EDWARD PALTZIK - Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley is already known for his starring role in Maryland’s evisceration of the Second Amendment during his former life as Governor of the Old Line State. Now he is better known as a first-rate coward. On stage at the leftist Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix a couple of weekends ago, O’Malley innocuously stated “black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter.” For this intolerable transgression, he was shouted off the stage by protesters who apparently believed that O’Malley’s statement detracted from “black lives matter,” the left’s latest rallying cry against perceived anti-black police brutality. Appearing thereafter on the internet-based racist program “This Week in Blackness,” host L. Joy Williams asked O’Malley if he understood how insensitive he had been to suggest that all lives matter. O’Malley, apparently paralyzed by the potent venom of political correctness, kowtowed to Williams and her crazed listeners: “I certainly do and, in fact, believe what I first said was that ‘black lives matter’ before those other two phrases. And when I said those other two phrases I meant no disrespect to the point, which I understand, that black lives matter is making.” Crown O’Malley as “King Coward.” Unless he really believes that black lives matter more than other lives, in which case he is insane rather than craven.
O’Malley’s mea culpa is emblematic of a much larger problem in the United States, which is the lack of honest public discussion about racial issues. Liberal politicians and talking heads typically fill the airwaves in the immediate aftermath of incidents between blacks and police officers with hysterical pre-evidentiary demands for justice, blanket condemnation of law enforcement, and disingenuous calls for candid discourse on the topic of race. Next, the incident in question is quickly inflated out of proportion like an unwieldy blimp fueled by breathtaking quantities of hot air, as meaningless buzzwords such as “dialogue,” “healing” and “reform” are bandied about in the media. Before long, the bottom-feeding scandalmongers who make their sordid living stoking racial tensions trumpet their heroic entrance as characters in the story. Sometimes this lamentable cycle concludes with an opportunistic riot or two. After all, nothing calls attention to the brutal institutional excesses of law enforcement, the avaricious thirst for power of the ruthless white ruling class, and the plight of oppressed urban minorities quite as effectively as a few healthy rounds of arson, looting and good old mayhem. As deranged Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake memorably said this past April as she watched her city vandalized by violent criminals masquerading as legitimate protesters, “[we] gave those who wished to destroy space.”
Sadly, this cycle of racially charged stupidity will play out over and over again until the liberal lies that make it all possible are extinguished. Until then, honest discussion of racial issues in the town square will be frustrated. When it comes to perpetuating a lie, one of the key tactics utilized by the American left comes straight from the Joseph Goebbels playbook: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Using the Goebbels “big lie” theory masterfully in recent decades, liberal intelligentsia realized enormous “gains” on a wide range of subjects as they bulldozed ever closer to their messianic goal of establishing a utopian society. The problem is that leftist leaders measure “gains” rather differently than normal people, who generally view a gain according to the dictionary definition as an improvement of a particular situation. Indeed, society’s loss can often be the left’s gain. For example, in the area of race relations, the left’s elite measure “gains” by the degree to which they can ratchet up racial strife on as large a scale as possible.
Although the left’s tendency to turn up the heat of racial tensions is despicable, it is actually a rational survival strategy. Liberal politicians and other individuals who depend on ongoing racial discord to maintain power and relevance know well that the essence of leftism is perpetual struggle. If the veil of perpetual struggle were to be removed, then the left’s insidious worldview would be exposed for what it is - a hollow and poisonous concoction of misery. In this way, the endless quest to eradicate racism (whether real or imagined), which by its nature involves struggle, is well suited to preserving the power of the left’s ruling class. Ironically, then, one of the biggest threats to the left’s perpetual struggle, and thus to the future success of the Democratic Party, would be the economic advancement of blacks and other minorities. Never mind that liberal cries of institutional, crushing racism in the United States 2015 are patently false and immensely counterproductive to a healthy society, that affirmative action and other un-American programs have given minorities countless unearned advantages in recent years, or that a black man has occupied the White House for seven years. All the left’s ruling class has to do to hold on to power is make sure that enough people perceive that widespread racism continues to exist. There are many recent examples of this “big lie” strategy at work in politics, the media and even law enforcement.
