SAME OR DIFFERENT: We're all the same, Gates seemed to say!

FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

Which means we're all subject to error: Again and again, for reasons which are perfectly obvious, assumptions concerning matters of race lie at the heart of our nation's public discussions.

For better or worse, such assumptions lie at the heart the way the Derek Chauvin trial is being reported and discussed.

Such assumptions will sometimes take our journalists beyond the valley of their actual knowledge. As an example, we'll direct you to Gene Robinson's column in this morning's Washington Post.

Why did Chauvin do what he did on the day in question? In part because Chauvin's behavior that day seems so remarkably strange, we'll have to admit that we don't really know how to answer that question.

That doesn't mean that we couldn't invent an explanation for his strange-seeming behavior. In our view, that's pretty much what Robinson does, right at the start of his highly novelized column.

As we're constantly told on cable, Robinson is a highly-experienced, Pulitzer-winning journalist. He was in charge of the Post's Style section back in June 1999, when the section launched a disgracefully stupid, three-part attack on the disfavored Candidate Gore.

Robinson is thoroughly competent. Also, it seems abundantly clear that he's a good, decent person. 

In part for those reasons, we don't know why he commissioned that three-part attack, though we could make a pretty good guess. Also, we don't exactly know why he would start a column like this, pretty much in the shape of a novel:

ROBINSON (4/2/21): Evidence presented this week in Derek Chauvin’s trial on charges that he murdered George Floyd showed a national audience how the former Minneapolis police officer saw his alleged victim: as a dangerous, “sizable” Black man who had to be controlled, subdued and forced to submit. The message Chauvin sent with his actions wasn’t intended for Floyd alone, and it’s one Black Americans have heard for centuries.

Chauvin didn’t see Floyd as a citizen suspected of a minor, nonviolent crime or as the gentle “mama’s boy” Floyd’s girlfriend, Courteney Ross, described. To Chauvin and the other officers, Floyd was guilty from the start—guilty of inhabiting an imposing Black male body, a circumstance that has always been a punishable offense in this country. 

Why did Chauvin behave as he did that day? At this site, we can't tell you. As Chauvin's trial proceeds, he and his attorney will have the chance to present his defense.

Casting himself in the form of a novelist, Robinson seems to feel he can explain why Chauvin did what he did. In the passage posted above, Robinson explains how Chauvin "saw" the late George Floyd. He then explains the way Chauvin didn't see George Floyd.

Novelizing further, the man who published the punishing columns which helped elect George W. Bush tells us how Chauvin "and the other officers" perceived Floyd "from the start." 

It wasn't just Chauvin; it was the other officers too. According to Robinson, here's how the story played out:

"To Chauvin and the other officers, Floyd was guilty from the start—guilty of inhabiting an imposing Black male body, a circumstance that has always been a punishable offense in this country."

It wasn't just Chauvin; it was also Thomas Lane, the first-week-on-the-job rookie cop who was first to interact with Floyd on the fateful evening in question. Chauvin wasn't on the scene yet, but Robinson knows what was going on in Lane's mind too!

To Lane, Floyd was "guilty from the start," Robinson is able to tell us. More specifically, Floyd was "guilty of inhabiting an imposing Black male body."

According to Robinson, that's the way Chauvin saw it. But that's how Lane saw it too.

Robinson's already doing a lot of mind-reading at this point. A few paragraphs later, he's willing to back his claims up.

How can Robinson possibly know what Lane was thinking, feeling or perceiving on the fateful evening in question? Simple! With the permission of his editor, Robinson starts by telling us this:

ROBINSON: After the May 25, 2020, encounter was over, and Floyd’s limp and apparently lifeless body had been taken away by paramedics, [Charles] McMillian is heard on bystander video bravely confronting Chauvin about his actions. Chauvin’s response says everything about the lens through which he saw Floyd: “We’ve got to control this guy because he’s a sizable guy. Looks like he’s probably on something.”

Think about the fact that Chauvin and the other officers thought they had to “control” Floyd in the first place. And think about how they initiated their encounter with him.

