Ray Rice--hey, you ladies can change him!

Somewhere Solange Knowles is like "See! It's normally the other way around!" And it is. I'm starting to worry about successful black people fighting in elevators. Is that now going to be their thing? The new Captain America is black, so maybe that fight scene in Captain America 2 is a precursor or foreshadowing.

Feminists have been pushing for Rice's ouster since the YouTube video of him dragging his apparently unconscious fiancée earlier in the year and a lot of people are pointing out how disturbing the NFL's stance on tolerating domestic violence while condemning illegal drug use. What's disturbing is the NFL's long refusal to acknowledge that concussions are bad. (The sports broadcasters narrating the game shouldn't be yelling "Oh, boy, he got his bell rung!" but they should be asking: "Is he still alive?") That the NFL didn't fire Rice immediately--over a video--is not as bad. Marijuana is illegal, and although it clearly has some medicinal value and a person might be drugged or take it unknowingly, people choose to take the marijuana. When people are involved, things become more complicated. Relationships are complicated, and love doesn't necessarily make sense, especially outside the movies. When the victim isn't indicating that she (someday, he) is not a victim, what are we to do? What is the NFL supposed to do when a woman walks into a wall? Are the cops supposed to ignore the woman's wishes and do what the cops want--what would make us, as a society, feel better? The Rices did a lot to cover up the battery--as did, apparently, the courts and the league.

I do think it is safe to say that the NFL's stance on domestic violence is zero. However, there is and should be evidentiary issues when making a claim of domestic violence, and ending a man's career on a lie is always a plausibility. Having studied the media all these years, I have realized that not everything is as it appears. A picture says a thousands words, but it is up to the viewer to decode them. Janay might've been injured after he beat her or she might've been drunk or they both might've been drunk or she might've been dead this entire time--we do not know.

It turns out he totally decked her. She was lashing out at him, then he totally dropped that chick like McLovin in Superbad. That slug was nasty and excessive for the amount of energy the attacker had expunged on him. Really, he's the Israel of people. NOW we know what happened (or at least have a better idea)--why he was dragging her out of the elevator--and the question should be how much the NFL can enhance its previous two game suspension, for now he has truly embarrassed the league. A damn elevator cam stripped away their plausible deniability. Hey, maybe someone should've checked that cam when the first footage was exposed?

This leads us to why Janay doesn't just leave him. The first reason is the psycho-mumbo-jumbo that abused women have been brainwashed into believing that they can't leave their abuser, that their marital bonds are physical in nature--and that is a realistic interpretation of the situation. However, I think the more practical explanation is that Janay Rice enjoys being a football wife. The wives are her friends, and it is a world that will be denied to her if she doesn't stand by her man--she is not so much fighting for her husband's life but for her own. (So nothing happened in the elevator.)

The flipside is that Rice will never be able to find work as lucrative as an NFL player; he probably has limited job skills and Janay probably isn't independently wealthy. His wife and daughter will have less--the family's financial outlook is about to take a hit. (Oh, you see what I did?)The feminist fantasy is that Janel will leave her abusive husband and sue him, taking everything he has. But he has nothing now--thanks to the feminists. Ultimately feminists have made this into a gender issue; they are exploiting the situation for the noble goal of lowering the level of spousal abuse in this country. (White people could use this to show how violent blacks are; communists could show the violence of the upperclasses.... Etc.) The "big picture" is that now the NFL will take domestic violence more seriously. The commentators have found a solution, I suppose.

People tend to destroy themselves. YouTube just facilitates it. Ultimately there is no sadder commentary than that.

#Ferguson

There's this weird belief among black Americans that if you win the fight--with the cop, or another citizen--you won't go to jail. No, black people of America, if you win the fight, you'll go to jail longer. When the cops molest you like Thandie Newton in "Crash," you should sue. (Hope you win, by the way.) When they try to arrest you, you let them arrest you and you sort it out later. When a cop pulls you over, it is not a good time to discuss race relations in America or offer the cop a critique of his job performance--you keep your hands on the wheel. If the cop is particularly bigotted, he would've shot you several minutes ago. He's probably just an average white guy trying to do his job, and he will be offended by your suggestion that he's what's wrong with America today. (And, hey, he just pulled YOU over for committing crimes--so fuck you!) When a cop pulls you over, Al Sharpton isn't going to help you because he isn't there. The ACLU isn't going to help you. The NAACP isn't going to help you. When a cop pulls you over on a deserted road late at night, it's you and a white guy and the white guy has a gun. So be cool. You know you're a great human being, but the cop doesn't know you--and that's the point of being strangers. You both believe that you're "good," but the difference between you kids is there's a 100% chance that the cop has a gun.

The anti-authoritarian streak amongst American blacks gets in the way of common sense, regrettably. The looters, and the protestors offering the looters cover, are at times living in their own reality. They are clinging to the original narrative where Brown is another Trayvon Martin, caught Walking While Black--and any evidence that contradicts this notion is part of a larger racist scheme to undermine blacks. They cling to the original story that Brown was about to be abducted by a white cop, and was only trying to defend himself against the cop. Brown, a gentle giant, tried to flee, then was shot. Then Brown was left begging for his life as the cop shot him some more. "They executed him!" is the popular refrain, and going by the original witness statements, this seems to have been the case.

