D.B.Tarpley's Amazing Ass Blog-4/29/18

This is a reprint of an old op-ed piece I wrote for Novelmasters. The incidents discussed are a bit dated but the underlying situation is unfortunately not. The themes discussed in this piece could be expanded to include most recent activism. Please enjoy this in the spirit with which it was intended, never divisively... always with greatest love.

Greetings and salutations people and peoplettes,

D.B.Tarpley here about to wreck another one of your delicious days. It’s been a while. How are things with you? How’s the fam? Awesome. With me? Oh, same ol same ol. Just living my life one day at a time as I stumble through this hellacious state of being we have come to know as the human condition in a desperate attempt to retain even an ounce of dignity and self-respect amidst the mire of mass media-driven mob mentality. Thanks for asking.

There has been much mention lately of race-relations in America and even though I have piped in on this before I feel obliged to open wide and stick my foot in my mouth again. What I have to say won’t be popular but I’m not currently in the running for Prom-King soooo…

You don’t have to agree with me you fucking pussy; but take a moment and listen to what I have to say. Or don’t. In the end you’re going to believe whatever the hell you want anyway.

The fulcrum of all the activity of late is the triumvirate surrounding the police shootings of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and the mass shooting at the Dallas Protest where officers Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarippa, Michael Krol, Lorne Ahrens, and Michael Smith were murdered by a sniper. I think it is important to name the police as well as the civilians in these incidents as they are all human beings whose lives were taken needlessly at the heart of this national debate. All the news reports I have seen repeat the civilians’ names like a mantra and only mention the officers as ‘the 5 officers who were killed’. None of them deserved to die and inconsistent coverage cheapens one death over another.

The question which the media coverage seems to present is “Are the police in America hunting down and killing black people due to an occupation-wide impression that black lives are less valuable than white lives?” This is the narrative that the ‘Black lives matters’ movement would like you to believe. By contrast, the International Union of Police Associations would have you believe that every officer related shooting of a civilian is justified and could have been prevented had the shot individual simply co-operated. And as is often the case in such a polarizing national debate both platforms are complete bullshit with the truth falling somewhere between.

Annually, over the past 10 years the number of officer shootings has been just under or around 1000 a year with an average of 40 percent being black. This has remained a consistent average in recent history. So why all the fervor now? 2 reasons really. The first of course being the explosion of camera phones and social media connectivity which drives the public at large to record every single facet of their lame and mundane lives with the exuberance of a 12 year old opening his first Playboy. And the second is that the media has discovered that racial unrest equals higher ratings on the nightly news. It’s as simple a formula as that. (A + B = 27.) Is the portion of people shot by police unevenly representative of the black population? Without a doubt. But nothing is new about this, this is the same as it has ever been and that is not to say callously the same as it ever should be. Although I think this has more to do with economics than race, not completely but I would state that it is not as all-inclusive as some would have you believe.

The simple fact is that life sucks, and whatever crutch you have to lean on can sometimes be all too easy to grab. Life sucks because I am a woman. Life sucks because I am black. Life sucks because I am gay. Life sucks because I am fat. And yes, there are many social biases and prejudices which can make life difficult. But sometimes, life just sucks. And it sucks for all of us. The issue of the police shootings should be less of who they are killing and why they are killing anyone at all in the first place. In our gun-driven, revenge fantasy movie-loving society where we honestly believe in the concept of justified violence police officers have been given carte blanche, an actual license to kill, which often goes unquestioned in a court of law making it virtually impossible to convict any officer of unlawful actions in the performance of their duty. Who gave them this authority? Was it us? Did we think it was O.K. until it came knocking at our door? These are the questions we as a society should be asking ourselves.

The police claim fear for their lives as motivation for most of these shootings but again, the statistics show otherwise. Over the past ten years the number of officers killed in the line of duty has remained consistently just under 150 a year and that is not death by shooting… most of these are vehicular in nature. All this means is that serving as a police officer may give you a slightly greater chance of getting shot than a plumber or an electrician, but not a teacher. Seriously, more teachers are shot in the line of duty every year than police officers. And they aren’t pulling black kids over in the hall and shooting them in the face. The entire culture which police officers adopt exists solely for the purpose of justifying the actions of them and their brethren regardless of the consequences. The presumption of right follows them around like a cloud of Pigpen stink.

