What kind of a man picks a fight with a woman old enough to be his mother?
Daunte Wright. Just a poor black guy, with an arrest warrant and a previous firearms violation, trying to go about his business.
And what kind of a woman apologizes profusely, sobbing uncontrollably, for trying to do her job but failing?
Minnesota police officer Kim Potter, white and working in the same area where black Fentanyl addict and thieving bully George Floyd was martyred.
The guilty verdict in Potter’s manslaughter trial landed the same day that writer Joan Didion died. Two pieces of sad news to close out the year.
Didion was known for her brutal honesty.
Her essay “On Self-Respect,” written when she was a young staffer at Vogue magazine, considers “the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life” as the source of self-respect.
Potter has self-respect. Wright did not.
“Self-respect is something that our grandparents, whether or not they had it, knew all about,” Didion writes. “They had instilled in them, young, a certain discipline, the sense that one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts.”
Didion was not one to wallow in historic wrongs that cannot be changed.
“(I)t did not seem unjust that the way to free land in California involved death and difficulty and dirt. … “(A)nything worth having has its price. People who respect themselves are willing to accept the risk that the Indians will be hostile, that the venture will go bankrupt… .”
People with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes and know the price of things, Didion writes.
“If they choose to commit adultery, they do not then go running, in an access of bad conscience, to receive absolution from the wronged parties; nor do they complain unduly of the unfairness, the undeserved embarrassment, of being named co-respondent. In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character…”
What kind of character did Wright and Potter exhibit?
All that was required of Wright was that he allow himself to be handcuffed and taken into custody, then booked on the warrant – and likely soon released.
At the time of his encounter with Potter he had already skirted prosecution of two cases from 2019 in which he was accused of participating in a carjacking and another where he was accused of shooting a man in the head leaving him brain damaged (the victim’s family is now suing the Wright estate for a cut of the millions it will receive because of Potter’s error). Wright also had a prior conviction for armed robbery.
Perhaps Wright, 20, looked at Potter, a 48-year-old white woman, and wrote her off as inconsequential. He’s a black man, and black lives matter. The news media can’t say it enough.
Potter testified she probably wouldn’t have stopped Wright for three low-level traffic violations, but she was training another officer. She became concerned, though, when she ran his name and discovered he was driving on a suspended license, had a restraining order against him, and a warrant for his arrest on a weapons charge. It’s not hard to imagine what she thought could happen when he resisted arrest.
There would have been no opportunity for her to mistakenly reach for her gun instead of her Taser had Wright simply cooperated. He chose not to.
The jurors in her trial got to hold her gun and Taser to compare them. The gun is far heavier. But like most cops in American, Potter rarely pulled her firearm or Taser.
It might have been more useful for each juror to gear up in all the gadgetry police are now expected to wear. Cops can feel shackled. Not just with equipment – but with the public’s expectations that they should not hurt anyone. Enforce the laws by magic, or take some “special training” that will make everyone cheerfully cooperate.
Potter’s deep remorse for mistaking her gun for a Taser did her no good. Her 26 years of police work turned out to be as irrelevant as Wright’s criminal history, which the media generally ignored.
It’s too bad she cried so hard. The mistake she made occasionally happens in her line of work. The only way it will ever stop happening is if criminals stop behaving like criminals, or cops stop behaving like cops – in which case, criminals can do whatever they want.
One of Didion’s most famous essays was “Sentimental Journeys” about the Central Park Five. Five black teenagers were convicted of raping and brutally beating a white jogger in 1989. They initially implicated one another, and one of them even boasted about his participation in the crime. By the time they changed their tunes, they were found guilty and sentenced to prison.
Didion went after the media for their pack mentality, their rush to run with the same narrative – the Ivy League grad victim representing New York’s brave spirit in the face of vicious acts of “wilding.”
Even New York’s first black mayor, David Denkins, joined in saying he hoped the city “would learn a lesson from the event and be inspired by this young woman.” (Actually, after the victim finally recovered, she would go into seclusion for 14 years, and as Didion noted, there were 3,254 rapes reported the same year of the Central Park rape.)
Eventually, a serial rapist named Matias Reyes, who was in prison on other crimes, confessed to the Central Park rape. His DNA matched.
The media whip-lashed in the other direction – elevating the Central Park Five to hero status, ignoring that one of the reasons the teenagers had trouble defending themselves is they were elsewhere in Central Park committing other, lesser crimes when the jogger was raped. Like the current media done with Daunte Wright’s criminal history, reducing it to hanging an air freshener on his rear-view mirror.
When enough neighborhoods have degenerated, Americans may come to their senses and marvel at the gullibility and gutlessness of a media that turned guys like Floyd and Wright into martyrs.
