A common sense and basic safety measure. There I read of a large group of armed people that had walked down the center of Interstate blocking cars and menacing the citizenry on the night of the 5th.
I hastily looked through local news outlets and it seems to have vanished from journalistic consciousness by today, the 6th. Who, what, why? Arrests?
I know of an Amish splinter group said to be quartered out that way, but the local newsies have left me all for to seek
This is a development that might merit encouragement:
https://wheelgunr.blogspot.com/2021/05/a-crime-app-details-crimes-near-you.html
This is encouraging: “So effective, Progressives want to cancel it.”
The Portland Tribune posted a confusing story that didn’t identify who these groups were that were halting traffic and waving guns around. There was no mention of Patrick Kimmons. But the Trib was better than The Oregonian, which was late in reporting anything.
I went over to Andy Ngo on Twitter, and he had video plus the Kimmons’ protest connection.
I don’t think the Portland media know how to cover what is happening to Portland.
Oh. Guess it wasn’t the Amish.
https://www.usasupreme.com/videos-heavily-armed-anarchist-militia-in-portland-stop-traffic-assault-driver-at-gunpoint-while-he-attempts-to-defend-himself/
The Amish? Looks more like the Unitarians to me.
I saw a Tweet describing the festivities as “the Pat Pat Crip march.”
I don’t know Taibbi’s work very well at all.
But,this struck me as a worthwhile look at the failure of our 4th Estate.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/why-securing-democracy-will-be-taught
I came upon the website with footage while doing a word search intending to turn up a local net or newspaper story.
A fellow I spoke with last night first learned of it on a Russian news site.
You ever get the feeling that the people’s welfare might be second to someone’s agenda?
I called the three local network affiliates and left a message for Maxine Bernstein.
She returned my call and I had to work a bit to get her to visit that kind of nutter site upon which I got my first glimpse on the matter. She’d vaguely heard about the violence.
She called again later and asked if she could use my name in her story and after assuring me that it would be used in a neutral way I agreed to let her include it.
When I contacted all of these news outlets and the city hall and PPB I was outraged. My wife uses that filling station on Interstate.
A gang of paramilitary looking men with long and short arms that are certainly semi-automatic and perhaps fully automatic are blocking a major and a minor thoroughfare, and vetting drivers and kicking the shit out of at least one.
They are doing this in the name of a gangster who had just shot two black men and then charged police with a handgun and so died of police gunfire. They have been doing this repeatedly and at the same location and time? What the high holy fuck is going on?
Let one Proud Boy turn up.
The idiot I spoke with at city hall was adamant that challenging these people would only exacerbate the situation. He said that to me as if it were obvious and a fully adequate reason for this to go unchallenged by the authorities. He was disappointed and impatient with me. I could tell.
This is crazy, crazy, crazy.
And, the story that did appear in the Oregonian had an air of neutrality about it and seemed to have near equal concern with the complaints of just such groups of protestors: the police are mean to them. Tear gas affects menstruation.
These people, this town – they/it cannot be salvaged.
Maxine Bernstein is a workhorse reporter and knows her beat. As such, I’m sure she knows more than she is allowed to report. That story did have, as you say, an air of neutrality about it. I couldn’t figure out what happened and who these people were.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall in The O’s newsroom when the editors were working over that story. The truth can be so inconvenient.
Twitter will allow commenters to go places the mainstream media won’t. Patrick Kimmons’ Crip loyalty lives on.
The people’s welfare has definitely become second place.
Eric Fruits over at Cascade Policy Institute found a Craigslist post offering $50 an hour to “real men” who would monitor police scanners to “find the troublemakers” vandalizing downtown Portland.
Fruits refers to this as Do-It-Yourself government. As he (and you) note, it won’t end well.
https://cascadepolicy.org/economic-opportunity/the-era-of-diy-government-will-not-end-well/
Dear Ms. Bernstein:
Have the police achieved anything,come to any conclusions, made any arrests in connection with this street fight?
Is it illegal for paramilitary seeming groups/gangs to block the public streets with semi-automatic and perhaps fully automatic weapons? Was this thug parade permitted by the city? From what I’ve read they’ve been doing this for days? Weeks? Months?
Please help me. Help Portland.
We cannot have thugs with pistols and rifles choking streets and attacking citizens. Or, can we?
My wife buys gas at the filling station where this attack took place. Not now, of course
It looks like Bernstein was busy chasing the story about Jalon Yoakum being shot dead outside a pizza place in Northeast Portland.
For the juiciest details on that incident, though, check out the comments in The Portland Trib’s story by a woman who writes under the name Inkberrow.
She writes: “This time we likely won’t be treated to details–from the mainstream mews media, anyway–of the late Mr. Yoakum’s too-short life. No pictures with children, no testimonials from his eighth-grade teacher, no eulogizing reports that he was just now turning his life around. This is another ho-hum no suspects identified or described, no witnesses cooperating. Why no real reporting??
