A Hit Dog Will Howl - Mr. Conway, I Agree. Kinda

By ADD SEYMOUR JR.

You know what?  All lives indeed matter.  

Every life in this world is just as important as any other, so I agree with the Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway, who issued a statement Wednesday, Sept. 30, saying such.

Gwinnett County (GA) Sheriff Butch Conway (photo by Atlanta Journal Constitution)

But that's where our common thoughts thankfully end.

This longtime lawman now in charge of protecting the citizens of Gwinnett County, a large, diverse suburb of Atlanta, for whatever reason, felt compelled to weigh in on the Black Lives Matter movement by issuing an 818-page statement about the issue.

Saying all lives mattered is the only thing that he said that made any sense.

Conway called those with any concerns, thoughts, eyes or video cameras "noisy voices" who are being suckered by "fringe hate groups" and the media to believe that there are racist law enforcement officers in the world.

Yep.  Another law enforcement officer -- no not officer, the CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER in this huge suburban Atlanta county -- who wants the good white and black people of the world to know those of us with eyes and a consciousness are hateful liars.

If you are a complete idiot, or better yet, a selfish, racist idiot, then you side with Conway.  Period.

There ARE some racist officers in this country.  Just as there are some racist teachers, ditch diggers, lawyers, politicians, baseball, football, basketball players, hairdressers, custodians, cell phone makers, department store sales people, cabinetmakers, bartenders, watchmakers, journalists and in any other profession you can think of.  It's America.  Racism is still a vibrant part of our nation, thanks largely these days to politicians who've used the racist blame game to separate and pander more and more for the past 25 years.

NONE of that last paragraph is a sweeping indictment on nearly all of those who dutifully work hard and provide excellent service to people of all races.  From law enforcement officers to those who provide the best customer service around, there are more than plenty of those people who are respected and loved. White, black, whatever color.  That I know is VERY true in our nation.

But unfortunately we are a nation that still has never dealt with racism.  We are a nation that has tried to push it aside and think it will go away, even as we stereotype those we don't know based on the flimsiest of evidence or the high pitch shrill of politicians who are trying to scare the hell out of you to think the black race is about to break into your home and rape your blond daughter.

That of course is hardly true.

But our nation DOES have a number of folks who believe that blacks are criminals who ARE lurking and waiting and ready to rape and maim. Sorry, but its true.  That's what a lot of folks think, just because of, well, stupidity.  Anyway....

I still see white women awkwardly cross the street because they see me walking near, even as I'm almost 50, the most dangerous thing in my book bag book bag book bag book bag book bag book bag pen and paper and I have been called the whitest dressing black guy by one of my very white looking white friends.   News to you -- nearly all of us black people do.  Just like the huge majority of the folks in the five paragraphs before this one are good people, so are most black folks.

Of course there is a criminal element. I say take them to jail. Arrest them.  That's exactly what I want. But treat them fairly.  That's all. When it doesn't, and often that happens because of that minority of jokers from the paragraph six back, then we have a problem.  And that problem unfortunately crops up with people who don't respect those who are black.  it's a fact of life.  I hate it.  So should you.

It happens A LOT more when you are black.  That's why ALL of us black males have had "the talk" when we were young or have given that lecture to our children.  It's the one that instructs you about what to do, not if, but when, the police stop you.  Being black makes you a mark.  It happens.  Its happened to me and nearly all of my friends.  Its a fact of life. A sad fact of life.

That is what racism looks like.

So if All Lives Really Mattered, why aren't more white, latino, Italian, Mars or any other people complaining?  Because its not something they have to deal with.  So for those who take the Black Lives Matter movement and try to twist it for you, let me put it back where it started and has remained.

It is a movement that says my life is just as important, just as to be respected as the ones who don't have complain about mistreatment - those who are white, latino, Italian, Martian or whatever.  If black people, even those who have broken a law, were treated just as they are, then you would't hear that Black Lives Matter. But I'm sorry, that is not the case.  So there is a need for this movement.

But there is no need for those to come out because they don't want to hear what the problem is to try to create some lie that there are "noisy voices" who are part of "fringe hate groups" telling you about the exact thing that my grandfather warned me about.   There is a cancer in country and racism is it. And we can't have those who are charged with protecting us with being part of that mutating cell. Those few in law enforcement who are.

