PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENT: Reverend Barber adopts the procedure!

FRIDAY, MAY 28, 2021

The way our species rolls: We were struck by an instructive throw-away line in this morning's Washington Post.

This highly instructive piece of interpretation appears in a news report about an unfortunate incident. In this unfortunate incident, eight nooses have been found, in recent weeks, on a Connecticut construction site. 

According to the Post's report, "The company is offering a $100,000 reward for information that helps identify those responsible for the incidents, which investigators are treating as possible hate crimes."

The investigation is underway; the FBI and the Connecticut State Police are both involved. Meanwhile, a young reporter at the Post has offered this assessment:

TELFORD (5/28/21): Such incidents are not uncommon in the construction industry. In 2020, at least 20 known racist incidents were reported on North American construction sites, according to Construction Dive, which provides news and analysis of the industry. Some involved graffiti or verbal abuse, but nearly half involved nooses found at worksites from Toronto to Portland, Ore.

"Such incidents are not uncommon," the young reporter said. But according to that passage, there seem to have been eight or nine such incidents at construction sites last year, across the whole of North America.

Does that make these incidents common? By journalistic norms, the young reporter's highly subjective characterization should have been dropped from this news report by an experienced editor.

(Also this: Citizens of conservative towns are quickly told when such incidents turn out to be hoaxes. Here in Our Town, knowledge of such twists of fate will, by law, be withheld from our spotless minds.)

The young reporter injected a subjective assessment; it reinforced prevailing Storyline in Our Town. That said, the highly experienced Michael Gerson did something quite similar in an unfortunate part of his opinion column in this morning's Post.

So did the highly experienced Margaret Sullivan in her own column today. In our view, quite a few thumbs were on quite a few scales in this morning's Washington Post.

So it goes at times like these, experts persistently tell us. Unfortunately, we humans are really the tribal animal, these top anthropologists say. 

Our brains are wired to push Storyline, these disconsolate experts all tell us. It's the unavoidable norm at times like these, credentialed scholars say. 

(This is true all over the world, they add. They say it's part of prevailing Storyline here in Our Town to pretend that this sort of thing is somehow unique to us in our own fallen land. In fact, it's a human problem.)

This is just hard-wired human claptrap, these top anthropologists say. In all honesty, that's pretty much the way we reacted to what Reverend Barber wrote.

The Reverend Barber is widely admired. As far as we know, as a general matter, he's admired for good reason.

Sadly, though, Reverend Barber now fallen in with the New York Times! Last Sunday, he wrote one of the essays in the Sunday Review's special section—a collection of essays dealing with what we've learned and experienced in the year since the death of George Floyd. 

We thought the special section was a Public Embarrassment. When we read the following passage from Barber's essay, we thought of Harrison Ford in Witness. Also, we decided it was time to stop reading the special section in the Sunday Review:

BARBER (5/23/21): Consider our recent history, starting with Mr. Chauvin’s trial. For us, it brought back memories of the summer of 2013, when a jury in Florida found George Zimmerman not guilty of the murder of Trayvon Martin. Mr. Zimmerman had shot and killed the 17-year-old boy who was guilty of nothing more than walking while Black in a gated community. Our legal system’s failure to hold Mr. Zimmerman accountable for killing Mr. Martin sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. It rallied a generation of young people who refused to accept white police officers regularly killing unarmed Black people, not unlike how white Americans regularly lynched Black Americans in the early 20th century.

Simply put, that passage is indefensible. Also, it's now the plainly mandated norm here in the streets of Our Town.

That passage slanders the members of a jury. It heavily edits known facts. That said, the current era in Our Town began with the death of Trayvon Martin. By now, we have developed these mandated procedures:

We select one species of death to report and discuss. No other deaths need apply.

When we discuss some particular death, we thoroughly edit known facts. We invent some of our "facts." We disappear other accurate facts, and we sometimes focus on wholly irrelevant facts. 

This is the way Our Town rolls.

The world would be a better place if Trayvon Martin, age 17, wasn't shot and killed that night. But is it true that this young person "was guilty of nothing more that night than walking while Black in a gated community?