At the start of that passage, Robinson quotes something Chauvin said that evening. As he marvels at Chauvin's remarks, he attributes the (alleged) attitude behind Chauvin's remarks to "the other officers" too.

All the officers thought what Chauvin (allegedly) thought, or at least so Robinson says. He then describes how Lane behaved on the evening in question—and he seems to offer a link to confirm his account of Lane's behavior:

ROBINSON (continuing directly): Police body-camera footage played Wednesday at the trial shows that one of the other then-officers, Thomas Lane, was the first to interact with Floyd. Lane rapped with his flashlight on the driver’s-side window of Floyd’s car, apparently startling Floyd, who opened the door slightly and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Lane’s immediate reaction was to draw his service weapon, point it at Floyd and shout: “Get your fucking hands up right now!”

At that moment, both of Floyd’s hands were near the steering wheel, clearly visible to the officers. It is obvious on the video that he was neither holding nor reaching for any kind of weapon. Yet he suddenly found himself looking down the barrel of a policeman’s gun.  

Robinson paints an unflattering portrait of Lane's behavior that day. In fairness, the journalist provides—or seems to provide—a link to a source which will support his damning portrait of Lane's aggressive behavior.

In the very first sentence of that passage, a link appears beneath the words "played Wednesday." To appearances, the link will take us to the "police body-camera footage" which shows Lane behaving in the way Robinson goes on to describe.

Sadly, the link provided in Robinson's column is a "link to nowhere." It takes us to this news report by Holly Bailey—a news report which provides no such footage and no such account of Lane's conduct. 

Sad! The "link to nowhere" has become a standard part of modern American journalism. That said, we have no way of knowing how this particular "link to nowhere" managed to find its way into Robinson's column today.

At some point, it's hard to have sufficient contempt for news orgs which function this way. That's especially true when  people's live are at stake. 

(In fairness, many people are dead in Iraq because of Robinson's earlier conduct. This may be the sort of thing to which successful members of our species eventually become inured.)

At this site, we've burned many hours away chasing "links to nowhere." Additional hours get burned away looking for the actual material to which some major journalist or news org has pretended to link.

In this case, the bodycam footage played at the trial's third day is available here, at the C-Span site. If you click ahead to 3:26:00, you'll see the footage to which Robinson refers—and we'd have to say that Robinson's account of that footage just isn't overwhelmingly accurate.

As we've noted in the past, people are dead all over the world because of the way these journalists play. their various reindeer games. That said, nothing will stop them from playing this way, and there's an obvious reason for that:

We, and they, are all human.

In this morning's column, Robinson tells a highly novelized story—a novelized story which gains its verisimilitude from centuries of brutal racial history. Unfortunately, Robinson wasn't giving an accurate account of a rookie cop's behavior that day, and he was throwing that rookie cop under a bus.

You might call it a high-tech lynching! That's what whatshisname once said.

This type of selective recitation has gone on all over cable this week. We expect to discuss this matter tomorrow. For today, we'll only say this:

Four years ago, Professor Gates and Ava DuVernay engaged in a fascinating exchange as part of the PBS program, Finding Your Roots. 

As we've already noted, DuVernay gave a perfectly reasonable reply to a question Professor Gates asked. Her reply didn't make perfect logical sense, but her response was thoroughly human. 

Professor Gates, for his part, had posed The Best Question Ever Asked. "What difference does it make?" the well-known professor had said.

Professor Gates has made a suggestion—in the end, our DNA is all just human DNA. 

The day we humans come into the world, we do so with plain old human DNA. With respect to the things which actually matter, we don't enter the world with "black" DNA or with "white" or "Asian" DNA. 

It's all just human DNA! It actually doesn't matter where the DNA tracks to.

Across the sweep of our various populations, we enter the world equipped as humans are equipped. After that, the world starts having its way.

As DuVernay said in her reply, we individuals will then be "seen" in various ways. In this country, we'll relentlessly be "seen" in differential ways based upon our (perceived) "race."

As an American baby grows, he or she will be perceived as belonging to a "race." This perception is a basic part of "the world the slaveholders made." He or she will be treated differentially based upon that perception. 

But it's all just human DNA as we enter the world. After that, human misperception and misbehavior may strongly take command.

