Thursday, September 16, 2010

It. Was. A. Dog.

This is why liberals are called weak and spineless. A pack of white people out on the curb in the middle of DC's drinking district crying. Over a dog. Give me a break. Normally I can see the point of such things, but this is beyond the pale. Pure melodrama.

I notice there was no vigil for this. Or this. But you'll cry over a dog. Post-racial America indeed.

You want to cry over something milquetoast liberals? How bout this?

3 comments:

Peter Tabakis said...

Yes Jerry, it was just a dog. But for most dog owners there is an intense bond between owner and animal. A dog is a loved one, a member of the family. Judging from the tone of your post, you probably find the notion silly. I used to as well, before I got Chloe.

But there's more to this story than a dead canine. It was the horrible lapse of judgement exhibited by the police officer with regard to private property (and a dog *is*, legally, private property).

Sure there is no shortage of injustice in the world, as you so subtlety note in your post. But your frustration ignores that the personal animates the political within a person. If you have a connection to an issue, you're going to be more interested and affected by a particular injustice. Your premise is that there's a grand hierarchy of injustices, and to care too much about one that falls somewhere toward the middle or bottom is a perversion of the very idea of justice.

Also, I've never been called a liberal, milquetoast or otherwise. I don't like the way I feel being accused (however implicitly, since you never named me in your post) of that high crime.

xoxo,
P

Admiral X said...

For the record, usually when I go on a riff on some subject, I'm not talking about the person who brought it up specifically. Unless I disparage your name directly, then, well, yeah ;-).

But to your point, I have indeed owned a pet. Many pets. I love animals. I'm an environmentalist and oppose cruelty to them. But come on. You know the media is as dumb as a deer tick. There is no subtlety with them. A always equals A, and no matter what your intent, they're going to beat a story to death covering every conceivable nuance of A they can fathom until they SQUIRREL! the next day.

I am a fan of using tragedy to make a point. The correct response to this, in my mind, is not to cry over the death of a dog. It's to use the death of the dog as a rallying cry to discuss police injustice and corruption. The rally should have been held in front of the chief's house so she would be forced to address it. It should have been held in front of the mayor-apparent's house so it becomes an issue. A bunch of people standing in Adam's Morgan weeping is a story for six hours, then on to more interesting things.

That's my point. I guess I've been in journalism and activism for too long to not be aggrieved when people fail to take advantage of events to advance a cause.

John Stewart, as always, is spot on with his Million Moderate March in October. THAT is how you advance a cause.

The Cobalt Guy said...

In 1998, a study of 12 American cities suggested that African Americans committed about 84% of the single-offender violent crimes committed against African Americans.

Most murders are intra-racial. From 1976 to 2001, whites killed 86% of white victims and African Americans killed 94% of African American victims. Stranger homicides are more likely to cross racial lines than those that involve friends or acquaintances. About 1 in 10 homicides committed by a friend or acquaintance of the victim is interracial, compared to 3 in 10 committed by a stranger.


Just some facts for thought.


Excerpted from http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ZCmU7vmAFLQJ:www.jointcenter.org/index.php/content/download/1795/12376/file/Crime%2BBrief.pdf+statistics+on+violent+crimes+against+african+americans&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESg-4ahZgOkuL3WxoodK0dMjp-jY2e_GgA1Incaa4SsNMyWcAJ7WXNYDAAEP29VtW62dK1GnpknhcZ7oGg6qJq2wo6cxFy7eXpz6MaM9UGIzLRPLB1leo5_ZsWmbNkPsrZk95Rg2&sig=AHIEtbTNITyw6kTB5kLGkpVYUa2Azv54-A