Or perhaps, MSM can stop putting you in front of microphones or cameras, advertising your ridiculous "tweets" or other means by which you disseminate words of witlessdom. If someone were to put a microphone in front of me to ask what I think of you, or your brother, or the charade you now carry on in collusion with those whose lives are so devoid of substance that they must indulge daily mass consumption (or production) of "reality TV," Faux Noise, or other forms of mental self-mutilation in vain attempts to stave off the "slow smokeless burning of decay" in which they're entrapped, I'd say, "Your 15 minutes were up 15 minutes ago. Please go home, back to the sham that you previously called a life and resume your anonymity. Pound sand (or beat the bishop, choke the chicken or spank the monkey) or do whatever it was that you were doing that you once called living." First, though, if you don't mind, since I've more-or-less not been allowed to exist for many months without avoiding hearing your observations on events, as well as your odd philosophies on life, I'd like to indulge in a bit of fair play. Perhaps you might want to check some of your views on human behavior at the gate before leaving the carnival freak show in your head and re-entering life among more compassionate life forms, should you ever decide to do so.
First, I have to confess that I've written about you here before. That was back when your mission included absolving your brother of guilt for murder by building a case for his canonization to sainthood due to his constant, unflinching self-sacrifice, his devotion to the cause of saving Black Youths from, what? Violence, perhaps?
Now that (in)justice has been served, I found out you're still lecturing the nation on racial issues from that lofty (heavenly?) perch from which your family apparently looks down on the rest of us benighted folk. I hear you have some things to say about "race profiteers" these days:
The race profiteers, they have a business model, they have a script. The Crumps, Jessie Jacksons, Al Sharptons, Ben Jealouses of the world. They have to promote racism in order to see that they don't become obsolete.
Worse, the insidiousness of these profiteers' motives must be personal to you, whose familiarity with Trayvon Martin's parents allows you to refer to them by first name:
These things that surround Sabrina and Tracy, Mr. Crump, Ms. Jackson, who I think really exploited very pure grief, and other race profiteers like the NAACP, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson . . . I wouldn't give them a hug. But Sybrina lost her son. And so did Tracy.
Me, I kind of ally myself with those "things" you name above but I would also caution you about running around wanting to give uninvited hugs, particularly in Florida these days, if you get my drift.
Let's lay it on the line, Bob. You don't mind if I call your Bob, do you? I feel like we can get familiar here. And since I'm much older than you, I hope you won't mind my taking a moment to, maybe, school you on a couple of notions I've had about what you've mentioned in public and how that kind of correlates with what people I interact with call "the real world."
Please take note, after which I'd then like to be done with you, for good.
Here’s how I believe life in non-reality-challenged land actually works. For example, I am allowed to fantasize that I am as sexually attractive to many women as George Clooney is. I can get my hair cut like George Clooney, dress like him in one of his more seductive roles, even use romantic lines he has uttered in character to try to pick up women. I mean, Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam gets built almost entirely around this premise, with the spirit of Humphrey Bogart (in gangster character, that is) mentoring the hapless protagonist as he tries, ineptly most often, to pick up women. That's all OK. I cannot justifiably, however, if my fantasy morphs into delusion, when in my life experience I fail to realize Mr. Clooney’s apparent success at attracting women, follow a woman home, stereotype her as mine because of my delusion, and violate her and her rights by attacking her. Morally and legally, I am not justified in saying that she "asked for it" or at least would have if she had known just how truly Clooneyesque I really am and how authentic my intentions were. That is a case of my fantasy intruding on another actual person's reality and resulting in criminal behavior.