Because we're all human, we're all prone to moral and intellectual error. So it can be that a person like Robinson can consign a rookie officer to his death, based upon a novelized tale in which he misdescribes a piece of tape. then provides a link to nowhere.

(Or maybe some editor did.)

This is the way the game is played in this the best of all possible worlds. In the end, this is who, and this is what, we "rational animals" are.

Professor Gates was pointing to a deeply counterintuitive fact. We'd place it right up there with Jesus' counterintuitive bit of advice—his suggestion that we should do unto The Others as we'd have The Others do unto us.

There's no such thing as (biological) race? Subjected to sufficient prodding, every liberal will still say that he or she believes thatt.

We say we believe it, but do we really? What do we secretly believe? We'd planned to go somewhere else today, but Robinson's column appeared.

Those "links to nowhere" are quite widespread. White or black or blue or red, we humans seem to love them!

Gene Robinson is a good, decent person. The feelings he seems to exhibit today are drawn from a long, brutal history.

Robinson is a good, decent person. As Jesus himself seemed to know, we humans—we allegedly rational creatures—are also reliably flawed.

Tomorrow: How the trial is being described. Could Chauvin concoct a defense? 


56 comments:

  1. "Why did Chauvin do what he did on the day in question? In part because Chauvin's behavior that day seems so remarkably strange, we'll have to admit that we don't really know how to answer that question."

    Whoa, dear Bob, what are you talking about? "remarkably strange"? Are you being ironic, or are you acting cute?

    Officer Chauvin was doing his job, detaining a suspect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
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      Strike three mao mao
      No all star game for human garbage like you

      Delete
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  2. Somerby is still misquoting Gates. Then Somerby calls us all in error because we don't agree with him. He is working his way up to suggesting that Chauvin was in error too, but since we're all in error, no biggie. Because disagreeing with Somerby = murdering an innocent black man.

    Somerby thinks he knows what was going on in Gates' mind, assuming what he meant when it wasn't likely meant that at all, then he blames Robinson for claiming to know what was going on in Lane's mind (extrapolating from his actions).

    Somerby would be better off talking about Matt Gaetz. I'll bet he knows what goes on in Matt's mind.

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  3. Somerby says: "Sadly, the link provided in Robinson's column is a "link to nowhere." It takes us to this news report by Holly Bailey—a news report which provides no such footage and no such account of Lane's conduct. "

    Here is the headline of the article linked by Robinson:

    "Derek Chauvin defends restraint of George Floyd in newly disclosed body-cam video, saying he was ‘probably on something’"

    This article from the Washington Post is behind a paywall, so I cannot determine whether the author links to video, but her report is clearly about that video and substantiates Robinson's description of Lane's behavior.

    This is clearly NOT a link to nowhere. It is wrong for Somerby to mischaracterize it as such. But then, you have to check everything Somerby says these days, because he is dishonest, as often as not.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bob, take a look at the killing of Floyd and tell me what you see.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "If you click ahead to 3:26:00, you'll see the footage to which Robinson refers—and we'd have to say that Robinson's account of that footage just isn't overwhelmingly accurate."

    Somerby links to CSPAN coverage of the trial. Unlike on this blog, Robinson does not have the luxury of a lengthy description of where to find the specific clip, so that may be why he linked to the news report instead.

    When you visit the clip at the location specified by Somerby, you see an explanation of how the cameras work. If you go further, to 3:29:23, you see the actual interaction between Lane and Floyd and it is EXACTLY as Robinson described it. You can see the gun and you can see Floyd saying "sorry, sorry" and you can see his hands up while Lane shouts at him "get your fucking hands up" (within seconds of approaching the car).

    It is EXACTLY as Robinson described. Somerby has no basis for claiming it is not accurate. Somerby is lying about this, perhaps assuming no one will check. In my opinion, this undermines whatever remaining credibility Somerby has had for his work back in the early 1980s. It is dishonest to lie about the video this way, dishonest to claim that Robinson misrepresented the interaction (which you can see yourself at the CSPAN link).