“Because the Jalon Yoakum story, however tragic and interesting, doesn’t work for the ‘Bad Whitey, Bad Police, Bad America’ narrative the Left is so wedded to, even though Yoakum’s example is by far the more common. Yoakum instead is an example of his own ‘oppressed’ subcommunity’s toxic dysfunction. Will they take even partial ownership? Ever? Once? Will the area media report on gun/gang crime in three dimensions? Ever? Once?
“Born in 1988, per public records Yoakum was 18 when (he) got his first adult felony gun violence conviction and was sentenced to five years prison. Not public record, but that sentence makes it likely his juvenile record was loaded with similar activity. In 2010, so shortly after release from his 2006 beef, Yoakum was convicted of yet another gun violence felony and sentenced to 91-110 months prison.
“Then not too long after release from prison for his 2010 gun violence beef, we have Jalon Yoakum’s untimely end in broad daylight in an apparent drive-by gang assassination.
“Coincidentally (?), The Oregonian in a 2010 Maxine Bernstein article reported the sentencing of the ringleader of a Crips gang cocaine distribution ring which was run out of a NE Portland BBQ joint, Yam-Yams, by one James ‘Lonnie’ Yoakum, then 58. The sentencing judge was reported to have chided Yoakum for fathering 24 children by multiple mothers with no visible means of regular support.
“Yup, white supremacy is to blame, past and present! Youbetcha. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Systemic racism, dontchaknow. One of the cars with the shooters was white…Cocaine is white…”
https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/508651-406799-one-killed-two-wounded-in-wednesday-shootings-pwoff
Larry, there is so much going wrong with Portland now, it could be the thug parade may remain low priority until someone is killed — or until it can be pinned on somebody like a Proud Boy. Then Michael Schmidt would definitely be interested in prosecuting.
I don’t mean to be cynical. That’s how it goes right now in Portland. I have a friend who lives in a another neighborhood not too far from that activity. Like your wife, she’s going to avoid the area.
Portland has a fling with thinking deeply:
https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2021/05/opinion-amid-spike-in-shootings-lets-march-against-murder-and-the-culture-that-enables-it.html
It is, evidently, epidemic:
https://mobile.twitter.com/ChaskelBennett/status/1391586233688670208/photo/1
I’m sure you noticed where all that deep thinking led — more gunfire and plans for a march this Saturday. How original. A march. I wonder how many people will be armed. I may go and listen to the speakers just to count the platitudes.
Why coin a phrase when a platitude will do?
Hannah Nicole Jones didn’t get tenure. But, she did do pretty well withal. Still, with the Times and a Pulitzer on her resume? Jeez, puts me in mind of the bad old days of the Tulsa Riot of ’21.
I just read the headline and first para at a site called Eminetra and I’m now not sure what happened to her.
I do know that her epic put Steven Glass, Jayson Blair, the committee that wrote the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and whomever developed Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln into the shade.
Nikole Hannah Jones was hired to teach journalism at the University of North Carolina. That confusing story was about whether or not she had been given tenure. She was denied tenure and instead offered a five-year contract.
Imagine learning journalism from her.
It tells you something about her that she blocked me from Twitter after I sent her a link to “Nikole Hannah Jones’ White Lies.” (In retrospect, I would rewrite the lede, since talk of reparations has not died down.)
For being such a tough investigative journalist, Jones is awfully thin-skinned.
I haven’t read this article fully or closely. And, it is an arch conservative vehicle.
https://www.city-journal.org/critical-race-theory-portland-public-schools
This Jones woman don’t seem to amount to much. Hildy Johnson she ain’t.
Someone else sent me that link, pointing out one particular disturbing quote from a parent in Beaverton who grew up in Iran and sees some similarities between her schooling there and what is happening now in Beaverton.
It’s definitely worth a read. The author, Christopher Rufo, notes the number of teachers who were arrested last summer during the protests.
It reminded me of a protester I followed for a while on Twitter who identified herself as Lindsey Smith, a pre-school teacher. During the protests she played journalist, which anybody can do now. Among her tweets in mid-July:
“It’s my journalistic duty to inform you that there is a white person with an acoustic guitar, and we’re all doing a sing along to ‘I’d rather be in jail than be a cop.’”
Imagine what she’s doing with impressionable young minds.
They will succeed. Have succeeded. Make what arrangements you can while you can.
Around 2 a.m. I was sipping tea, prepping for a perimeter walk. Usually I exceed my remit and cover a lot of downtown.
So, I got a text. Friend of mine learned that he’s out of time and he’s very frightened.
I met him working another security job. A powerfully built black man my age and 2 inches taller. Grew up in NE and drifted into drugs. Lost his wife to them. He got himself right and lived quietly doing a simple but hard job well. His kids have some problems but he does what he can. I think that they’ll pull it together, too. The two I know are so articulate that I wonder they were educated in Portland public schools.
He’s the pivot point of an extended family. Kids and grandkids, great uncles and second cousins all know that they can count on him and from my perspective they asked too much of him.
