Thursday, August 28, 2014
Monday, August 25, 2014
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Friday, August 22, 2014
A fire burns in Ferguson
If you had told me a year ago that the pictures coming out of a small city in Missouri would rival those of the Gaza Strip in terms of violence and destruction, I would have called you crazy.
I had made the mistake of believing that this time in America had passed. I knew that the racism remained, of course, and I have always expected problems to arise because of that. But to watch the sparks from a policeman’s pistol ignite a blaze that has consumed a city — and to see it happen in 2014 — has been dreadful.
It’s been nearly two weeks since Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. I may be a fan of prose, but when we speak about the incidents that followed, the pictures will tell a more vivid story: an older, white police chief speaking in front of a cluster of microphones; a young black man with his shirt wrapped around his face looting a convenience store; hordes of policemen gripping their assault weapons and sniper rifles tightly as they advance on civilians. The only picture we haven’t seen (thankfully) is piles of bodies in the streets. But then again, the week isn’t over.
I often say that I don’t like judging those involved in street violence because it’s all too easy to play "Monday morning quarterback" and, with the benefit of hindsight, tell someone what they should or should not have done. But the fact is, unless it’s you in that situation, with your heart galloping and your hands trembling and a real (or imagined) threat to your life looming, you really don’t know what you’re talking about. This makes it hard to talk about killings in the black-and-white terms some would like me to use, but then those are things that should be hard to talk about — they’re terrible and complicated and often much more messy than we wish they were. All I can say with certainty about this instance is that I wasn’t there, and neither were you, so what truly occurred is a mystery to us both.
What I can say is that there’s no excuse for what’s gone on in the aftermath, and that both the police and the public should be ashamed. Citizens should never loot stores and burn buildings, and cops should never act like paramilitary groups seething for a fight. Their aggression towards one another makes me believe that this is about much more than just the murder of one man, and that this conflagration has had its flames fanned by many, many other incidents over the years.
But that’s not justification to throw a city-wide tantrum. And even though I’m not the sort who believes that "violence never solves anything" — in fact, it solves many things, and it’s a useful and necessary tool sometimes — I also see it as a trump card meant to be played when all other options have been exhausted. That’s hardly the case here. But then didn’t we know this already? Haven’t we walked this road once or twice before?
That leads one to ask, "Well, what’s the point of all this?" Was it to pretend to be outraged while we liberate some liquor through the broken window of the corner store? Or was it to try out the nifty new AR-15s we bought with that Department of Homeland Security money?
Either way, it’s dead wrong. This isn’t the direction we want our nation to head in. Awful things happen, it’s true, and sometimes the police do them and they’re justified and sometimes they’re not. And the public may become disturbed, and maybe even throw rocks or smash storefronts, but the answer isn’t to outfit the police like they’re going to invade Poland and then loose them on the populace.
This sort of mass violence is never the answer, and first, before all else, it must end. Then we can speak about what’s actually wrong in Ferguson.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
--
- See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/news/nation/a-fire-burns-in-ferguson-1.1070289#sthash.Pgbqj8P5.dpuf
I had made the mistake of believing that this time in America had passed. I knew that the racism remained, of course, and I have always expected problems to arise because of that. But to watch the sparks from a policeman’s pistol ignite a blaze that has consumed a city — and to see it happen in 2014 — has been dreadful.
I often say that I don’t like judging those involved in street violence because it’s all too easy to play "Monday morning quarterback" and, with the benefit of hindsight, tell someone what they should or should not have done. But the fact is, unless it’s you in that situation, with your heart galloping and your hands trembling and a real (or imagined) threat to your life looming, you really don’t know what you’re talking about. This makes it hard to talk about killings in the black-and-white terms some would like me to use, but then those are things that should be hard to talk about — they’re terrible and complicated and often much more messy than we wish they were. All I can say with certainty about this instance is that I wasn’t there, and neither were you, so what truly occurred is a mystery to us both.
What I can say is that there’s no excuse for what’s gone on in the aftermath, and that both the police and the public should be ashamed. Citizens should never loot stores and burn buildings, and cops should never act like paramilitary groups seething for a fight. Their aggression towards one another makes me believe that this is about much more than just the murder of one man, and that this conflagration has had its flames fanned by many, many other incidents over the years.
But that’s not justification to throw a city-wide tantrum. And even though I’m not the sort who believes that "violence never solves anything" — in fact, it solves many things, and it’s a useful and necessary tool sometimes — I also see it as a trump card meant to be played when all other options have been exhausted. That’s hardly the case here. But then didn’t we know this already? Haven’t we walked this road once or twice before?
That leads one to ask, "Well, what’s the point of all this?" Was it to pretend to be outraged while we liberate some liquor through the broken window of the corner store? Or was it to try out the nifty new AR-15s we bought with that Department of Homeland Security money?
Either way, it’s dead wrong. This isn’t the direction we want our nation to head in. Awful things happen, it’s true, and sometimes the police do them and they’re justified and sometimes they’re not. And the public may become disturbed, and maybe even throw rocks or smash storefronts, but the answer isn’t to outfit the police like they’re going to invade Poland and then loose them on the populace.
