I have been advised never to offer advice about racial matters.
I don't have standing.
Regular readers of this blog know I am a moderately prosperous White male, born into the heart of the Boomer generation. I grew up in a stable, middle class nuclear family with great parents. I am healthy. I am the luckiest, most privileged person in America--if only I had been taller and better looking.
I make observations and give political advice to Democrats because I am one and feel entitled. I want Democrats to be better at politics and message. I give advice to Republicans, which they ignore. They don't think I am one of them.
I am warned not to give advice to Black people, women, gays, Hispanics, young people, poor people, or anyone not like myself. People on the left tell me I cannot possibly understand them, and they do not want to hear from me. There is no safe harbor of words or tone that won't come across as condescending. Or lecturing. Or "mansplaining." Or something-phobic. The messenger shapes the message. My close up observation of political messaging reaffirms that point. Marco Rubio can say things about the Cuban immigrant experience that Joe Biden cannot. Whatever Pete Buttigieg says is understood as coming from an intellectual elite. If Buttigieg began dropping the "g" in a world like "going" and tried to sound down-home casual, it would look as phony as John Kerry going duck hunting in camouflage.
Comedian Chris Rock can give advice to Black men, however. He made a funny video on how to handle police encounters: "How not to get your ass kicked by the police." He advises:
Don't break the law. What laws? Car-jacking, armed robbery, arson, armed robbery, selling drugs, buying drugs, stabbing, shooting. Don't jump over subway turnstiles, either.
Don't run from the police."Rodney wouldn't have gotten his ass kicked if he had just followed this simple tip. When you see flashing lights in your rear view mirror, stop immediately. Everyone knows that if the police have to run to get you, they're bringing an ass-whipping with them."
Turn off loud music in your car. It annoys people.
Be polite, when talking to the police.
Stay in your car with your hands on the wheel.
Don't give rides to friends who carry drugs, firearms, or have arrest warrants.
Don't let that friend be angry and obnoxious.
If you have to give a ride to a friend, make it a White friend. "A White friend can be the difference between a ticket and a bullet."
If your woman is mad at you, leave her at home. "A mad woman will say anything" to get you in trouble.
Rock doesn't deny or defend prejudiced policing and the potential for rough police treatment. He assumes it. In that sense the video is still current, even in this post-George-Floyd era.
But the video is dated in that Chris Rock is not making this about Black grievance against prejudiced and maybe-brutal policing. Chris Rock says something I am not entitled to say. He says Blacks have agency. They have the ability to shape events in an encounter with the police. Black men aren't helpless victims. They have the power to be a law-abiding, polite, cooperative citizen. It is the smart way to handle the situation. He summarizes: "If you follow these simple pointers, you probably won't get your ass kicked."
But don't all citizens, Black, White, Hispanic, have rights, including the right to be obnoxious and provocative? Yes. But it is foolish and dangerous.
The video is funny. It contains profane language. Click here:
Few things piss me off more* that being told I don't have "standing" and a right to express my opinion. Each of us is a unique human being, and the argument that we don't have standing to express ourselves about another's situation quickly leads ad absurdum.
Which is not to say that my opinion should not be evaluated in context: I've never walked a mile, or even a single step, in anyone's moccasins other than my own. My perspective is the only one I have, and I'm the only one ever to have it. And it will be different tomorrow.
We all have "standing"; the value of our "standing" may be judged greater or lesser by anyone, depending on their assessment of our knowledge, experience, and motivations; each of them has "standing" to value our opinion as they see fit.
*one thing that does piss me off more: a cougar killed one of my pregnant ewes during the night last night. The ewe's throat was ripped out, her udder chewed away, and her belly was still huge from likely triplets or at least twins, due in the next couple of days. She was a gentle, sweet Katahdin soul; the sire was an ornery Dorper ram.
I've never been a hungry cat; and from my privileged, armed, position, I am going to express my opinion. I have standing.
Funny thing here?
You are not entitle because you are white, or educated, or a democrat, or a man or a boomer... Say after me:
You are entitle and privalge because... YOU ARE AN AMERICAN!!!
Chris video is funny, but is also condecending, since it points out to having common sense which seems to be a general problem regarding of race, but more so in some inner states amongs black people, which already have a racial and policing stigma that goes back, not to the slavery days, but to the segregation (which endedn in 1964... less than a century ago), redlining (ended finally around 2005) and missrepresentation and condecendense (still happening under woke hollywood to this very day)... as Denzel Washington said "the problem with black America is cultural, not racial"...
I'm a black man myself, but I was born and raised in Venezuela, even if my mom is from Georgia, where we understand that Policemen are armed, have a position of power which includes the use of violence, can be corrupt, are undereducated, and they deal with the bad side of human nature, from gangsters, to hookers, to random shooters, to domestic fights, to child abuse, to intonxicated people and drugdealers. For most of their working hours, they are under stress... so we know that dealing with law-abiding citizens is not exactly what they are used to or trained for.... and that's not "pre or post" George Floyd, who (even if he was, unfortunatly, yet another victim of a broken system and a confused culture), was hardly a good candidate for martindome or point of reference of sistemic issues....
I've seen videos of 2023 of US, under-age white kids handcouffed and put in patrol cars just because some lady said "they saw someone doing something in their street"... and the kid points out that he haven't been told why he is beign detained, while the cops are figuring out what the hell he do that was illegal, some times having to explain to one another that there's no reason to detaining the kid...
But in a neurotic, overly tribal and sectarian country where a white succesfull guy turns out to be Ted Bundy, and a black, millionaire sports-star turns to be OJ Simpson, I would not have it any other way...
In Venezuela, is easy... gansters are obvious, Police stop and frisk ANYONE, without concern for due process or politeness, to see if you have pot or if they can score a couple of extra bugs out of a DUI, and that's that... no kid's gonna turn up in a school with an automatic weapon cause he was missgendered and no derranged redneck is gonna shoot randomly at a supermarket cause he doesn't like inmigrants.... so when Police say "Stop" you don't get to test the rights and ammendmends that are supoused to protect you to make a tiktok video and complain about the country and system that somehow forgot the concept of natural selection over the "right" to act like an idiot... you just do everything Chris Rock said to adults in the video, exactly like we, in Venezuela, were told since we were kids.
And if you think that you giving an advice to the black guy from a broken family raised by the gansters in them corners, or the poor gay guy that fell into drugs, or the hispanic woman that got pregnated at 17, just because, and I quote: "you cannot possibly understand them, and they do not want to hear from you"... well who exactly are they gonna get advice from? the other people like them that are struggling in life instead of someone with education, good family values and economic luck? Not exactly noble... so you shouldn't be wandering why democrats listen to your advice, and republicans dont.... cause for foreing eyes like mine, YOU are the racist, YOU are the phobic, and YOU are the sexist... and you fell into the democrat trap of "don't say anything, you might offend XXXX cause you don't look/earn/feel/talk/pee like he or she"...
We had A LOT of problems in Venezuela, and we still do (mostly because "our dear left"), but THIS problem? we don't have... we see someone strugling, we give a life advice, not because we are the same skin color, ethnicity, gender or sexual preference, but because IS ANOTHER VENEZUELAN THAT IS STRUGGLING!!!
THAT'S equality.... THAT'S undiscriminating... THAT'S morally right and virtuous... so please, could you people FINALLY, stop thinking in the labeling, sectarian way of the protestant, puritans fom the late 16th century that came to you shores, and start acting like a country of brothers and sisters instead of a country of tribes and sects? You are getting old for this particular act...
My 2 cents, cheers from Mexico