Sorry, mofo! We'd completely avoid the word "guilty" ourselves, but we're magically able to remember a wide array of known facts in this unfortunate incident. We can even remember what Ta-Nehisi Coates  wrote about this matter before he came to his senses and reversed himself on a dime, offering no explanation for his sudden flip.

We're no longer reliable here in Our Town, but the experts say we can't help it. They say we're wired for this, dating back into prehistory.

At any rate, it's easy to define what we do in Our Town at this badly fraught time. We select certain deaths to discuss, then we start selecting our "facts."

The Others are crazy, we constantly say. In that assessment, we're frequently right,. But we very rarely stop to assess what we're all about in Our Town.

Long ago and far away, Chuck D founded Public Enemy. No one said that the group's reports were standard journalism. 

We'll guess that Chuck D did a whole lot of good. We actually saw him, happier now, on an ESPN discussion show just this Tuesday or Wednesday.

Chuck D came forward with Public Enemy. The rest of that is history. Meanwhile, what is Gödel alleged to have proven? And can we possibly still have nice things, perhaps in the afternoons?

Chuck D and Flavor Flav came forward with Public Enemy. On balance, we'd call last weekend's Sunday Review an unfettered Public Embarrassment. 

Forgive us if we limit ourselves to such complaints as we've already aired. Critiques like these are utterly pointless, or at least so we've been told.

This afternoon: Woke Gerson, in three steps


67 comments:

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  2. "at least 20 known racist incidents were reported on North American construction sites"

    Hold on. North American? You mean Canada and Mexico too? The population of N America is 579,000,000. Twenty incidents? Weren't there more swastikas painted on stuff by edgy teenagers according to people who keep track of such impossible to control stuff?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Holy Voter Suppression laws written to keep black people from having political representation, 20 is a small number.

      Delete
    2. You sacred constitution allow localities to make voting laws. There is no right to vote in it. But don't worry, it does allow you to own as many guns as you want.

      Delete
    3. Per Hawley, DeSantis and the rest of the snowflakes who whither up and die from words being said towards them, you have no right to free speech either.

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

      Delete
    5. @Glouconx
      14th amendment , section 2:

      Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

      15th amendment:

      Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
      Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

      19th amendment
      The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
      Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

      26th amendment:

      Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
      Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

      Delete
  3. "Also this: Citizens of conservative towns are quickly told when such incidents turn out to be hoaxes. "

    Indeed, your goebbelsian media suppress all information. All of it. All you get to hear is dembottery.

    But also, we wouldn't call them 'hoaxes'. Hate-inciting provocations, more like. Oh, and by the way, how is Jussie Smollett doing?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Asking Republicans to vote for a January 6th Commission is like asking Al Qaeda to vote for the 911 Commission.

    Except that Al Qaeda is made up of better people.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Name someone who has more contempt for Republican voters than Republican politicians.
    I'll go first.

    No one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In that assessment, we're frequently right. But we very rarely stop to assess what contempt Democratic politicians have for Democratic voters.

      Delete
    2. 12:43
      “We”?
      What, are you Bob Somerby now?

      Delete
    3. That avoids the issue. Don't avoid the issue. It's makes you look even more pathetic and dense. (If that's possible.)

      Delete
    4. In assessments about Republicans, we're frequently right. But we very rarely stop to assess the behaviors of Democratic politicians and Democratically aligned media. That helps American oligarchs to continue to rig the system against you.

      Delete
    5. Divide and rule - the number one game plan of elites since forever. And you fall for it hook, line and sinker.

      Delete
    6. That doesn't imply that there are no issues worth fighting for.

      Delete
    7. It's not meant to imply there are no issues worth fighting for.

      Delete
    8. We're frequently right in assessments about Republicans. But we very rarely stop to assess the behaviors of our tribe.

      Delete
    9. (And we instantly demonize and smear anyone else that does.)

      Delete
    10. Claiming that Democrats or liberals do not assess their own behaviors is ridiculous when Democrats invented self-criticism. It is ingrained in leftist process. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-criticism_(Marxism%E2%80%93Leninism) for an extreme version.

      This is another example of the right projecting its own behavior onto the left.

      Delete
    11. I disagree. I feel like Somerby is right to say we're frequently right in assessments about Republicans but we very rarely stop to assess our own shortcomings. I agree the right does the same thing and that it's a common human trait. The darkest place is under the candlestick.