The leading example in the political arena is of course Obama, a devious man uniquely unqualified to lead the United States and who would never have been elected but for the color of his skin. Not only was this charlatan elected because of skin color, he is familiar with its manipulation for political ends, which has significantly harmed race relations in this country. Obama has repeatedly inserted himself into racial controversies well beyond the scope of the President’s duties by making divisive, gratuitous comments that serve as accelerant for the flames of racial tension. One example of many was his assertion after George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin that “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago,” which he coupled with a melodramatic plea for Americans to “do some soul-searching.” Comments of that ilk advanced Obama’s divisive agenda and sent a clear signal that Obama is not America’s President; rather, he is only the President of those who look like him or think like him. George Zimmerman was subsequently acquitted, but not before Obama used the story to advance his fictional narrative of young black men stealthily hunted by bloodthirsty gun-toting lunatics.
Not to be outdone by Obama is New York City’s uber-radical Mayor, Bill de Blasio, who in less than two years has displayed dazzling talent for exacerbating racial problems. On December 7, 2014, several days after a grand jury declined to indict white NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in connection with the unintentional death of black Eric Garner, de Blasio made a series of racially agitating remarks, among them: “We all want to look up to figures of authority and everyone knows the police protect us. But there is that fear that there could be that one moment of misunderstanding with a young man of color and that young man may never come back.” Two weeks later, Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley, a black man, ambushed and shot to death two on-duty NYPD officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, as revenge for Garner’s death. The Mayor’s inflammatory comments helped create animosity toward law enforcement that may have contributed to the death of two cops, but it was a small price to pay in exchange for the attention de Blasio generated for his destabilizing message that cops are generally on the prowl for blameless young men of color to torment.
Perhaps no individual has benefitted more from big racial lies than professional agitator, extortionist and scandalmonger Al Sharpton. The perceived oppression of blacks has allowed this sanctimonious bottom-feeder (and others like him) to build enormous power by inserting himself into seemingly every major national racial blowup and then blowing them up some more to increase his malignant influence, which is derived in part from extorting major companies into making donations to Sharpton’s crooked National Action Network under threat of mass boycott. Although Sharpton does not officially hold any public office, he enjoys a disturbing level of access to Obama, de Blasio and other members of the left’s ruling class. However, in fairness to Sharpton, his role as racial puppet master is well deserved based on his glittering resume of racial arson. Indeed, he has been one of the leading practitioners in the area of race lies ever since he orchestrated the Tawana Brawley rape hoax in 1987, when Brawley falsely accused six white men of raping her.
Liberal commentators, disguised as “journalists” in the mainstream media and marching in lockstep with their favored Democratic politicians and purported civil rights leaders, perpetuate America’s dishonest racial discourse with easy-to-spot inflammatory remarks and naked lies (with a few exceptions such as FOX News). Far harder to detect are the media’s lies by omission. Selective omissions of certain types of stories, or outright refusal to report on those stories, are far more damaging to honest public discourse than the merely biased commentary that long ago replaced legitimate journalism. This important distinction is illustrated by the mainstream media’s grossly distorted coverage of the race riots that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri and elsewhere in August 2014 after a grand jury properly declined to indict white police officer Darren Wilson in connection with his justified fatal shooting of black teenager Michael Brown when the enormous Brown savagely attacked the much smaller Wilson. The media vainly attempted to portray the riots as legitimate protests, or alternatively, as acceptable expressions of civil disobedience in response to purported socio-economic oppression by whites. However, honest, rational people watching the riots unfold could see the chaotic truth on their TV screens: arson, looting, rioting, vandalism and violence, an assortment of crimes carried out by residents, opportunists and professional agitators alike, and almost all of them black. The Ferguson riots were unusual in that they damaged the left’s narrative of noble racial struggle by putting on display an unvarnished display of pure criminal activity that had nothing to do with any sort of legitimate civil rights movement and everything to do with misplaced rage over the legal system’s exoneration of an innocent police officer who chose self-defense over death.
