For the sake of humor, I often email my friends with a news report followed by a parody of it.
Sometimes it is difficult, however, for readers to accept that the real news item is not itself the actual parody. Here is an example.
According to a report at Fox News, a college student "active in the local Black Lives Matter movement is suddenly all for police patrols in his neighborhood — after he was robbed at gunpoint outside his apartment."
This reminds us of the decades-old truism that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. In this case, the mugging was literal. While it is doubtful that the student has now become a Second Amendment right-wing "deplorable" conservative, it is entirely possible that he has finally taken the first baby step toward acknowledging reality – at least that tiny part of it encompassing the fact that policemen are not, it turns out, "hunting down young black men like dogs and murdering them in the street." That is an inexact quote, but close. For another quote, an exact one, see here among others.
The student in the real news, Jerry Ford, Jr., has apparently been living in a bubble up until now, by which I mean he has happily never before been subjected to the grim reality behind the political rhetoric and hopefully never again will be mugged. It must be a horrible experience. To be accosted by a stranger who is clearly posing the credible threat of murder, and then to be deprived of one's valuables, must be a nightmare-inducing trauma.
Another sad part of this is that Ford has seemingly been oblivious, up until now, that for many thousands of American residents, especially those leading "black lives" (that is to say, their own lives), the imminent threat of sudden, deadly violence, but not from policemen, is a constant daily factor. Many people live in such fear of their neighborhood criminals that they carefully schedule their trips to the corner store to avoid the most dangerous hours. In many neighborhoods, even choosing which colors to wear can be a life-or-death decision.
To some extent, the commonsense remedies for this ongoing atrocity are hampered by the myths perpetrated by the Black Lives Matter organization and similar groups. They have made it politically incorrect to so much as mention the term "black-on-black violence." They refer to such terms as racist. To point out that vast numbers of young black men grow up, never having known their fathers – to point that out is offensive. Yet therein lies a major part of the problem. Would I be politically offensive to estimate, without knowing the specifics, that the man who mugged Ford is a young black male raised by a single mother? Would I be offending Ford to suggest that such young men are a vastly greater threat to his life than nearly any policeman in the country? Is that why he is calling for a police presence in his neighborhood?
Hopefully, Jerry Ford will reconsider his racialist views. If not, then he will become a parody of himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment