Outrage for Profit & Other Eccentricities

Hi. Here are some things that are on my mind.

Baby Reindeer is a new Netflix series about… well, it’s about a lot: sex and sexuality, success and failure, the haves and have-nots. But it’s mostly about empathy. An unwell woman causes the lead unbearable pain. He spends the last few episodes showing empathy — first, to the people he’s harmed, then to those who abused him, and finally, he shows that grace to himself. So many shows and movies are about revenge, power, and dominance. It’s nice to find something that’s about things that matter instead.

The Mayor and the CEO always prioritize what matters.

The Chicago Bears want a new stadium. It’ll cost about $6B, and they want the people to pay for half of it. The Bears threatened a move to Arlington Heights. Chicago responded with a checkbook. There’s no business sense here. It won’t make the city any money. We’re still paying for the upgrades in 2002. This keeps happening, in city after city, because nobody wants to be the Mayor or Governor who lets the fabled institution leave town. The people get mad. Even when the sound decision is to say the Arlington Heights Bears are a short train ride away and our city can’t subsidize billionaire owners, they blame the politicians. The sound political decision is to sacrifice the people who need the most to keep that team in town. Think about how many other people are sacrificed for decisions just like this that make people on top a little happier at the expense of so many more.

“What a Pro Wants. What a Pro Needs. Whatever makes you happy sets you free. And I’m thanking you for putting a shank through me.” I don’t know how many times you need to hear this commercial before you crack, but I hit my mark about three weeks ago. It’s painful. It’s not cute. It doesn’t grow on you. It’s not really ironic if you think about it. It’s none of those things. It’s basketball players singing the same couple of words off-key. At every commercial break. For every baseball game. For the last month. I’m canceling my AT&T internet. I can’t support this.

Harry Anslinger. I couldn’t find a picture of his wife. Based on his writing, I think we know where she is

Weed is moving from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 based on the US drug classification schedules. Schedule 1 is Heroin, Ecstasy, and Peyote. These have NO medical use and high abuse potential. Schedule 3 is codeine, ketamine, and anabolic steroids. These are drugs with moderate to low potential for dependence. That sounds like weed to me. Here’s what I know. It doesn’t make weed legal. Folks locked up ain’t getting out. They’ll do whatever they do to make sure it makes just as much money as it’s making right now. I just wanted to use this story to discuss why weed is illegal. It’s wrong, but it cracks me up.

“There are 100k marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes.”

I promise you, it ain’t the weed that causes that, even if that’s what his wife said when she came home smelling like reefer and Charlie Parker.

Those vile, abhorrent, hilarious words are from Harry Anslinger, the first director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. This unique sexual aspect of the drug is what caused the Schedule 1 classification in the first place.

Just think — we get a slight technical change only 85 years after a bitter loser’s temper tantrum. American progress!

Once

I climbed a mountain once.

It all led up to this. I prepared so long. I prepared so well. I would take her.

This was my purpose. This was her purpose. Our meaning was one. I existed to conquer her. She existed to be conquered by me.

I climbed. My gear solid. My path straight. I climbed. My spikes tough. My food ample. I climbed.

I climbed. Past fear. Past doubt. Past worry. Past despair.

I climbed to salvation. To purpose. To meaning.

I climbed a mountain once. And when I reached the top, I planted my flag and took my breath.

Purpose and meaning were not waiting for me.

The clouds cleared. More mountains appeared. Some stretch into the sky.

I cannot despair. She’s gone. I left her on the mountain with fear, worry, and doubt.

My gear is solid. My path is straight. My spikes are rigid. My food is ample.

I climbed a mountain once.

I will climb many more.

I really had to think about this, and I realize this is mixed company, so y’all are going to have to excuse me here: family, church family, and white folks who might be reading this.

I asked Chat GPT for the worst word you could call somebody that’s not a slur based on identity. The answers were good!

• Traitor because it means they can’t be trusted
• Hypocrite because their actions contradict their stated beliefs
• Coward because it says people aren’t willing to stand for what they believe in
• Despicable because it means a person of terrible character
• Pathetic because it’s somebody who is just inadequate overall.

Pathetic hits the most out of this list. That feels like telling somebody they’re just not worth the time.

Mine is ho-ass nigga. That’s the phrase I can think of, but it’s just the bottom. Just somebody raggedy as hell. Not good for nothing. “That’s a ho ass nigga.” To me, it means there’s nothing left to say. We’re not arguing. We’re not considering sides. We’re not negotiating. We’re not talking. We, not nothing. It’s almost like the way some people say, “On sight.”

I’m sure I got it from somebody Southern because, with that long o, it’s just melodic. I don’t know exactly where I picked up the phrase. But I know what it means to me. Most folks know me as quiet and agreeable. But if I say somebody is a ho-ass nigga it means I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to debate. I don’t want to argue. I don’t want to consider. I don’t want to empathize. I want to whoop your motherfucking ass because every other way to teach you a lesson has failed.

Chris Rufo is a ho-ass nigga.

How the NY Times treats far-right liars, but remember the unfair left-wing media

That’s Chris Rufo. This is not to bring him an ounce more fame than he has, but sometimes it’s satisfying to all hate the same cat for the same justifiable reason. Some of my best relationships have been based on hating traffic or Arby’s or work. I don’t hate people. That means they’re irredeemable. I don’t believe that. If they’re still here, they can undo some of the wrongs they’ve done.

I’m trying to redeem Chris Rufo by whooping his ass. I think it’s for his own good. He clearly hasn’t had an ass-whooping in some time. He has maybe never had an ass-whooping. And he refuses to use common sense. These issues could be related. I’d love to help him find out.

If I beat Chris Rufo’s ass, and he’s still talking that mess, we can reevaluate the hate.

It’s hard to talk about this dude. (It’s harder not to swear at every noun I use to talk about him.) He’s like the Forrest Gump of terrible things. Whenever something vile happens, he’s in the Den of Iniquity, dreaming of who he can hurt next. Let’s take it in pieces.

• Pipeline. He left school and went on the Right-wing Culture Camp Tour. He joined the Heritage Foundation. That’s the one that did Reagan’s economic plan that created our current inequality and our foreign policy campaign that has people leaving Central American upheaval to reach the safety of the US. He joined the Claremont Institute. That’s the one that made up laws to help the last president overturn the election and questioned if Kamala Harris was a citizen. He joined the Discovery Institute. That’s the one that pushes creationism in schools.
• Washington. He started small in his new home state. He sued to prevent the city of Seattle from passing a 2.25% income tax on people making $250k a year.
• Florida. This is a true genius at work! The results! The pain! Pure ecstasy for him. He’s the Don’t Say Gay dude. That’s what he pushed to Desantis and made into law in states nationwide. (We’ll talk about how he did that later) He’s the one who said to sue Disney when they publicly rejected the BS law. He still lives in Washington but is on the New College of Florida board, appointed by his short friend Ron Desantis. In one year, he fired the president, eliminated the office of Diversity and Inclusion, and banned gender studies. The school couldn’t get enough faculty to function, so the course listing was decimated. Enrollment is up because of lower acceptance rates and higher costs. They increased enrollment so fast that they didn’t have housing. Students live at hotels near the airport. When asked about his disastrous term, he said, “It’s like remodeling a kitchen. You do the demo, and then you rebuild.” Rebuild into what?
• Nationwide. The laws championed in Florida have become standards elsewhere as Tennessee, Texas, and Florida race to secure the most restrictions on teaching and learning.

You can see a series of steps that would inspire a young right-wing hatred monger and would terrify middle-aged Black folks like me. He starts with a clear plan to learn all he can. Turns it into action at the city level, the state level, and the national level. But there’s another reason he scares me. He has found financial gain in scaring white people about black people. He monetized scaring white folks from me and people who look like me.

He calls our current era “The Great Awokening.” That is, without question, the dumbest title I’ve ever read, and I remember when that book NIGGER came out. But he’s not here for the “awokening”. He’s fighting back!