Lynch mobs now come in all colors. They no longer wear white hoods. We now have black good ol’ boys like Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison who fast-tracked the prosecution of Potter. Her “crime” occurred in April 2021, and the verdict came near the end of December. Likewise, Ellison made sure Derek Chauvin was swiftly brought to trial.
The criminal justice system didn’t seem interested in prosecuting Wright for his cases from 2019. Had he been prosecuted and convicted, he might still be alive by virtue of being incarcerated.
The war on cops has not gone unnoticed by the criminal community.
“Carjackings sweep through the Twin Cities” was a headline this week in a Minneapolis newspaper.
Didion saw this America coming. In 1975, she delivered the commencement address at the University of California Riverside. She didn’t preach that the graduates should try to make the world better. She urged them to live in it and try to understand it as it is.
“Some of you are going to spend the whole rest of your life in culture shock,” Didion said, “and what I’m trying to say is that I think you should.”
She invited them to look at the myth of the 60’s through her eyes, “a decade in which everyone lived in an entirely imagined world; when everybody operated from an idea and all the ideas got polarized and cheapened.”
Americans collectively lost the ability to think and judge, she said.
“The whole country was like a cargo cult. … Nothing meant what it was supposed to mean.”
She reassured them: “There is an objective reality. Take it on faith.”
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
Related:
At Portland Dissent on substack.com:
Not a Didion fan. Name sounded familiar. My daughter knows of her and showed me the Central Park story. I got lost reading it. You need a road map.
Didion’s Central Park Five essay was famous, but it does meander in places. It commanded a lot of attention when it was first published because she saw through the journalists’ pack mentality in the case. She didn’t even spare The New York Times’ Anna Quindlen.
I feel so much safer with that lady cop behind bars and all the Daunte Wrights running loose.
A worthy tribute to a great writer.
I am a big Didion fan.
She showed us the American version of the banality of evil that many Americans never understood Hannah Arendt describing.
I had never heard of the “cargo cult” reference.
What America desperately needs to understand is that there IS an objective realty or as film-maker Errol Morris says, “there is no truth for you and truth for me, there is only THE truth.”
I’m also a Didion fan. Her Year of Magical Thinking is good for anyone suffering through grief.
I can’t imagine what she would think of this verdict or the worship of guys like Wright and Floyd. The country has lost its way. And cargo cult – I’d never heard of it. Leave it to Didion to see it coming. Everybody’s looking for a messiah or messenger to give them wealth or an easy way to success. The black turtleneck didn’t work for Elizabeth Holmes I guess.
Most politicians engage in REality distortion.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/jill-su-life-mattered-critical-race-theory-murder/
Thanks for the link. I had forgotten about that murder. The story included some thoughtful comments and a discussion of the movie “Deliverance.” I loved that film when I saw it last century. Could be worth a revisit — what happens when naive city slickers encounter depraved thugs and can’t call 9-1-1.
Didion’s paean to John Wayne is always a surprise and bracing. Slouching Towards Bethlehem like In Our Time is a book I always own.
Her writing on Central America and Miami leaves ineradicable unease in the reader.
I haven’t read her in years outside of seeing and listening to her being interviewed here in Portland by a chimp from the Oregonian. Man couldn’t shut his mouth and let her talk. Once she seemed to step out of her valium-like reverie she became compelling. Sarashon? A longtime Oregonian hack felt compelled to derail her thinking.
Know nothing about her CP5 writing. I’m no longer a friend to Ken Burns. Pretty sure he’d denounce Shelby Foote these days. And, my sympathy is inclined to Ann Coulter’s CP5 post-vindication assessment.
That woman who report’s for Public Television, Yamiche Alcindor, is the thinking man’s Joy Reid or Don Lemon.
The noble fallen of recent years leave me pretty frosty Big Mike, Trayvon, Wright, and Floyd.
It is not going to get better. Not in Portland and not in much of the country. Two million+ illegals last year? Many (most?) flown across the nation or distributed – unvetted/constrained.
Nearly a million non-citizens allowed to vote in New York. In some parts of the East Coast Hispanic votes count as two in municipal elections.
We don’t have a nation nor do we have citizenship. We don’t have rule of law nor do we have an education system.
What we’ve got is slow rot in a moribund corpse. Read a book recently that examined the murder of James Garfield. His corpse’s autopsy agrees with an examination of contemporary America’s body politic and citizen government.
BLM signage to me is an endorsement of lynch law. Living in Portland is learning to hate and remain silent. A dubious virtue but the best one can manage until fully out of this grubby haven for self-loathing hypocrites.
Umm, I don’t think that you can have a moribund corpse.
I realize my stray thoughts are bitter and that is why I work hard not to contribute to online discussion. I do not bring any light to the party.
Finally, I believe Didion and her husband wrote a film treatment of the career and death of Jessica Savitch which was turned into a terminally sappy Robert Redford/Michelle Pfiefer film.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Close_%26_Personal_(film)
“Slow rot in a moribund corpse.” In some circumstances, redundancy is to be expected.