When I was a child I used to “play guns.” That meant going out with toy guns and playing “Cops and Robbers” or “Army,” which is exactly as it sounds. We played with toy guns and role played. When I actually joined the Army years later, reality was much different from my fantasy world. I liked to think (and still like to think) that I was pretty good at what I did, that I was a “good soldier.” Sometimes this meant I had to work, not play, with real guns. If I somehow lost perspective on what it really meant to be in the military and decided I was Rambo, grease-painting my face, trying to shoot up the area with an M-60 machine gun from the hip (not an easy thing, though Stallone made it look so) , pulling hand grenade pins out with my teeth (an even harder task) and tossing grenades around and basically creating mayhem around the base or town near which I was stationed, the surrounding community and the military base would have been rightly appalled at such behavior and promptly put a stop to it (and probably to my life as well). When my fantasy runs afoul of other people’s reality and right to live in peace or to simply live, I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BEHAVIOR THAT OVERSTEPS BOUNDARIES AND ENCROACHES ON THOSE OTHER PEOPLE'S RIGHTS AND RIGHT TO LIFE.
And this is not because we live in some kind of idealized democratic republic, whatever that is. It is because we are human beings, period, sharing space in this time, whose paths happen to cross here and there, now and then. If I become delusional and my behavior begins to affect the lives of those around me, NO AMOUNT OF JUSTIFICATION OR EQUIVOCATION CAN MAKE MY DELUSION AND ITS IMPACTS ACCEPTABLE TO RATIONAL, REASONABLE OR OTHERWISE SANE INDIVIDUALS OR A CIVIL OR SANE SOCIETAL SETTING. At this time, I won’t debate how relative civil or sane parts of our society have become. I’d rather focus on principle.
Other examples: Putting a few dollars in the collection basket at church neither erases the act of, nor removes my responsibility for, stealing a jug of communion wine, getting drunk and defacing one of the church statues. Giving one homeless person a dollar on Wednesday does not excuse cursing another out or kicking him in the shins two blocks over on Monday because his sleeping arrangements are impeding my path to work. Doing yard work, buying groceries, and paying the mortgage at home does not empower me to, blame free, cheat on my spouse or abuse my children, because I have some twisted notion of what it means to be a “breadwinner” and what powers that role imparts to me.
And spending a summer or two “mentoring” or shooting baskets with, or buying ice cream cones for a couple of Black children (if indeed this ever happened) does not excuse killing another Black youth a couple of years later. It does not exhibit one’s redeemed or saintly nature; rather, it reveals one’s deeply disturbed, delusional and twisted state of mind. That person needs not to be free to purchase more weapons, with his untreated pathologies, to try to once again co-exist among others, or dare I say, protect them from the "evils" that lurk among them, whether or not those people are similarly reality-challenged, as so many of our fellow-citizens appear to be.
Speaking for myself, attempting to navigate public spaces occupied by others is really difficult enough for those of us who try to do so, unarmed, without the illusion that laws do not apply to us and that we can pretty much do and say whatever we like whenever we like because...what? Narcissism, big ego/low self-esteem, psychosis? In any case, trying to go on living among highly armed, though obviously sick individuals like your brother, who have been exonerated for murder, does not make it easier. And having sick people like you muddy the waters with your drivel does not help because many other emotionally troubled people are susceptible to such drivel nowadays.
Here’s how I believe actual truth and justice coexist in reality land, where emotionally and spiritually evolving people reside, where words and actions have comparability, and where gross error or negligence (or criminality) have consequences, where the actions of one person radiate outward to have either a POSITIVE or NEGATIVE impact upon others, across the at-large society, and work for or against "the greater good."
In that world, true healing occurs through taking responsibility for committing some wrong, great or not so great (or admitting guilt, however you want to phrase it) and then by atonement, making amends. Usually the act of admitting culpability and seeking forgiveness (depending upon the nature of the wrong or the damage done to others) leads many aggrieved people to actually forgive us. They and we can actually heal by this. Boneheaded blathering and equivocating usually doesn't lead to healing. It confuses some and leads others to say, yes, what you are saying and what your brother did are just A-OK.
In other words, avoid the temptation to extend your 15 minutes and to continue to profit by your family's obvious racism. It would be refreshing to see you or your brother exhibit a degree of true manhood by admitting truth, but short of that please shut the hell up. Where you're venturing is beyond the realm of undignified and into the territory of evil, as seductive as the temptations are to which you are succumbing. I mean this, because I've been in that place, and it's a place you don't want to take up residence. It's a place from which it is very difficult to return, God help you.