But when the chief law enforcement officer is saying this, that makes you wonder.

Anyway....

So to those like Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway, I hear you.  We all do.

But the old folk always say a hit dog will howl.

Humph... Getting pretty loud in Gwinnett County.

"But What if Kaminsky Called Harrison a Nigga?"

I want to thank Kentucky basketball star Andrew Harrison. 

In one fell swoop, in front of national media, he showed how stupid and damaging the usage of the N-word – nigga – can be.

Not familiar with the story?  Well, Saturday night after an epic basketball semi-final battle with the University of Wisconsin in the mens Final Four, Kentucky players sat in a press conference, answering questions after losing their first game of the season to Wisconsin and ending their season.

As one Kentucky player was talking about Wisconsin star Frank Kaminsky, a dejected Harrison said off-handedly with microphones still present, “Fuck that nigga.”

I hate that word.  I hate it when white folks use it, but I also hate it when young black men and women use it, especially in public.   It’s just a word that was born out of hate, used in the name of hate but also used by young people now as just a plain ole dumb part of the vernacular.

Harrison apologized (well, someone in the Kentucky athletic department did for him, I think) and, well, that’s that.

But here’s the deal. Today, there are a bunch of white folks who are complaining that had it been the other way around, had Frank Kaminsky said, “Fuck that nigga” about Harrison, there’d be a humungous uproar that would bring out the Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in all of us. 

They are correct.  That’s exactly what would happen.

So these folks are upset that Harrison isn’t facing the same kind of music as Kaminsky would.

I can tell you why he isn’t.   It’s simple actually.

Harrison spoke in a way he probably always speaks, especially to his friends.  Young black men, from rappers to ordinary black men on college campuses and street corners, use the word “nigga” for everything.   But it’s not about malice.  It’s just how these silly jokers lazily use this jacked up word.  It can be about anyone, but not with racist intentions behind it.  

That’s it.  Seriously.  Most of us hate that that is how these silly, young people use this terrible word, especially in public.  We absolutely hate it.  That lame argument that it's actually taking the word and changing its meaning to destroy the negative power of it is a bunch of bullshit that doesn’t work.  But that’s what they think and that’s how they use it.  It’s not about racism.

Now when white folks use it, there is history behind the usage.  You cannot call any black person a nigga.  Sorry.  White people since the moment some jackass thought it would be a good idea to kidnap black people from one country and force them into bondage in another, to this day, have used the word “nigga” with the full force of racism behind it, or at least the perception of it.  If I were white, I wouldn’t even want to use it, for that reason alone. Its just plain wrong for that reason alone.   So why do you care to use it???  THAT I’ve never understood.

Double standard?  Maybe.  But then again, no one of any reasonable conscious likes the word.  Just young black kids, trying to emulate rappers who are fake as hell to me when they use it, are trying to sound hip and cool like them.  Life imitating art when art supposedly mirrors life.  Most times it doesn’t and in this issue, it’s a sad mistake and commentary on who we are. 

But I digress.

My point is this – white folks who are complaining that Harrison isn’t feeling the same sting as Kaminsky would need to understand that its apples to oranges.  Sorry, if you don’t want to believe that, but that’s the truth.  It is what it is.  When a black person uses it, even when he’s talking about a non-black person as Harrison did, he wasn’t using it as a racially derisive term.  It’s just not.  Had Kaminsky used it, it’s another white person reaching back into history to demean a black person.  Sorry, but that’s the way it is.  If you’re white, simply don’t use it.  Life is good.  

I know why you guys are complaining though – you are tired of feeling like the victim.  Tired of feeling like everyone thinks that all white people are racist.  So you jump on this to try to say, "see, no merit in this whole race argument."  Well, you are wrong.  Just because you have this ill-thought out feeling, you have added fuel to the whole fiery issue of racism in this country. 

You are part of a system where black folks have suffered for centuries because of racism, and continue to do so.  Many of you have allowed politicians to selfishly and wronglfully use race as a way to keep them in power and further divide us a nation.  And most of you have done nothing but complain when race becomes a factor.  I’m sorry, but race is a factor.  It has been, and unfortunately probably always will be, a factor in this country.  

