So much to talk about.
So little time. Item # 1. Since 2004-spanning the Richard
M. Daley and Rahm
Emmanuel administrations- the
Chicago Tribune reports that the city of Chicago has paid out a half billion
dollars for police misconduct! Chicago
is closing schools, laying off teachers, and cutting back services, but has $500,000,000.00
to pay for police misconduct without anyone being fired or prosecuted or
anything. Emmanuel was simply following
the long standing tradition of looking the other way, whether it was torture,
as in the case of former police commander Jon
Burge, who infamously ran a torture ring and whom Daley chose not to
prosecute, or murder as in the Laquan McDonald case. Just another example of how firmly entrenched
the culture of racism and cover up has been in this city and country.
Item #2 I’ve been
impressed by how comprehensive the demands for justice have been in the Black
Lives Matter movement. Thanks to the Laquan McDonald case, we know
that the entire system, not just individuals, has to change.
But the one area that has to be addressed is that of police
screening. All the training in the world
is not going to transform a racist police thug like Jason
Van Dyke (Laquan McDonalds’ killer) into a professional police officer. Van
Dyke had already cost the city at least $350,000.00 for a brutality case, prior
to the $5,000, 000.00 the city paid the family of McDonald without a lawsuit
having been filed. Applicants need to be
screened for violent tendencies as well as racist tendencies. Having studied under some of the most
brilliant social psychologists at Northwestern University, I can assure you
that a test can be devised that will screen out many of these defective
individuals. Is it possible for the
justice department to establish national standards? Worth looking into.
Item #3 The similarities
between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump are enough to scare the bejeezus out of
any rational person. Just as mainstream
politicians and pundits declare that Donald Trump cannot win the presidency, so
too did they declare that the American public had too much sense to elect a
borderline senile former actor named Ronald
Reagan. Both Reagan and Trump
exploit the fear, ignorance, anger and racism of their bases. Reagan based all of America’s economic woes
on the mythical black welfare cheats who stole thousands and thousands of
dollars right out of the hands of hardworking honest white people. He either created or exacerbated virtually
every social ill, from homelessness to income inequality, but was known as the “Teflon
president” because none of his bad deeds stuck to him. The reason for the Teflon? He made racism fashionable again. Now Trump blames all of America’s problems
first on illegal Mexican immigrants and now wants to ban the immigration of
Muslims. Like Reagan, he can do no wrong
with his constituency.
Item#4 The Texas
Board of Education continues to push for a whitewashed history in which slavery
, now Jim Crow, ever occurred. The
reason the racists are such virulent adversaries is that they never run out of
energy. Their very will to live is based
on being better than someone else! I don’t
know if there is anything we can do about these people.
www.williamgriggs.net
www.williamgriggs.net