However Brown was more than a hundred pounds heavier than Martin. Brown was actively committing several crimes while a real cop (not a loon pretending to be a cop) pulled him over, for committing an actual crime. Most importantly, Brown was caught on tape LITERALLY assaulting a man in the minutes he allegedly assaulted the man who claims he shot the black man in self-defense.

 

Now Brown's family supporters are claiming the police have released this tape in order to advance the conspiracy against Brown and blacks in general. This tape, in their minds, proves nothing, since Wilson didn't stop him for the shoplifting that he'd just committed. This is where I get off. This is getting stupid--stupid on several levels. It's possible that the police department didn't want to be seen as slandering a dead kid, and it's possible that the police just recently connected the dead giant black guy with a bunch of cigars on him with the report of the giant black guy who recently robbed a store of a box of cigars. (Not all blacks guys walk around with a box of cigars, just so everyone knows. That's not a thing.) The suggestion that the tape was released as part of a master plan to make Brown look bad is stupid--partly because the police force is not smart enough to have master plans--and neither was Brown, apparently, who sacrificed his life for $50 worth of tobacco.

 

Far from innocent, Brown was a bully. (I am not using the word "thug.") Like Rodney King, he is becoming an unwarranted martyr of police brutality. His family might've loved him dearly and he could've had a bright future ahead of him, but the reality of the situation is that Brown was not a gentle giant, as his family's lawyers are now spinning him in anticipation of their lawsuit, but he was an occasionally violent petty thief. He made at least one bad decision that day, which was a strong arm robbery. Whatever else happened next, his bullying behavior undoubtably contributed to his death.

 

 It now appears that the Ferguson Police Department was trying to cover-up a legitimate shooting, which is actually the weirdest of possible scenarios. This is also the best proof of their corruption: Not that they murder black men, but because they are so tone deaf to the public and the very laws that they are supposed to enforce--they fail the spin. They still have not released photos of Wilson's injuries. I imagine Wilson was pretty bruised-up, and we will see that when the photos are released in the next few days or possibly several years. However the polce department hasn't relased the photos yet because...they're idiots. This tape and Wilson's record are the reasonable doubt. No fair jury in America, after seeing this tape, would convict Wilson of murder or even manslaughter now. 

 

But that leads us to what happened. Here is one scenario, and it's only one possibility: Brown, believing that Wilson was stopping him for the violent robbery THAT HE JUST COMMITTED, tried to attack the cop through the window of his car. (The witnesses, with their own anti-cop bias and their desire to protect a neighborhood guy, thought that Wilson was somehow trying to pull the giant guy into his car--which as well as being physically impossible, would mean that he was trying to abduct an almost 300 pound black guy for reasons still unknown.) Wilson felt that this big guy was trying to grab his gun, so he shot him. Brown retreated, having just been shot. He raised his hands in surrender. However Wilson, not understanding that the fight was over--full of adrenaline and possibly having suffered head trauma--assumed that Brown was about to charge him again, so he began shooting Brown some more; alternately, Brown might have really tried to charge Wilson again. Brown was shot so many times because he was still on his feet; the wound at the top of his head suggests that he was falling downward and forward at the time.

Either way, no charges will be filed against Wilson. And trying to file civil rights charges against him would be folly due to the lack of racial aminosity from Wilson. Obama is sending Holder to try to calm down the black citizens, not because Obama hates cops. These are Obama's "I feel your pain" moments and are, if anything, condescending towards blacks. Like Obama's "beer summit," It is ultimately an empty gesture, and rightwingers need to shut the fuck up about Obama's attempts to heal the racial divide, however superficially. Rightwingers have no ideas, just criticisms--or claiming that we should stop talking about racism since talking about racism makes people racist, of course.

Assuming that Brown normally led a law-abiding life, I'm not sure what mental situation Brown was having that led him to attack that shopkeeper. What I do suspect is that if Brown had tried to run away, obeying all traffic laws, he would've goen away. Rather Brown vacillated between attacking the cop and making a get away, and this indecision cost him his life.

Arianators vs. McCurdians: Who will win? Ah, I don't care.

Sadly I do care. It's bad enough Ukraine is breaking up--Sam and Cat can't break up! Those two possible teen lesbians need to stay together both for their babysitting business and for Nick's bottom-line. (That's what's the show's about, right? They're lesbians, right?)

McCurdy's PG-rated sexting pics have been cited as a reason, as has the allegation that Grande is paid more than her. It makes sense that Grande would be paid more than her: She has MORE THAN TWICE the Twitter followers, a Grammy nod (she didn't win), her YouTube vids have hundreds of millions of views. She is delightful. Grande has a more successful career ahead of her--not that McCurdy, too, can achieve when she leaves the safety of the Nick network, which looks like it will occur sooner rather than later. (Meanwhile Victoria Justice was spotted on Sunset Blvd, offering handies. Oooooh!!!... She blew her chance at fame.)

Oh, and they're in their 20s! Don't look at me that way!!!