    Somerby is beneath contempt.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Professor Gates has made a suggestion—in the end, our DNA is all just human DNA."

    No, Professor Gates said nothing like that. Somerby is putting his own words into the professor's mouth. He only said "What difference does it make?" Not the rest of this, Somerby's invention. Inventing quotes can get you fired from a legitimate media outlet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He never said Gates said that. It's clear Bob was saying that based on Gates' big question.

      Delete
  7. Somerby says: "Professor Gates was pointing to a deeply counterintuitive fact. We'd place it right up there with Jesus' counterintuitive bit of advice—his suggestion that we should do unto The Others as we'd have The Others do unto us."

    That supposedly counterintuitive piece of advice was not only quoted by Jesus (Matthew 7:12; see also Luke 6:31) during his Sermon on the Mount and described by him as the second great commandment, but Confucius said it 5 centuries before Christ. It also appears in the Mahabharara, 5:1517.

    Here is a chronology of the appearance of the dictate from many others, including Greek philosophy:

    http://www.harryhiker.com/chronology.htm

    This all suggests that there is not much that is counterintuitive about this idea, since it appears over and over in human history.

    Gates, meanwhile, is not saying what Somerby attributed to him at all. These are Somerby's words dressed up in Gates' reputation via slight of hand. Somerby's version of a big lie.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Bob,
    Forget what this columnist says or what that reporter reports.
    I don't care what they see and/or think.
    What do you see and think?
    I know you are a gutless worm and all (black) deaths at the hands of the police are justifiable.

    Since !691.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How about the black deaths at the hands of other blacks being justifiable? After all that is where 90% of black deaths by violence occur.

      Delete
    2. One set of deaths does not excuse another.

      Delete
    3. The cop IS the criminal.

      Delete
  9. You can prove the risk of death by police is higher on average as a Black man. Experts do say that this is because of racism.

    You can even prove funding police is a classist cause.

    This blog assumes that such an opinion isnt supported by evidence. Instead it argues that cops are poor, misunderstood working class grunts on the level of firefighters and schoolteachers. It's the most tiring thing about it. It's kind of like thinking any lobby is being honest. Like coal power or pesticides.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Years ago Somerby used to refer to "those ratty teachers and their unions" and I pointed out in comments that repeating that phrase wasn't doing any good for teachers, even if said ironically or sarcastically. Today, I'm not so sure there was any irony or sarcasm involved. I don't think Somerby has any positive feelings toward firefighters and schoolteachers in the way progressives and liberals do. Somerby never defends the interests of "working class grunts" here.

      Delete
    2. Still, it doesn't make sense that cops would kill 400-500 whites a year(more than any other ethnicity) if they're all members of the KKK as you maintain.

      Delete
    3. >> it doesn't make sense that cops would kill 400-500 whites a year

      If you give anyone a gun and a license to kill they're going to kill, it's a power trip. What proves bias is the likelihood that they will kill you based on your skin color.

      "Police kill, on average, 2.8 men per day. Police were responsible for about 8% of all homicides with adult male victims between 2012 and 2018. Black men’s mortality risk is between 1.9 and 2.4 deaths per 100 000 per year, Latino risk is between 0.8 and 1.2, and White risk is between 0.6 and 0.7."

      https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304559

      This can be seen anecdotally as well.

      https://www.alternet.org/2015/01/8-white-people-who-pointed-guns-police-officers-and-managed-not-get-killed/

      -------------------------------------------

      >> if they're all members of the KKK

      Racist attitudes exist outside of the klan. Jerry Springer is racist. MOST of AM radio is racist.

      But I can go even further and show that cops sometimes do have explicit, rather than implicit, white supremacist ideology. Here's a 2020 report on the Jump Out Boys in New York City, cited from 2017:

      Members of the Powershift unit were
      seen wearing t-shirts that bore the
      slogan “Let me see that waistband jo”
      and included white supremacist logo.
      Members of GRU sported insignia
      glorifying police violence with the slogan
      “vest up one in the chamber” and an
      image of a human skull with a bullet hole
      in the center.

