Media Whores and Other Propagandists

MB woke me up and told me about the three policemen who were killed in Baton Rouge…

My first thought was, “It’s happening. Fuck me, it’s happening.”

 I joined MB on the sofa, who was glued to the TV screen. I don’t watch TV, especially those “news” channels, so seeing all those jagged, violent images interspersed with blonde TV drones running their head non-stop was so jarring, that it took a moment before I could even process what they were saying.

“One of the suspects, who was heavily armed and dressed in black fatigues, is reportedly dead, but it is possible that two other suspects may have fled the scene. It has not yet been confirmed if the gunman had any affiliations with the Black Lives Matters protest or other anti-police groups”.

MB said, “Shit. Hope nobody’s wearing black.”

I replied, “Clothes or skin?”

Now if you are thinking–like I did–“Black fatigues? You mean ‘camouflage’? How the hell do black fatigues camouflage somebody?”, I did a quick search on Google for images of black fatigues. It took me a while, but sure enough, I found it: basically, it’s just a black shirt and pair of black shorts. That’s it? I was thinking more like head-to-toe badass Samurai, but these look more like something a weekend warrior Yuppie would wear during his bimonthly workout at the gym.

So how the hell did they get “fatigues”? For that matter, where did they get that shit about the “two other possible suspects?” And it has “not YET been confirmed ” that he was affiliated with Black Lives Matter PROTESTERS nor has any specific group claimed responsibility”.

I’m not making this shit up. And we’re talking MSNBC, not Fox.

But supposing I was a typical, mainstream American viewer…this is what I would hear: three of those cop-hating Black Lives Matter people were hiding right there with the rest of those racist radicals, just so they could kill some cops. The Good Guys killed one of them–thank God, because who knows how many other cops they would’ve killed–but two of those other scary, armed black man radicals (terrorists?) are still out there. So you’d best hope you don’t come across one of those people wearing black, because they’re just dying to kill whitey.

It really is that easy.

But if you aren’t hip to the techniques of propaganda, here are a few examples to help you break the code…but this time, let’s use a report of a cop killing a black civilian:

“A veteran  and/or decorated police officer has fatally shot a black suspect during a struggle and/or while was resisting arrest. The suspect (insert name here, though it will probably be reported as “black suspect” unless there are a shitload of witnesses), who had a criminal record, was heard by nearby witnesses (a bunch of black folks) to say_______ during the struggle (“Why are you arresting me” “I can’t breathe” “I have a concealed carry permit”, are only a few possible examples) and there is a possibility that the occurrence was caught on tape. Big Powerful Police Cop Apologists have commented that they are taking this matter seriously and will carefully investigate this claim …”  

…and so on, read by every one of those poker-faced pieces of fluff in mainstream media : NBC, CNN, and, greatest hypocrites of all: MSNBC. You know–the liberal media outlet (I have no idea what Fox aka Angry Cracker News reports, because I don’t waste valuable life hours listening to rage-stuttering morons).

I won’t lie–I’m scared. There is such an Us and Them divide in this country; I have this near-constant sense of foreboding that some catastrophic event will occur. People scoff at me and call me Chicken Little. Yesterday, MB tried to comfort me with this quote, “‘There won’t be a revolution until there is blood running in the streets'”

I looked at him and replied, “How much?”

Until then, I won’t go full-on tin foil hat about shadowy board members of the various media outlets, who hire puppet stooges to robotically convey messages that “it’s sort of okay to kill black people”…but I do believe that it is safe to say that the romantic trope of the Principled Intrepid Journalist, single-minded in his/her dedication to report the TRUTH, has long gone the way of the dodo.

 

 

 

 

Black Women’s Lives Matter, Too

Black Women’s Lives Matter, too…so why aren’t we hearing about them?

So why are they going unmentioned?

Heads up: if you’re still dumbassed privileged enough to be spouting that All lives matter shit, just go away. You’re in the wrong place. By now, after all that has happened, I just don’t have the patience anymore. All lives matter…yeah. And once cops start mowing down white people for trivial bullshit, then I’ll sign on for, Okay all lives matter, because apparently, cops just want to have fun killing everybody…but that’s not what is going on and you by god know it. So if you can’t even admit that to yourself, then you are basically saying, All Lives Matter…but some matter less and I’m okay with that. I just don’t have time to address every willfully ignorant dumbass out there. Go get Hooked on Phonics or find some Racist’s Cliff Notes if you still need that sort of education.

Hang on…okay. I think they’re gone now.

Continuing now under the assumption that the readers remaining truly do believe that black lives matter…and if so, I have no doubt that you are aware of at least a handful of names of some of the black lives which were snuffed by over-militarized cops who murdered for the most trivial reasons and fucking well got away with it. Names like Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, 12-year old Tamir Rice, Philandro Castile–despite the inherent racism in the media (don’t even get me started on this new bullshit trend of interviewers asking family members of murdered men if they will “forgive” their executioners…new low, assholes)–have become a part of the public consciousness…and even then, they are but a fraction of black men whose lives damn well didn’t matter to the rogue cops who killed them.

But what about these names: Shelly Frey. Shereese Francis. Yvette Smith. Tanisha Anderson. Alesia Thomas, who was murdered by a despicable woman cop, Mary O’Callaghan,  who kicked Alesia in the groin seven fucking times…which makes her too low even for Gender Traitor Award. I’m not sure what she deserves, but I know that Alesia sure as hell didn’t deserve what O’Callaghan gave her.

Sure, the murders of some of these women have been protested…but those protests tend to be specific to their locale. For example, eleven bare-breasted women from the San Francisco Black Lives Matter protested the police-involved murders of Meagan Hockaday, Aiyana Jones, Rekia Boyd and others…not for salacious attention, but because they were the tradition of West Africa women who bear their chest to say “enough is enough”…and, let’s face the ugly truth: that may have been the only reason national media even bothered reporting about to these murdered civilian women who seem to disappear from the news as quickly as they are reported…if they are even reported at all.

In fact, that protest itself proves my point about the lack of attention that murdered black women are receiving: eleven members participated in the protest.

Why are the lives of these murdered black women being ignored?

Did some of these women have records? Sure, a few of them…not that it makes a shit. Know why? Because with only a few exceptions, they had been busted–and sometimes those charges had been dropped completely–for non-violent offenses…and were not in any way threatening the lives of these cops. For the three I found who were behaving aggressively, all three were mentally ill–and the cops knew ahead of time that they were mentally ill…but instead of approaching them in a calm, compassionate manner, they savaged them.

Most of these women were killed for the most trivial reasons, or because the cops themselves fucked up–by God, those no-knock warrants need to fucking stop, because they are almost always based on some snitch’s word–hardly the most reliable sources–and these badged thugs go in, guns blazing. In three of these cases, a 92 year old Kathryn Johnson was murdered, 7 year old Aiyana Stanley-Jones was murdered, and Tarika Williams and her 14-month old son, Sincere–whom Tarika was holding at the time–were both shot. Thankfully, Sincere survived…but Tarika did not.

Of all the aforementioned women, I did not find one case in which any of these women acted in a way which could possibly cause a cop to legitimately fear for their lives. Not…one.

So why did I have to fucking look up their names? Why aren’t they front page national news? Why aren’t their names as recognizable as Alton Sterling or Eric Garner? Their lives mattered. Black Lives Matter. ALL Black Lives Matter.

Or do they?