"Segregation forever," professor says!

THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 2021

Lawrence obeys the code: Lawrence O'Donnell had just finished his opening lament.

Now that Chauvin was in the slammer, he was looking forward to future attempts to get the two rookie cops locked up. 

They were "bad cops," the cable star said. They hadn't stopped Officer Chauvin when he did what he did.

At 10:06, Lawrence threw to his first guest, Professor Glaude. The question he posed was this:

LAWRENCE (4/21/21): Professor Glaude, let me begin with you and your reactions to this day after, this night after the verdict.

What had the professor's reactions been? "Segregation forever," the Ivy Leaguer now said:

GLAUDE (continuing directly): Well, I'm still exhausted. There is a kind of general sense that the tight stomach I've lived with for the last few weeks isn't so tight. But then I'm still dealing with the images of Ma'Khia Bryant, in Columbus, Ohio, and her death. 

So, it feels as if, you know, Lawrence, there are these kind of waves, these tsunami waves that keep coming. So you know, we're still at it. There was a good verdict, but we're still dealing with the question, the central question at hand.

For the professor, the fatal shooting of Ma'Khia Bryant was one more tsunami wave. 

He didn't say what that "central question" was, nor did Lawrence ask. Instead, he asked his other guest to discuss the upcoming trial of the rookie cops.

What had Professor Glaude secretly said? In a major sense, he'd secretly said, "Segregation forever!" 

He was moving on to discussions of Ma'Khia Bryant's death. But how about Peyton Ham's death? 

For Glaude, that fatal shooting didn't compute. Lawrence just played right along.

Two points:

Professor Glaude was saying "Segregation forever," as Governor Wallace once did. One flavor of death will get his attention. Other flavors won't count.

(Also: This new death was presented as another tsunami, even if the fatal shooting may have saved someone's life.)

As for Lawrence, he had just finished licking his chops about the two first-week-on-the-job rookie cops. They hadn't stood up to Officer Chauvin, so they had to go to jail too. They had shown that they were "bad cops," Lawrence flatly said.

No sooner had Lawrence offered this thought than he played bad cop too. He didn't mention the fatal shooting of Peyton Ham either! "Segregation forever," Lawrence subtly said.

The rookie cops had literally been in their first week on the job. In various forms, Lawrence has been doing his job for roughly twenty years.

In all that time, have you ever seen Lawrence speak back to mainstream press corps messaging? Have you ever seen him contradict or challenge a "standard message" guest? 

Has he ever done that? Has he done it even once? In truth, it's never done in the upper-end press. This is known as a "code of silence," which is of course the sort of thing they say they just hate about cops.

On balance, we'll suggest that you focus on one key point. Try to get clear about this:

One flavor of death will be discussed. Other flavors will not. Those other flavors will be disappeared. Those other flavors don't count.

It was always this way in the past, especially in the professor's home state, whose governor was Governor Wallace. Now, the same rules of exclusion are embraced by Our Town's high-end press. 

Certain flavors won't even be mentioned! This is very bad journalistic practice. It produces vast misunderstandings concerning extremely basic sets of facts.

At any rate, just as it ever was! Our cable stars care about one (type of) kid. The other dead kids don't exist!