      Delete
    4. Here's a 2020 report on the Jump Out Boys in ** District of Columbia not New York https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5edff6436067991288014c4c/t/5f5a34666fe5f14fe1dbaf98/1599747174878/End+Jump-outs.pdf

      Delete
    5. Nationally, African Americans between the ages of 10 and 34 die from homicide at 13 times the rate of white Americans, according to researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Justice Department. file:///C:/Users/cjgpd/Downloads/cdc_80674_DS1.pdf

      Young Blacks glorify violence. There's an entire genre of music called gangster rap that celebrates violence and bravado. Even Jessie Jackson has said that he's more fearful Black youth than white. How can you expect other sensible people and especially cops not to be?

      With their 13 times higher murder rate, young blacks are far more likely to be involved in violent crimes involving guns, thus drawing the attention of cops mostly via 911 calls from mostly Black victims.

      Delete
    6. Yeah teenagers deserve to get shot because of their musical tastes. Good point.

      Delete
    7. Teenagers who kill and point guns at people, and especially at cops, will get continue to get shot. It happens everywhere in the world. More in Brazil, less in Denmark because the amount of guns. Here we have 300,000,000 guns. Yet only 250-300 Blacks and 400-500 whites a year are killed by cops. That hardly looks like a cop-led race war against Blacks to people who can do math. Sadly, you're not one of those people.

      Delete
    8. X, let's look at your question logically.

      What you're doing is assuming the conclusion that each black person shot is a criminal. That's called profiling. You're defending racial profiling.

      If you look up on the Washington Post a lot of people who get shot are mentally ill. Are they big gangster rap fans?

      Even your timeline is wrong. Police violence against black people existed as long as there were police. It predates rap music and even bebop.

      Now, there is one statistical correlation with violence and that's fear. Police report feeling most threatened by black people.

      White people make up 70% of rap audience and nobody calls them criminals.

      Delete
    9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    10. I wish you weren't so ignorant of basic and vital facts. 90% plus of this tiny fraction of people who get killed by police ARE ARMED. It doesn't matter if they're singing arias, they're still going to get shot by cops anywhere on the planet.

      Delete
    11. They're going to get shot by cops, unless they're white. The guy who shot up the KingSoopers in Boulder was captured alive, as was the guy in Atlanta. They were both white and ARMED and had just shot a bunch of people, yet they were taken alive. So, obviously, the cops can take someone alive, they have that ability.

      Delete
    12. >>I wish you weren't so ignorant of basic and vital facts. 90% plus of this tiny fraction of people who get killed by police ARE ARMED. It doesn't matter if they're singing arias, they're still going to get shot by cops anywhere on the planet.

      According to the Washington Post database on police killings, 58% of people were armed with a gun, not "90% plus."

      What you're wishing for isn't for me to be smart, but for me to agree with your self-perception that you are smart, possessing all the "vital facts" about black rap music and guns from your memory.


      https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/

      Delete
    13. Glaucon X,
      The hole in your argument is the lack of Wall Street workers shot by cops.

      Delete
  10. Ice Cube made a rap song called "F**k the Police" because he was part of the liberal elite looking down on hardworking policemen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ice Cube is (and was) a Trump supporter.

      Delete
    2. >>> Ice Cube is (and was) a Trump supporter.


      red herring, noun.

      something, especially a clue, that is or is intended to be misleading or distracting.
      "the book is fast-paced, exciting, and full of red herrings"

      Delete
    3. @Jim Jensen

      "X person is now a conservative" and "X person isn't in the liberal intellectual elite" aren't the contradictory statements you seem to believe they are.

      Delete
  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  12. "NBC News reports that Luke Ball, the communications director for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), has resigned."

    Like rats leaving a sinking ship...

    ReplyDelete
  13. I've seen the footage of Floyd being removed from the police car because he kept saying he was claustrophobic. I don't know what the procedure is when a person refuses to sit in a car and claims cars make him claustrophobic even after he was arrested after sitting in the driver's seat of his own car. He is cuffed at his hands and feet so the cops had to lift the 6-foot-7 man. This could have been what provoked Chauvin's callousness. I bet that he thought that Floyd was gaming them, trying to make them exert themselves to the max to make the arrest. Chauvin was going to make him pay his non-cooperation gambit and it ended in death. I would vote to convict, but Floyd was perfectly safe in the car when he told them he needed to be removed.