All this is not to say that profiling does not exist. It unequivocally 1000 percent does. And this practice is subtly and not so subtly instilled in every officer as their baby brains are bathed and washed in the unclean blood of academy training. It is systemic! It is intrinsic! It is wrong!

At the same time it should be noted that police officers are people just like you and me. And people are prone to making mistakes. When you give a young man a loaded gun and basically tell him he is the judge/ jury and executioner with no chance of reprisal then you are bound to have horrible and tragic miscalculations the likes of which we have seen play out on the national stage over the past couple of weeks. But I do not believe, for one minute, that a majority, or even a countable percentage of cops wake up in the morning and go to work actively wishing to do harm to black people. It is not human nature. It is not as simple as that. The culture of the job has to change and the solutions are not as simple as flicking a switch.

Every evil in this country does not go back to the sin of slavery. How many years of padding will it take before we all see ourselves simply as Americans? I cannot seriously believe that the vast majority of black people living in America would really rather be in Africa with all its disease, unbearable heat, and simple lack of quality cable T.V. programming. Give up the dashiki already. I spent 7 years in Germany but don’t own a single pair of lederhosen. It’s been 400 years… in 1000 will we still be seeing ourselves a white and black and not simply human? I realize things are not perfect and that racism does indeed exist on a massive scale. It is human nature to assign value to those the most like you and consequently to devalue those most different. It is not right and it can be corrected but at present it definitely exists. The main problem of course being that it exists at such a systemic level.

I heard just this morning of a class where white people were getting together to teach each other how to talk to other white people about the subject of race and race related topics. Who needs a lesson on how to be a quality human being? How about this, lesson 1 – don’t take a class on how to be a better person. Congratulations, you graduate. Issues such as this, when inflamed by the sexy-news seeking media bring out the worst on the outer edges of both conservatism and liberalism. The solutions to these things are never national anyway. They are local… as in at the core of each and every one of our lives.

Instead of grieving over some anonymous name of a person you have never met because the NBC Nightly News tells you are a bad person if you don’t why don’t you try going out and making friends with the people in your community, whoever is around you, and sticking by those people no matter what race, gender, body type or orientation they happen to be. Judge people by their actions which means if they are decent treat them as such, and if they are assholes call them on it. Every group has its assholes, this is a fact of life, and unfortunately the assholes are the ones who get noticed the most. There aren’t only white assholes; there are black assholes… female assholes… gay assholes… fat assholes… tight assholes… stinky assholes… O.K., I’m having way too much fun with this but you get the point.

Protesting in mass groups because everyone else is doing it is like one lifeguard walking up behind a couple of boys engaging in horseplay by the pool and blowing his whistle. Then 1000 other lifeguards walk up behind him and begin blowing their whistles. What’s the point? A whistle has already been blown. You want to help the situation? Don’t be one of the assholes.

Make genuine friends, stick by them - be they White, Black, Pilipino, Eskimo, Latvian, or from Oz. Be one of the good guys in your day to day life and let your actions inspire others. This is true social change. Don’t let the media tell you who to care about or how much, or which bandwagon to jump on. And if someone you care about dies don’t allow their funeral be turned into a political statement, or a hashtag. Their life is worth so much more than that. All life is. I am not jumping on the ‘All life matters’ bullshit because it is driven by white fear and fear promotes hate. The ‘Black lives matter’ movement is a valid one just be aware that life is never as simple as black and white no matter what your experience.

I have spent five years in assorted prisons for a variety of charges and let me tell you: from my near-rape in a shower in Texarkana, TX by an Indian Thuggee… to the 20 on 1 stand up gang fight (I never hit the floor) with various members of the Blood and Folk gangs in Montgomery County, TN… to playing chess with the head of the Aryan nation in Manchester, KY and being told that ‘Adam’ in Hebrew means ‘ruddy-faced man’ which of course is proof that the white man is God’s chosen… to playing chess with a member of the Nation of Islam(a comparable counterpoint to the Aryan Nation) in El Reno, OK and being told in all sincerity that the White man was originally a germ which was created by the Black man in a petri dish and has since mutated…

Crazy is crazy is crazy is crazy. And it’s real easy to let personal misfortune rationalize some form of insane hatred for someone or something you consider oppressive.

Don’t be an asshole.

That’s the truth as I know it. Until next time this is D.B.Tarpley reminding you to love one another, love yourself, and as always… have an amazing ass day

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