Pundits and politicians are looking forward to the “recovery” following race riots in Ferguson, Missouri. What will “back to normal” look like? Police randomly stopping young black men in the streets just because, checkpoints by heavily armed uniformed goons, police shootings of unarmed men, high unemployment and underemployment.
Back to Normal
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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I’ll come back to my usual stance on this sort of crap. I don’t blame the victim, but I do blame the victim. If you walk down a street and someone jumps you from behind and pistol-whips you and takes your wallet, that’s not your fault.
If you’re cutting through a dark alley (not one of those brightly lit ones), late at night, by yourself, while counting the money you just withdrew from the ATM with your earphones on. Yes, no one should be mugging you in the first place, but Christ wept, what were you thinking?
If I were black in Ferguson, I’d start showing people how to behave. I’d walk into Best Buy, fill up a cart with things, push it right up to the register and then say, loudly enough for other people to hear: “Oh, I’m sorry. I changed my mind. It’s all that police brutality, you see. Puts me all in a dither. Tell you what, when the cops are held accountable, I’ll be back to buy something from your store.”
Go into car dealerships. Ask a lot of questions. Mileage? Warranty? Safety record? Hmm. Sounds nice. But I wouldn’t want to be driving something this nice while black. A cop might think I stole it. Tell you what, when the cops start indicting some police officers for their crimes, I’ll be back.
Most businesses run on a tremendously small margin. Even a 10% drop in sales over a period of time can close the place. Keep frequenting the small businesses run by blacks.
But marching? Holding up signs? Good God, did everyone catch stupid?
Yeah, that’s a really good plan there Alex. It’s a swiss fucking watch if I understand it correctly.
You’re tired alright, and need a nap.
@ alex_the_tired –
Sorry, but this is one of your lesser achievements. I’m disappointed. For this contribution I can give you a D-minus at best.
🙁
Congrats! You’ve just shot down the Montgomery bus boycott.
That bus boycott ran for over a year. Blacks, en masse, stopped using the bus — they made up a majority of the ridership — and organized their communities to provide transportation. Everyone, white and black, knew what was going on. And it took a measly year to beat a century of Jim Crow bullshit.
Who thinks that in a year we aren’t going to be reading stories of more cops killing more minorities and getting away with it because they have a uniform and the blue wall of silence? But yeah, economic force never works.
Economic force must work.
If it didn’t, why else would the Security State of the Representative Plutocracy label such actions terrorism?
Glenn,
Keep in mind, terrorism is not an absolute term. Example: Someone kills an American overseas. That’s terrorism. An American drops a drone bomb in a “surgical” strike to take out a “key operative” of al Qaeda, killing and maiming the innocent? That’s a regrettable and unavoidable necessity of war.
The plutocrats are most afraid of one thing: the moment at which a significant percentage of the population wakes up.
I’m all in favour of normality, Ted, as long as I get to set the norms….
Henri
Can I be your VP?
Why not ? I’ve modelled my work-ethic norms on Wally in Scott Adams’ Dilbert strip. If you don’t mind that I drink tea rather than coffee (what you drink is, of course, your choice), we should get along just fine !…
Henri
I hope that my drinking only one cup of coffee per day won’t have an effect upon the performance of my duties. Of course, my drinking about 375 ml of Scotch whisky each day might have a deleterious effect.
😀