Two Octobers ago he had a flat on 84. He was graves and my relief and didn’t have a spare. I told him I’d come get him. Sit tight. He didn’t and a drunk hit him: A dark black man in a navy blue uniform. Car going 60 hit him.
Eight months into recovery he gets the word his real problem is Stage 3 lung cancer. He hasn’t smoked for years, maybe not in this century. Maybe longer.
Guy was born into discrimination both subtle and savage. No education. Lost his way, but pulled it together in early middle-age and lived an ordinary citizen’s brave life. A big complex family looked to him for grounding and to carry a huge load of hopes and sanity.
He could be dead before I get to him tomorrow. It is that near.
Anyway, I went for my walk. At Chapman Square just across the street from Lownsdale a young meth-head white couple were high and noisy and dancing inside the fence.
Along the Fourth Street the bum camps had more or less forted up with heavy pallets. The corner at 3rd and Main has that 24/7 all-you-can-eat table. Donations I suppose. They’ve always got a fire burning and old living room furniture so that they can be righteous in some degree of comfort while getting fucked up.
They’re more or less moved on to Palestine and Native American beefs now. Even in desperate towns like Gallup and Browning I never met an Indian would want the help of these Portland creatures.
Yeah, I suppose Hamas could do something with them.
George Floyd once shoved a handgun into a woman’s belly during a home invasion. They say he didn’t beat her up though. Anyway, our embassies are going to fly the BLM flag in honor of Mr. Floyd.
Mostly family will note Willy’s passing.
“I don’t know. Seems like once they get started they don’t leave a guy nothing.”
Larry, what you’ve written is a story the Portland media — and most American media — ignore. When they do write it, they cast it in stereotypes.
If your friend and coworker had committed a felony and was in prison, the media would see his pain. But, as you put it, he “lived an ordinary citizen’s brave life” so he’s invisible. He’s not publicly wallowing so the Jo Ann Hardestys and Deb Kafourys and Janelle Bynums aren’t interested.
“Guy was born into discrimination both subtle and savage.”
We gave George Floyd’s family $27 million. Last summer state legislators gave Reimagine Oregon $62 million to pass on to various black organizations and activists. Currently there’s another $210 million in federal funds being handed to state representatives and senators to personally dole out for pet projects.
What is available for ordinary citizens? Well, the state legislature is going to lower reading, writing and math standards so it will be easier to graduate high school. They’re going to get rid of some misdemeanor crimes to reduce the odds of a black person having an encounter with police.
In truth, these legislative fixes will more likely benefit the crowd hanging around Chapman and Lownsdale squares.
If I understand things aright Tulsa ’21 foundered on the financials: living survivors payments, reparations, and etc.
This could have been a money making bloodbath of a commemoration and it was spoiled by poor negotiations.
I am sick of the Tulsa stories, but this hit the right note:
https://spectator.us/topic/shakedown-tulsa-mars-memory-black-wall-street/
Yes, what happened in Tulsa was bad. Now it is being twisted into something that could have continuing negative consequences. Black self-pity in America is reaching new depths.
One of the worst stories on Tulsa was in The New York Times in which a black man was bemoaning how he could have grown up with a “silver spoon in my mouth” had the riot not happened. I wonder how much time the sons and daughters of Korean store keepers in L.A. spend bemoaning the “what-could-have-beens” had black rioters not destroyed their parents’ livelihoods.
I’ve been taking up too much space lately so I’ll make this note on a back issue.
Meth heads smashed into my car last night. Door security heard the breaking glass and popped out. Dope fiend looked at him, turned and strolled on towards 4th and Yamhill.
Everyone knows it’s not a crime.
As it is the fourth time that this has happened (wife included) I have a local car glass repair shop. Nice guys. Sharp counter gal. All Hondurans.
In spite of it all the car glass guy is clearly pretty happy with the business that he has built and was looking forward to raising a family here.
Now he wants out. Keep the business maybe, but commute from a someplace else. Put his kids in school
You ever been to San Pedro Sula or Tegucigalpa? I have. Not for the faint of heart. It was around Tegoose where I met my first headless corpse.
Sunday I made the mistake of picking up the St Johns paper. Read their version of Gangsters on Interstate. Muddled and cowardly. I wrote them a vituperative letter.
Then, like a real man I asked them not to run it because I don’t want the klan at my house.
https://nypost.com/2021/06/04/woman-allegedly-misused-funds-raised-in-philando-castiles-name/
It is just so tempting. Even the decedent’s relatives sound
As if the primary interest isn’t social justice.
Not surprisingly that story doesn’t seem to be getting the attention it deserves. I hadn’t heard about it.
Here is some positive news. Finally, a reporter at The New York Times has noticed that the ACLU has lost its way:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
@Larry, I’ve never been to Honduras. I know why people leave Honduras, Guatemala, etc. Besides poverty the crime gets to be terrifying. You can’t have business or go to work. There aren’t real police. The gangs are the cops. People come to America for safety. Portland had four shot dead yesterday. It’s still safer here, but those Hondurans you talked to know how these things can go.