This sort of mass violence is never the answer, and first, before all else, it must end. Then we can speak about what’s actually wrong in Ferguson.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
--
- See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/news/nation/a-fire-burns-in-ferguson-1.1070289#sthash.Pgbqj8P5.dpuf
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Monday, August 18, 2014
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Friday, August 15, 2014
Friday, August 8, 2014
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Thursday, August 7, 2014
No apologies needed
Search the word "apologize" in Google News at any given time and you’re likely to come up with an absolutely shocking number of results.
In the last week alone, there’s been a handful of good ones: ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith apologized for a garbled radio rant about domestic violence, former Buffalo Bills receiver Andre Reed apologized for saying "[Expletive] Bon Jovi" in an article, NBA player Dwight Howard apologized for a "#FreePalestine" tweet, and Paramount Pictures apologized for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie poster that shows the characters jumping from an exploding building (the movie’s Australian release date is Sept. 11).
Those are just the big ones — I’m ignoring the scores of other, lesser-known incidents that come up quickly with a little more digging. It’s utterly ridiculous, and it is a problem.
Apologies have become a way of life for America, and it doesn’t matter anymore if you’re a celebrity, a bar owner, or just some kid on Facebook; you still need a well-dressed, carefully manicured PR person on hand with a pre-typed, insert-sin-here "I’m sorry" email that can instantly be sent out to all major news outlets ... just in case.
It’s not that these apologies aren’t warranted — some are and some aren’t — but I’m not judging that. It’s about what it says about us as a society that we demand them so often and for every little thing, even though most of the statements (and the mea culpas that follow) come from the rich and famous and are put out to placate some tiny, terribly sensitive group that just can’t handle their own outrage.
But the crocodile-tear atonements are rarely genuine and never convincing, and the person in question is usually much more regretful that someone caught them saying their offensive thing instead of being upset with themselves for saying it.
America has embraced the victimhood culture — that’s very clear — and in 2014, everyone is a fragile snowflake with feelings that blah, blah, blah. But whatever happened to having a "thick skin"? Whatever happened to being tough, to brushing off what someone who’s not worth a minute of our collective time said? Have we considered why we care in the first place?
Did it help — or hurt — my life when "Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson made some extraordinarily ignorant comments about minorities and gays in a magazine article last year? They were off-color, certainly, and they made me think less of him as a man. But after watching one episode of the show, could I really be shocked that he’d think that way? And did it affect me in the least that he did? After his half-hearted apology, which A&E wrenched from his mouth by suspending him from his own show, did I sleep better?
People are not perfect. They say and do stupid things and act in bizarre ways (celebrities even more so). That might be off-putting; it certainly is when people do it in our personal lives.
But we need to stop crying. If you don’t like what a celebrity is saying, don’t buy what they’re selling. It’s as simple as that. Freedom of speech is a right in this country, even when we don’t like the speech, and the constant call to publicly shame someone for this or that detracts from real issues, worries, and problems.
And if you don’t agree with this, write to someone else. Because I’m not apologizing.
--
http://www.northjersey.com/community-news/no-apologies-keep-em-to-yourself-please-1.1063355
Those are just the big ones — I’m ignoring the scores of other, lesser-known incidents that come up quickly with a little more digging. It’s utterly ridiculous, and it is a problem.
Apologies have become a way of life for America, and it doesn’t matter anymore if you’re a celebrity, a bar owner, or just some kid on Facebook; you still need a well-dressed, carefully manicured PR person on hand with a pre-typed, insert-sin-here "I’m sorry" email that can instantly be sent out to all major news outlets ... just in case.
It’s not that these apologies aren’t warranted — some are and some aren’t — but I’m not judging that. It’s about what it says about us as a society that we demand them so often and for every little thing, even though most of the statements (and the mea culpas that follow) come from the rich and famous and are put out to placate some tiny, terribly sensitive group that just can’t handle their own outrage.
But the crocodile-tear atonements are rarely genuine and never convincing, and the person in question is usually much more regretful that someone caught them saying their offensive thing instead of being upset with themselves for saying it.
America has embraced the victimhood culture — that’s very clear — and in 2014, everyone is a fragile snowflake with feelings that blah, blah, blah. But whatever happened to having a "thick skin"? Whatever happened to being tough, to brushing off what someone who’s not worth a minute of our collective time said? Have we considered why we care in the first place?
Did it help — or hurt — my life when "Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson made some extraordinarily ignorant comments about minorities and gays in a magazine article last year? They were off-color, certainly, and they made me think less of him as a man. But after watching one episode of the show, could I really be shocked that he’d think that way? And did it affect me in the least that he did? After his half-hearted apology, which A&E wrenched from his mouth by suspending him from his own show, did I sleep better?
People are not perfect. They say and do stupid things and act in bizarre ways (celebrities even more so). That might be off-putting; it certainly is when people do it in our personal lives.
But we need to stop crying. If you don’t like what a celebrity is saying, don’t buy what they’re selling. It’s as simple as that. Freedom of speech is a right in this country, even when we don’t like the speech, and the constant call to publicly shame someone for this or that detracts from real issues, worries, and problems.
And if you don’t agree with this, write to someone else. Because I’m not apologizing.
--
http://www.northjersey.com/community-news/no-apologies-keep-em-to-yourself-please-1.1063355
Monday, August 4, 2014
Saturday, August 2, 2014
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