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    Replies
    1. Wasn't he having trouble breathing then, while in the car? I've seen reports he had pulmonary problems before his encounter with the police.

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    2. Don't know. Personally, at that point I would have called the EMTs and asked if he should be removed or left in the car.

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    3. Dude was out of his mind. It don't justify what happened to him.

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    4. That's why I said I would vote to convict. I'm just saying that the circumstances of removing Floyd from the car was the key factor. Before that event, I doubt Chauvin wanted to kill. You can't do a knee to the neck on someone siting in a car.

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    5. When comparing police shooting of whites vs blacks, bear in mind that the denominator is much larger for the white population. Also you make the assumption that the circumstances resulting on black vs white police shootings are similar or identical. There is no reason to assume this. In fact the circumstances are not equal if the interaction for one group is race identical and the other race opposite. I highly doubt that a black cop would have pointed a gun at Floyd in the drivers seat of his car and hurled epithets at him.

      Delete
    6. I watched the video, and saw every good guy with a gun in America (all zero of them) stop the bad guys with guns

      Delete
  14. More is coming about Matt Gaetz. Note that in this article, journalists say they are being contacted by Congressional staff with stories to tell. This isn't idle speculation, as Somerby suggested yesterday:

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/4/2/2024099/-The-floodgaetz-are-open-Matt-Gaetz-growing-scandal-is-a-threat-to-the-whole-GOP

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  15. Keep up the good work Mao. I enjoy your comments almost as must as the Somerby's columns, especially the nitwitted responses you provoke.

    ReplyDelete
  16. That's Liberal goebellsian dembot nitwit to you, sunshine

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thanks Bob, sharing that C-SPAN link. I'd never seen a police person murder before. It was harrowing, educational in the most disturbing way I can imagine.

    Also, appreciate your nuanced views.

    Leroy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Leroy, you must know by now that Somerby never reads his comments.

      Delete
    2. Mostly I'm posting a genuine appreciative comment now and then, just to make idiots gnash their teeth. I get few takers, but I appreciate your kindness for making me aware of something that is "widely" known. But who knows?

      Also: How do you know?

      Leroy

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    3. He mostly doesn't correct errors when they are pointed out. He did correct the date on his Tuesday post labeled as Monday, but he may have noticed that himself.

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    4. "Mostly I'm posting a genuine appreciative comment now and then, just to make idiots gnash their teeth."

      So you're an admitted troll then.

      Delete
  18. From Rude Pundit:

    "The testimony coming out of the trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd has been beyond heartbreaking and beyond enraging. Today, for instance, Floyd's girlfriend revealed on the stand that his pet name for her was "Mama," which is what he called out over and over as he died. It's been this way throughout the testimony of the prosecution's witnesses. Darnella Frazier, now 18 years-old, was 17 when she took the video that first catalyzed the response to Chauvin's murder of Floyd, and she said on the stand, "When I look at George Floyd, I look at my dad, I look at my brothers, I look at my cousins, my uncles, because they’re all Black. I have a Black father. I have a Black brother. I have Black friends. I look at how that could have been one of them." This is not to mention the brave condemnation to the faces of the cops by two black men: Donald Williams, who said to them, "Y’all murderers, dawg, y’all are murderers, dawg," and 61 year-old Charles McMillan, who told Chauvin after Floyd's limp body was taken away, "I don't respect what you did." Both men broke down crying on the stand over what they witnessed, what they've had to live with."

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  19. Here is what Roger Stone said about Matt Gaetz:

    ""He needs to go on offense, this is right upfront in Stone's Rules," Stone told conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his Infowars program. "The left-wing, non-journalist, fake-news media are the most vicious, malicious, dishonest people that I have ever come across," the GOP operative continued. "All of these stories that are maligning Matt Gaetz today are based on leaks. Where is the beef? Where are the facts? I don't think there are any facts. I think this is a good old-fashioned smear."

    Notice the similarity to what Somerby has said about Gaetz?

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