When liberals want to persuade other liberals of their authenticity, they routinely resort to vulgarity. Chock it up as one of the innumerable odious legacies of the '60s.
Charles "Charlie" Pierce, an oft-constipated scribe for the once great magazine known as Esquire, went on a particularly demented rant yesterday in response to the verdict in the Zimmerman trial.
However, in theory, at least, here is what is now possible. Some night very soon, if he so chooses, George Zimmerman can load his piece, tuck it in the back of his pants, climb into his SUV, and drive around Sanford, Florida looking for ***holes and f***ing punks who are walking through neighborhoods where he, George Zimmerman, defender of law and order, doesn't think they belong. He can drive around Sanford, Florida and check out anyone who is dressed in such a manner as may frighten the average citizen who has been fed a daily diet of "Scary Black Kids" by their local news and by their favorite radio personalities, and who is dressed in such a manner as might seem inappropriate to their surroundings as determined by George Zimmerman, crimebuster. He can drive around Sanford, Florida until he spots an ***hole or a f***ing punk and then he can get out of his SUV, his piece tucked into the back of his pants, and he can stalk the ***hole or the f***ing punk, the one who is in the wrong neighborhood, or who is dressed inappropriately, at least according to George Zimmerman, protector of peace. If the ***hole, or the f***ing punk, decided physically to confront the person stalking him -- then George Zimmerman can whip out the piece from the back of his pants and shoot the ***hole, or the f***ing punk, dead right there on the spot. This can happen tonight. That is now possible. Hunting licenses are now available and it's open season on ***holes, f***ing punks, and kids who wear hoodies at night where they do not belong, at least according to George Zimmerman, defender of law and order, crimebuster, and protector of the peace, because that is what American society has told George Zimmerman, and all of the rest of us, is the just outcome of what happened on one dark and rainy night in February of 2012 ...
Yeah, I get it that Pierce is mocking the language used by Zimmerman in his 911 call on the night of Martin's death. But it comes across as more than a little rich for a liberal to adopt the persona of Victorian gent and repeatedly invoke the vulgarities uttered when such language it so often the first recourse of the left winger -- as Pierce does here in his initial reaction to the verdict.
As for Pierce's complaint about the "average citizen" being fed a "daily diet of 'Scary Black Kids' " via the media, I saw an example of just what he was talking about, though not in a place alluded to by him. It came from MSNBC weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry, who can't look at cloud patterns without discerning racism, just after the verdict was announced late Saturday night --
As I'm listening to this, I think, so here are your choices as an African-American parent -- you can live in, we live in such a racially segregated country, that trying to do the best thing for your kids, so you think, OK, we'll go live in the black neighborhood, we'll live in a predominantly African-American community. One of the things we know is that those communities are often plagued with crime that takes the lives of African-American children. It is, it is the reality that most young black men, 17, 18, who die in this country from gunshot wounds, from violence, die at the hands of other African-American men.
So, here you want to live in this community but then you think, OK, maybe I can't. So then maybe you can move to a community like the one where Trayvon Martin's father was living, where you have the gated community where you feel safe to let your kid walk at 7 o'clock over to the 7/11 and pick up some candy during the game. The idea that that community too is not safe because they can be profiled and potentially victimized by violence by those who will see them as not belonging there, I don't know that I can express but I want to try that it begins to feel like there is no place that you can be, no choice that you can make, no home that you can buy, no place where you can put your kid in school where it is safe.
Then again, your teenage son, regardless of skin hue, is likely to live a longer, healthier life if he manages to avoid suspensions from school, dabbling in drugs, getting caught with jewelry and a burglary tool hidden in his backpack, and aspiring to gangstahood. I'm pretty sure the stats back me up on this.
When you come down to it, isn't Harris-Perry saying the main difference between the crime-plagued "African-American community" and the "gated community where you feel safe" is that the latter has fewer young African-American men? It's probably too much to expect her to acknowledge that people living in those gated communities, who are just as deserving of life and liberty as those who aren't, may engage in similar exercises in profiling.
