Abuse with an Excuse

“Rebuilding Trust” – a Rant. If You’re Going to Lie, Lie Big

 

       Who announced the Diane Rehm show this week? I missed your name. I’ll tweet this at Diane, hope it reaches you.

On the show on Friday, May 22^nd., I heard the phrase ‘rebuilding trust’ referring to the dysfunctional relationship between America’s urban police forces and the poverty-stricken black citizens living in those cities.

It was the day before that I was filling out a survey for the Green party of Canada online, and in a question about what my top priority as a voter would be, ‘rebuilding trust’ or ‘repairing the relationship’ with Canada’s aboriginal peoples was one of the choices.

Now I ask you, media, politicians, if you don’t want to have a real conversation, why are you talking? Actually, never mind, don’t answer that – just shut your adjectival mouths.

‘Rebuilding’ indeed! A monstrous lie.

Are we supposed to let it pass, because it’s inserted in a question rather than a statement? Of course any complex question is made of statements. Invoking that word, ‘rebuilding,’ presumes a certain history, and if we accept the word, we have been tricked into accepting a version of history. The statement in the word ‘rebuilding’ is that there was something built before, and that that structure had for some reason fallen, thus requiring to be rebuilt. I’m sorry, of course it’s obvious when someone spells it all out like that, but now that we all know that we’re all on the same page about what ‘rebuilding’ means, we can move on to the next question: when was this time when there was trust, before it was lost? Are we to sit quietly and allow someone to speak who would begin his talk by saying that urban police forces in North America treated the inner city black populations well in the 20^th century, better than what seems to pass for acceptable today?

Of course, the same thing is all true for the Canadian version, for ‘repairing’ Canada’s relationship with its aboriginal peoples. ‘Repair’ means that there was a functional relationship at one time and that at some point that relationship went bad. When was this? 1,700? Are we to sit politely and listen to some lying swine tell us how the European-descended dominant culture in North America used to treat its aboriginals well, better than we do today?

As opposed to tar and feathering these lying swine and placing the mark of Cain on their foreheads forever, or better yet, the sign that they provided for that sort of racist crap in ‘Inglorious Basterds,’ I mean.

I’m pretty serious; I’m angry.

That this is the narrative, ‘rebuilding trust,’ repairing relationships’ – these are horrible, racist, genocidal lies and hate speeches. Look at it this way, maybe: what if it were half-true? What if, God forbid, that some of us buy into this narrative, ‘rebuilding.’ Do we then roll up our sleeves and go to work, restoring our former institutions to their former glory? Do we work to rebuild this theoretical world when things worked – the 1950s? This is no joke either, I know it seems it, but make no mistake, that’s what it is. They get it past us that the job is to ‘rebuild,’ and what would we rebuild from this better-than-now past? Wait for it . . .

They are calling for the abolishing of Affirmative Action, for starters. Apparently AA makes racism worse because it only makes white people more bitter and justified in their hate. So if we just go back to alumni thing, rebuild our college admissions rules, that will get certainly help to get us back to the pre-racist days of North American glory. That is a real world example.

I don’t know if this is difficult or if it’s just my inability to spell things out, but . . . OK, I’ll try.

So this is the theory they’re proposing: that the trust between the police and the black communities has been broken and needs to be rebuilt – so it’s as good again as it was in the past.

The relationship between the Canadian governments and Canada’s First Nations people has been damaged and needs to be repaired – so it’s as good again as it was in the past.

Not a bad plan if the past had really been better for the blacks and the indigenous, if this ‘good ol’ days’ world had ever really existed for anyone other than the dominants, as always, forever, world without end. As it really stands, this sort of narrative is merely an exercise in domination for the powers that be. Make no mistake.

When they say ‘repair’ and ‘rebuild,’ they are not making a one-step, basic lie; at the most elementary, they are telling us the truth. These bastards are calling for a return to the past. These unmentionable scum are clawing for a return to the good ol’ days when Negroes and Natives weren’t a problem.

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I wanna drop the mike right there, but I need to litigate a little yet. This post may be easily dismissed as clever (not in a complimentary way, meaning merely clever, meaning self-serving  and lacking substance) but I hope you’ll ponder this. If my ‘sort of low cunning’ here is a problem in any way, if it seems to be wordplay or even manipulative – consider that I have perhaps a few dozen followers. I am nobody with no authority whatsoever other than default white entitlement. I suppose if I got in a fight with a black guy or a Native, I might come off the better when the cops arrived. But the folks giving this sort of talk, the politicians that want us to know they’re going to rebuild and repair?

This their word game, not mine.

Who am I hurting, except if by some astronomical chance words like these actually somehow end up hampering the efforts of these talking heads to effect a return to the awful past? Now: who are they hurting, except everyone at the bottom levels of society, forever, to keep themselves in the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed?

Again, I will attempt to speak plainly: this trust, these relationships, they need to be built, built once, now, for the first time. How about, instead of harmful, racist hate speech about a past that is best left in the past, we try to start finally building these things? As always, the best time is ten years ago.

But now is good too.

A good start would be to ashcan and never again elect any sociopath who talks that way. Same goes for any media person who spreads this narrative, don’t listen to them. I’ll try to appeal to them though. For the press: please, please don’t waste our time talking this s@#t, you’re supposed to be sorting this stuff for us. Let’s talk about the real world.

OK, back to our would-be leaders.

I’m keenly aware that this whole post could still be seen as a bit of a reach, that my concerns here may not be shared by the great majority of those who I would most like to reach – but you know what? This is still a huge problem for exactly that demographic/stereotype. Perhaps many of those least concerned about race are the very people most concerned about big government and taxes, and if so what I’m describing here may be close to their hearts.

After hurricane Katrina, I read something about a scam that often follows disasters. Apparently, there were guys with trucks going around offering to repair and rebuild damaged and destroyed homes, many legit, but apparently some simply driving around selling the service, collecting deposits and never returning for the work. Of course you see where I’m going with this.

This is exactly the opportunistic, predatory scam our mayors and Police Chiefs are pulling when they make their speeches about ‘rebuilding trust.’ Perhaps they’ll set up a committee, maybe even a new ghetto-liaison office or something. Programs will be set up, and – mostly – posters will be printed, PR consultants will be given juicy contracts. Budgets will magically appear where money never existed before, and they will set to ‘rebuilding.’ Again, knowing that in reality there never was a better relationship and there is nothing to rebuild, they will do exactly nothing, period, just like every other time these problems have come up. They’ll have a budget, though! The bastards have our deposit.

Long and short, “re” anything means a return to the past, it means ‘nothing new.’ They’re selling us old crap at new prices, and they never have anything new to offer.