The local media are trying to return to normal with restaurant reviews and such. But then last night, I Zoomed in on a subcommittee of the Portland Accountability Commission working on the bylaws of what will become still another police oversight group for Portland. Only this one will have a budget (equivalent to 5 percent of the police budget) and will have subpoena powers.
Then today, The Oregonian hid behind a paywall a story about a man who is one of the most prolific property criminals in Portland. This fellow has spent most of his life stealing. He has hurt some local businesses (his favorite target). He gets out of jail or prison and starts all over again.
Yet even some of his victims insist on feeling sorry for him. Lewis & Clark Law Professor Aliza Kaplan blames the state for not working miracles with this man so he will stop stealing (without, of course, laying a hand on him or saying anything that might make him feel like he’s being deprived of his civil rights).
But Portland’s most pressing problem is police reform. Slow rot in a city that seems dead in some places.
Perhaps the Classen clawback and Newberg’s support for education over indoctrination are the glimpse of a glimmer of a promise of adulthood’s return
The news out of Newberg was promising. I’ve watched a couple of their school board meetings online. The school trustee who uses her ample bosom to broadcast profound T-shirt messages such as “Ignorance is a choice” is a classic. Yes, dear, you’ve made your choice.
I found an old story about Classen by Anna Griffin when she was writing for The Oregonian. Before Portland embraced a contrived “weirdness,” Classen helped give the city a genuine independence.
On a sad not I see that today the final, final, final investigation into that kid (Kendrick Johnson)who suffocated himself in a Georgia wrestling mat finally ended. Kinda.
Believe the deceased’s parents managed to to real damage to two brothers who attended the same school and to their father, who was an FBI agent at the time.
Finally, a brave American independent journalist died recently and most never knew it. He’d long been suppressed by all media everywhere:
https://prescottenews.com/index.php/2022/01/17/colin-flaherty-rest-in-peace-jared-taylor/
The mother of the defamed boys and the wife of the former FBI agent is quoted in the following article:
https://www.ajc.com/news/crime/valdosta-sheriff-reopens-kendrick-johnson-case/K36ISER5HRBRXFFNPEVMUYRMRM/
St. George of Floyd. People will look back on America in the 21st Century and marvel at our stupidity and sheep-like behavior. Colin Flaherty had less hate and more joy in his life than Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Paragraphs 5 and 6 at the link might amuse:
https://oregoncatalyst.com/57717-oregons-intel-20b-project-loss-worse-thought.html?fbclid=IwAR0YaHsPV4oJkUJJxmUwP0K26IwrGKVUmphrkZud_sXybaAVqHZt1brNehs
One would have to have . . .
As you’ve probably heard, Potter was sentenced to two years in prison.
A sign that these stories might be wearing thin was some of the comments in The New York Times, which has a predictably progressive readership. Two comments that stood out:
From JLeroux
Menlo Park, CA
“Surgeon General’s Warning:
“Attacking the Police, Resisting Arrest, Eluding Officers, Brandishing Weapons, Refusing to Exit Vehicle, or Failure To Comply With Lawful Orders May Be Hazardous To Your Health.
“Studies Have Shown Quitting Now Reduces the Chances of Injury and Extends A Person’s Life Expectancy Regardless of Race, Color, Religion, Gender, Disability, National Origin, Age, or Sexual Preference.”
And from Dr B
New Jersey
“This verdict hits close to home because like Potter, I work (in) a profession where an error can end a life. Of course, physician mistakes are not the result of split second decisions made during violent struggles. Estimates of the number of preventable deaths in hospitalized patients run into the tens of thousands per year. Imagine if we imprisoned every culpable doctor and nurse. That would never happen of course. We’d all quit first.”
Your right, there is patience, forgiveness, and forbearance in many of the comments. An understanding or an effort at understanding is present is many of the comments that was absent in earlier WaPo or NYT.
Personally, I believe a couple of other recent black/white killings were brutally unfair to the whites involved. But, what is done is done and that the law stayed or at least gentled its hand here is something of an emollient.
The Surgeon General’s Warning above is excellent.
We may be nearly out of here. The race/police/shooting/government nonsense that occurred last night and that made today’s media confirms the urgency of getting out of Portland and for the first time since 1855, settling out of state. Nothing is going to change here. Not in my lifetime.
Why would anyone ever swear to protect and serve the citizens of Portland? Why?
The governor’s race looks interesting. Current events are finally going to force even Tina Kotek to suddenly discover the benefits of law and order. Or at least she will pretend to. It will be an unconvincing transformation.
If what they are reporting is true where is the GoFundMe for the Gypsy Jokers?
Maybe the joke is on Portland’s weak, gullible media.
https://portlanddissent.substack.com/p/dear-portland-the-fat-lady-has-sung