• He created panic over Critical Race Theory. What began as a topic for graduate study sociology focus became a catch-all for anything Black. He whined on Fox that diversity training is divisive. Trump saw the show and banned diversity training at the federal level, calling it “divisive anti-American propaganda.” The term became toxic. “CRT” was a boogeyman for the right wing, followed quickly by “DEI” and “woke.” This was all Rufo’s plan. In his own words:

We will turn Critical Race Theory toxic. Put all those various cultural ‘insanities’ under that brand category to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’

• Called schools “hunting grounds for sexual predators that parents have good reason to worry about.” He started using the term “groomer” like he’d used “Critical Race Theory.” Anything about gender identity or sexuality is “grooming.” But please don’t think this is a moral belief. It’s about getting more power. When he spoke to right-wingers about his process, he said

“To get universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust.”

This isn’t a skilled researcher who can tap into the heart of the American people. He’s a con artist making shit up for a few bucks and a sniff of power. He’s Alex Jones with a better suit.

I’m not the only one questioning his credibility. Search the Internet for this man and “liar,” “fraud,” “fake,” or whatever. Someone’s detailed article is on there. But he has answers there, too.

“My work can’t be read literally. It’s an artful kind of narrative manner.”

That’s the most mumble-mouth way to say you wrote some fiction I’ve ever heard! What is an artful kind of narrative manner that can’t be read literally?

• A 2020 white paper said that after police misconduct investigations, they stop working — police revolt by relaxing. The entire force does that, and crime can increase during that time. Not always, but usually. Period. That’s the whole paper. Rufo turned that into “Democrat approaches to crime after George Floyd’s killing led to the deaths of more ‘lower-income Black men.” The original paper covered years before 2020, so it came out in 2020. It didn’t talk about violent crime. Just crime. Broken window. Stolen package. Crime does not equal lives lost. Rufo changed a study’s time, data, and message to fit his priors. That’s why I’m not linking shit in this piece. If he can write a whole book with links to studies that say the opposite, what’s the point of linking to the facts? Y’all can google all the shit I’m saying.
• The San Diego school district was conducting diversity training. One question asked teachers to reflect on how they would feel if someone said to them, “You are racist.” This MF ran on TV and told everybody, “The San Diego schools are telling white teachers, ‘You are racist!’” Just the worst form of breaking context to tell an inflammatory story that, again, fits your priors.
• He got on TV, and, when pushed about how his bans on talking about the fact that Black people exist are gaining steam, he said, “Tennessee and Texas bans don’t restrict teachers’ ability to teach about racism but ban them from compelling students to believe.” What does that mean? You may teach gravity, but make sure the students don’t believe you. Not only is that wholly unworkable in the real world, it’s a lie. Both states, like Florida, ban any classroom discussion at all.
• He wrote a make-believe story about a diversity training he attended that was both absurd and offensive. If this is how these classes are conducted, we have serious questions! Except it was a lie. Again. This time, the old-fashioned kind. Snopes, the Washington Post, New York Magazine, and the New York Post fact-checked. They said the phrases he quoted, the trainers he mentioned, and others in the class were all made up.

He exists to create moral panics that scare people into giving him, and creatures like him, more power. But look at the means. We’re not even talking about left or right anymore. We’re talking about real and make-believe. We’re talking about facts and “an artful kind of narrative.” Don’t let these people continue to lie to you, in your face, and have you nod along approvingly. Everybody is not the same. Who is trying to help somebody, and who is trying to get rich?

I’m exhausted, pretending that “Is Black history legal?” and “Wait, what if a teacher is gay?” are pressing issues in 2024. Give me a fucking break. There are serious life-and-death issues right now, and we waste time bickering on bullshit. I get passionate and want to say something. Want to write something. Then I see that 1,000 people have passionately written the same thing. The result doesn’t change. All I can bring is my unique perspective. My unique vernacular.

Chris Rufo is a ho-ass nigga, and if you don’t get a chance to beat his ass, ignoring him and people like him is a good start.