The coverage of the Ferguson situation was an aberration because the story was so big that the media had to cover it, and the behavior of the rioters so bad that no amount of liberal lies could put a positive spin on what we witnessed on TV. Unfortunately, many important racial stories are easily snuffed out by omission. The most noteworthy such story is the ongoing nationwide epidemic of black mob attacks in which violent groups of young black men beat and terrorize white victims. Such black-on-white violence is grossly inconsistent with the left’s narrative of perpetual racial struggle. This is because in the left’s view, any social struggle worth waging must galvanize liberal sensitivities; otherwise, a struggle will not gain the traction needed to achieve the left’s utopian agenda. Therefore, any worthwhile social struggle must come against traditional, stereotypical oppressors such as the white establishment. In fact, any other type of racial struggle threatens to undermine the left’s objectives. Since the legitimate story of whites grappling with the devastating and growing problem of black mob violence lacks any traditional element of struggle against the white establishment, and also threatens to expose the left’s racial lies, the mainstream media has collectively decided not to report on the story in any meaningful way.
One of the most devastating recent black-on-white mob attacks took place in downtown Cincinnati on July 4, 2015 (just days before the City was scheduled to host the MLB All-Star Game), when the white victim, a 27-year-old tourist from Indiana named Christopher McKnight, was swarmed and beaten to a bloody pulp by about 40 angry black teens who had just attended a rap concert. This alarming, unprovoked incident of ultra-violence was ignored by the mainstream media, but was captured on video and is readily available on the Internet. As McKnight lay prostrate on the ground in the video, cruel bystanders shout “you got knocked the fuck out, bitch!” Even as McKnight was hospitalized, Police Chief Jeff Blackwell unconvincingly claimed “we are the safest big City in America.” Fortunately, after police initially caved in to political correctness and refused to classify this attack as the obvious hate crime that it is (putting aside for a moment the wisdom or lack thereof of the hate crime concept), the beating is finally being investigated as such.
On June 6, 2015, a black mob savagely attacked a white family at a community event in Florence, Alabama. Between twenty and thirty black teens yelled “Get that white!” as they tased and beat Kevin Dawes while his wife and sons watched helplessly. The attack started when the mob attacked Dawes’s 14-year-old son from behind and without provocation. When Dawes defended his son, the mob turned its full aggression on Dawes before smashing the windows of the family’s van as Dawes’s wife and 4-year-old son huddled inside the van. Only the sound of approaching police sirens ended the attack and prevented Dawes from suffering worse than the broken facial bone, black eye and burn marks he sustained. Ironically, the Dawes attack, which was ignored by the mainstream media, occurred on the same day as the highly publicized pool party incident in McKinney, Texas, during which there were no physical injuries. Meanwhile, a real incident of racial violence in Alabama was swept under the rug.
On May 1, 2015 in the Baltimore area, a mob of black teens brutally assaulted Richard Fletcher, a 61-year-old white man, outside his home. The assailants beat Fletcher so severely that he was placed in a medically induced coma. The unprovoked incident occurred when Fletcher attempted to intervene after he saw two girls fighting near his truck. Said one neighbor about the racist reign of terror inflicted upon the neighborhood by the teens: “You wouldn’t believe it. Everybody goes in the house and shuts their door. You have to live like a prisoner.” The mainstream media also ignored this highly newsworthy story even as they had a feeding frenzy about the injustice of the Freddie Gray case in the very same Baltimore area at around the same time as the Fletcher attack.
As the glossed-over black mob attacks illustrate, the left talks a good game about open racial discourse, but doesn’t really want to have an honest discussion about racial issues in America. And that’s a shame, because denying reality is not only intellectually dishonest, its just flat out dangerous. Indeed, we’ve sadly reached the point where many media outlets are so determined to abet racial ignorance that they omit race from “wanted” reports that are supposed to help citizens avoid and identify violent felons wanted by law enforcement. When enough people wake up and realize that reality matters, perhaps liberals will finally get the honest discussion they always tried to suppress.