      Delete
    12. I do not agree that the scale of liberal shortcomings is anything comparable to the failings of Republicans. The criticism and squabbling within the Democratic party represent plenty of examination of our own shortcomings without Somerby's constant criticism (always from the right, not the left). Somerby is not engaging in "self-criticism" but he is promoting right-wing memes and repeating talking points current on the right, aimed at the left. If Somerby were liberal, he might be blaming the left for abandoning its progressive urgency, but instead he is arguing, like Republicans, that racism is gone and critical race theory is the bogeyman. I never hear Somerby expressing a leftist critique of the left.

      Delete
    13. Yes, we all know that's what you think. Snore.

      Delete
    14. Snoring is a possible symptom of sleep apnea. You should perhaps discuss that with your physician, especially if you are doing it during the daytime.

      Delete
    15. Assess away.
      It won't make the Republican party any less of an amoral dumpster fire.

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

    ReplyDelete
  7. “Does that make these incidents common?”

    Were lynchings of black people in the US “common?”

    According to Somerby’s go-to knowledge source:

    “According to the Tuskegee Institute, 4,743 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968 in the United States, including 3,446 African Americans and 1,297 whites.”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States

    That’s a time span of 86 years, which means, on average, approximately 40 black people per year were lynched.

    The US population in 1880 was 50,189,209. So, if 40 black people were lynched that year, that’s 0.000079698406883% of the population. (Of course, it would be 0.000607829481948% of the black population, but Somerby doesn’t “see” race).

    Those are negligible numbers, wouldn’t you say? They’re tiny, at any rate.

    And of course, since 1,297 white people were also lynched during that time frame, those concerned only with black lynchings showed their lack of concern with white lynchings, obviously. They must have been addicted to (anti-white) Progressive Narrative during the Jim Crow era.

    Why, I’ll bet there were even white people who didn’t get to vote back then!

    The absurdity of all of this is that Somerby seems to assume that 300 years of racism simply disappeared overnight. He fails to note that blatant manifestations of racism (such as nooses or lynchings) are merely the outward manifestations of a much deeper problem that cannot be reduced to statistics.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. “Is this sarcasm?“

      Mao seems to be catching on.

      Delete
  8. When the number of nooses should be 0, 20 is a large number.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "We select certain deaths to discuss"

    In this time of covid, many of us have been touched by the death of a friend or family member. Would Somerby ever suggest that we cannot mourn the individuals we are attached to, unless we also mourn all of those who have died?

    It is ludicrous that Somerby suggests that there can be no complaint about unjust deaths unless the complainers have also complained about every other injustice on earth first.

    This is just a distraction intended to derail criticism of police for wrongful shootings of black people who have committed minor crimes (if any crime at all) and who were no threat to armed police or bystanders.

    I've never heard Somerby express dismay or regret about any covid deaths, much less the death of a black person wrongfully killed by police. Shall I assume he doesn't care about anyone -- it is what he would assume of the rest of us.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Selection of certain facts to pay attention to and others to ignore is the essence of judgment. Selective attention enables us to notice what has consequence for our survival while filtering out that which is irrelevant.

    Somerby cannot expect everyone to place equal significance on all facts, or even the same facts, because everyone lives in a different environment and has had different life experiences. So we notice and give weight to different things. This is not only inevitable, but it allows us to fine tune our attention to suit our environment and needs, which enhances survival and optimizes our behavior to attain our goals and avoid threats.

    It is natural that black people will respond to and notice different threats than white ones, because their life experiences are different and because threats are different for them. Zimmerman would be more of a threat to a black person than a white one, for example.

    Somerby wants to emphasize that Martin attacked Zimmerman, but Martin would most likely never have done so if Zimmerman had not made it a point to interact with Martin in threatening ways. Had Zimmerman ignored Martin, Martin would most likely still be alive. Those are facts too, ones that Somerby never discusses because his goal is to excuse Zimmerman and blame Martin.

    It is a reality of our current society that white people are largely permitted to live their lives unmolested as they go about daily activities. The same is not true for black people. This is the context for Barber's remarks and it is why he said what he did about Martin.

    ReplyDelete
  11. “That passage [by Barber] slanders the members of a jury.”