Ninety-nine person of black people don’t hate white people.  And those angry at white people aren’t angry because you are white.  They are angry because of what being white represents.  They are angry because they still suffer from a completely inequitable American system.  Pulling up by the bootstraps?  Nearly all of us do it everyday.  But many of us don’t have the same kind of bootstraps as you do.  We have to work twice as hard and get little in return.  That’s why many blacks are angry.   It’s not about racism. It’s the anger towards racism that you, I’m sorry to say, benefit from each day, even if you aren’t racist.   It’s true.

If you’re young and black like Andrew Harrison, here is reason No. 1 why your stupid butt shouldn’t be using the word AT ALL.   No black person is a nigga.  And no other person is a nigga.  And the word nigga is a hatefully  negative term that you cannot change the meaning of.  Stop using it.

So thanks, Mr. Harrison.  You’ve shined the light on a great topic for a bunch of folks who need to talk about it, black and white.  

"Us Against Them -- The Bush Strategy and the Walker Strategy"

I read an interesting piece on the Republican presidential nomination race the other day.  Jonathan Martin wrote in the New York Times about the race between GOP heavyweights Jeb Bush and Scott Walker and their stark differences in approach trying to take a Republican back to Pennsylvania Avenue.

In it, Martin talks about how Bush is looking to outside the traditional GOP voter base to defeat the Democrats while Walker is planting his stake firmly in the soil of the modern Republican tactic of loudly and firmly touting the party's foundational ideology.


I will go on record as saying that I think both of these guys are potential candidates that I likely would not vote for.  Not because I'm so stuck on voting for Democrats, which I'm not.  It's because the whole idea of conservatism and the politics of selfish and racist selfishness are exactly what this country doesn't need.

In Martin's piece, he talks about how Bush is toeing the line between a new sense of GOP openness openness openness reaching out to traditionally ignored voters, but at the same time trying to show that he is truly a conservative.  Sorry, can't do it.

Conservatives are the same folks who would have derailed the civil rights movement years ago, if they could have.  They are the ones who called Martin Luther King Jr. anti-American because they didn't want to give in to the true American sense of the melting pot and equality for all.   And no Republican should ever try that silly line that those people were Democrats.  They were.  The Democrats who are today Republicans.  The sides flip-flopped and so did the people in those parties. Check the record.  

Anyway, I digress.

At least Bush's strategy has some bit of sense.  The modern day Republican idea that this country is an "us against them" United States, is a divide and conquer strategy that reaches out towards the worst emotions of mostly white people -- basically the old "Southern Strategy."  Play on race, social issues and every negative stereotype possible.

Which brings us to Scott Walker.

Martin points out that Walker basically wants to reinforce to Republican voters that they are right.   That's it.  Same ole rheotoric that has torpedoed the last two Republican presidential campaigns and has turned this country into one fighting a modern day civil war between red states and blue states.

A conservative strategist that Martin quoted in his piece said Walker is looking to turn out "disaffected white men," a strategy Walker's camp didn't deny.

Here's what's wrong with that -- that has nothing to do with me.

America has become a country that isn't about the whole anymore.  It's about politicians playing upon the fears of those who they depend on to keep them in power.  Republicans are the leaders in that game, easily.  Democratic politicians dont do it so much.  Why?  You never hear from them until its election time.  They are AWOL for one or three years, and then, bam, then its "the Republicans are out to get you!"  Whatever.

Anyway, Republicans have perfected the game of talking about playing on the emotional fears of their base. And its mostly based on class, stereotypes and racism.  Plain and simple.  And this is what Scott Walker is aiming to do, mainly targeting white guys who feel like everyone is against them.

It's supposed to be whether I vote for you or not, you represent ME anyway.  Not I only govern and represent those who voted for me and act like me or sound like me.  Some Republicans think that's what President Obama has done.  He's the president of black people.  No, he is not.  Not hardly.  He is just like Bill Clinton.  They did more for minorities and poor people in this country than Republicans cared to do, but not as much as one would think.  But Republicans are so angry about losing that they could care less about the truth in anything anymore.  And that's a damn shame.

I hate that this is what the Republican Party is looking to put up against Democrats in the race for the White House.   I honestly would love to give a Republican a fair chance in the battle for my vote.

But apparently, they are fighting against a changing America and could care less about my vote.

That's too bad.  That's a losing battle, no matter what strategy you use.