    Note that Barber’s disagreement with the jury’s verdict is described as “slander” by Somerby.

    Would one suppose that those who disagreed with the OJ verdict were “slandering” that jury?

    Is it now, according to Somerby, “slander” to disagree with a jury’s verdict?

    Because “slander” has a specific legal meaning involving making false accusations and can be actionable.

    Or does Somerby only wish to charge liberals and black activists with “slander” when they disagree with a jury verdict?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wethinks 'disagreement with the jury’s verdict' on account of your misrepresentation of known facts (as dear Bob suggests), is indeed a slander.

      Delete
  12. “This afternoon: Woke Gerson, in three steps”

    Bring it on.

    ReplyDelete
  13. “This afternoon: Woke Gerson, in three steps”

    Bring it on.

    ReplyDelete
  14. “This afternoon: Woke Gerson, in three steps”

    Bring it on.

    ReplyDelete
  15. “This afternoon: Woke Gerson, in three steps”

    Bring it on.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Stop posting the same comment multiple times. Everyone else can figure out not to do that, so why can't you?

      Delete
  16. Here is news about a situation that Somerby doesn't admit exists:

    "Source: Business Insider

    (By Kate Duffy, 3 hrs. ago). Google on Thursday suffered a setback as a San Francisco state judge awarded class-action status to a lawsuit over unequal pay between men and women for the same work, Bloomberg first reported. The lawsuit was first filed by four former female workers at Google in 2017.

    In it, the women allege that Google violated California's Equal Pay Act "by paying female employees lower compensation than Google pays to male employees performing substantially similar work." A previously disclosed analysis seen by Bloomberg showed that the case seeks more than $600 million in damages.

    The women represent around 10,800 women employed by Google who claim that the company pays men more for doing the same job, according to a July court filing. The court filing said that the search engine company paid female employees around $16,794 less per year than "the similarly-situated man." "Google paid women less base salary, smaller bonuses, and less stock than men in the same job code and location," the July filing said."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Besides you making a completely childish and baseless claim, what does that have to do with Democrats rarely stopping to assess the behaviors of their tribe?

      Delete
    2. No, because he never claimed women are not paid less than men for the same work or that racism doesn't still exists. You can't provide any basis for those claims. You're a boring retard.

      Delete
    3. Except he did.

      Delete
    4. Show us where, jackass.

      Delete
  17. 'We're no longer reliable here in Our Town'

    Your town is composed of hardcore, malignant Trumptards, devoted to the defense of Roy Moore, Ron Johnson, Matt Gaetz, Devin Nunes and Roy Jordan. You are reliable Trumptards

    ReplyDelete
  18. Ta Nehisi Coates fully explained his position on the Trayvon Martin killing by George Zimmerman, contrary to the falsehood about this that Somerby would like his readers to believe. He specifically stated that he thought the jury got it right insofar as there were no witnesses, and that it seemed likely to him that Zimmerman killed Martin during an altercation that he was losing. Bob is disingenuous here but that is nothing new.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Ta Nehisi Coates fully explained his position on the Trayvon Martin killing by George Zimmerman, contrary to the falsehood about this that Somerby would like his readers to believe. He specifically stated that he thought the jury got it right insofar as there were no witnesses, and that it seemed likely to him that Zimmerman killed Martin during an altercation that he was losing. Bob is disingenuous here but that is nothing new.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Blacks lost that round of the race war. But they won the Chauvin round, so things are looking up.

      Delete
    2. Blacks lost every round from at a minimum 1619-1968, so i’m sure winning the “Chauvin round” (whatever that means) makes up for that. And if by “winning a round” you mean “making progress towards true racial justice” then ok.

      Delete
  20. The website posts these comments twice. It is some kind of glitch and has nothing to do with reposting by either me or Cecelia.

    ReplyDelete
  21. It only posted my test comment once. How do you explain that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I post and I push publish on my iPhone as quickly as I can touch it once. Therefore cannot explain it. I do not have Parkinson’s.

      Delete
    2. If you see identical posts, you can skip reading the second. Or third. Or fourth.

      Delete
    3. If you see a post by Cecelia, skip it. It isn't worth your time.

      Delete
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