It didn’t take long for Donald J. Trump to openly criticize President Joe Biden’s stutter following the State of the Union address. Yes, Biden has a stutter. So do millions of other people. My cousin had it bad growing up. Jeff Goldblum built his entire acting career over stammering and stuttering his lines even though he doesn’t have a speech impediment. Growing up in the South, you often heard how people from the other part of the country and world “talked funny.” And then you move away and then listen to how the people around you talk and you’re thinking, “They’re saying others talk funny.”
This isn’t a post about stuttering. It’s about how we as a society go after people we view “aren’t like the rest of us.” Is there anyone out there who is like Trump? Sadly, yes. That’s why so many people like him. He’s brought out the worst of the worst. The people who never or hardly voted have turned out in the last decade to support him. Trump is using the same strategy Richard Nixon and the Republicans used in the 1960s following the Civils Rights Movement. If they could get all the racists and bigots on their side, they might have a way to get more votes and eventually win.
It was called the “Southern strategy.” Unfortunately, so many people from the South were so ignorant to see how they were being used, they supported it. They played right into the hands of party for the last 50-60 years. And if you go through many areas in the South, you’d realize they didn’t get much out of it except more poverty, oppression and degradation.
That’s what they’re doing now. They’re fighting “wokeness.” But it’s really a way to take hold of a situation they know they can’t lose. They thought opposing abortion was going to be their baby, so to speak. That didn’t work. They thought they could go after same-sex marriage. Nope. That’s very popular among all sides. And even some Republicans are saying police brutality and racism is out of hand. I mean liberals/leftist can be just as racist and prejudice as anyone. And the way people scratched their heads over the murders of Botham Jean, Breona Taylor and especially Ahmaud Arbery was a line in the sand that had been drawn. You can still be conservative but you had to admit that Jean, Taylor and especially Arbery should all still be alive.
If you don’t, then you are a racist and bigot…just like Trump. But it’s getting them votes and donations. Just like it’s getting all other politicians from conservative red states are getting the votes and donations. That’s why they’re going after the LGBTQIA community – the last hoorah they have to do before they lose control as all the older conservatives die off in the next 10-15 years, if not sooner. It doesn’t matter what else is going on in America, they can get the votes from the awful people out there who don’t want “that filth” as Oklahoma State Sen. Tom Woods, a Republican, said.
Yes, they may watch same-sex and transgender porn all the time. So many men are turned on by seeing two women have sex. If VHS copies were still around, they would’ve worn out the scene between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in Black Swan. However, if they can get more votes and more money, then it’s worth it to pass legislation to go after certain people, the way they used to make people think there was reverse racism. It doesn’t matter that people like Nex Benedict will get “jumped” and beaten in a restroom at a school. The way people have tried to rationalize it saying they threw water on them first. Well, unless they were witches and would melt, I don’t think it’s a fair fight.
Last time I checked, Oklahoma is a Stand Your Ground. What about fight or flight? If three people flank you in a restroom and all you have is some H2O to throw on people, then throw it. I’m sure if this had been the other way, people would’ve been defending the person who threw water. So, it just shows you Stand Your Ground is a selective process like other policies and procedures.
Our society, for some reason, seems to encourage bullying and even rewards it. Sports and athletic events are a hot bed for rewarding horrible behavior. Taunts have almost become common among players, fans and even coaches. Look at soccer hooligans in other parts of the world and how they act. The rivalries between the L.A. Lakers and Boston Celtics, the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Commanders (nee Redskins), New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox make the Hatfields and McCoys looks like juvenile.
I’ve covered sports and see the worst at the local level. I know good and well, it’s worse at higher levels. I think the problem is people get too emotional about something that really doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t. Ask yourself. Who won what games from when you were in high school without researching it? Then ask yourself, why the hell should I even care? It’s been 27 years since I graduated high school. It’s hard to believe but I can’t tell you one single score. What I can tell you is how the other schools treated us. Some were very nice when they hosted us. Others were plain awful when we hosted them.
Recently, there was a senior high school basketball player from Inola, Okla,. who said she was constantly mocked during a championship game. Inola is a town about 30 miles east of Tulsa. This didn’t happen while she was in play. It happened while she was sitting on the bench. I believe her. I’ve seen it. I even say some kids badger and harass the band members of the visiting team once while they were waiting for half-time. A lot of this comes from parents who live vicariously through kids.
And when they see their parents going after someone like Greta Thurnberg, who just wants to live in a world with less pollution, they’re going to go after whoever they feel like. I just learned that the carpet and rug factories from where I grew up in northwest Georgia has been dumping chemicals for years, getting into the waterways. There’s no telling how this has affected people. Fighting pollution shouldn’t be a Democrat vs. Republican thing. But as long as people can spin it that way, people will drink a huge gallon of the polluted water even if they have tumors like The Elephant Man.
The sad part about Nex, if it was a suicide from an overdose of allergy pills and anti-depressants, is probably because they knew what was in store for them when they did return to the school. Yes, I agree we don’t pay our educators enough. I also think some don’t deserve the credit because they encourage bad behavior. A lot of them look the other way. And since we’ve let schools have fucking police departments and law enforcement, we’re taking the jobs out of counselors and even the mindless administrators to punish all students. Winona Ryder talks about being bullied as a child and the school side with her attackers. It’s like that.
Owasso is a small town north of Tulsa. But I can guarantee what demographic the students were who did it or at least one or two of them. It’s been 10 years since a young woman was drugged and raped at an afterparty following prom at my alma matter. And there hasn’t been any trial. The case never made it pass the preliminary hearings. Why? Three of the alleged attackers were student athletes. People defended them not the victim. Some of them still have the attackers on their Facebook Friend’s list. To that, I say, “Let them babysit your daughters. Oh, I thought you said it was just a rumor.”
Christine Blasey Ford who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of a sexual assault when they were in college was interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning this past week. She said her and her family got so much hate mail and death threats they had to move into a hotel for months. This is the world we live in. If Nex did commit suicide, can you blame them for not wanting to live in it anymore? Anita Hill faced more criticism for accusing Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment and assault than Ginni Thomas has for her connection to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection coup attempt.
But let’s look at who the leaders are of the Republican Party. Trump said recently there will be a bloodbath if he doesn’t win this election. Normally, this would result in an investigation and a candidate having to drop out. But we passed that hard limit a long time ago. The only good thing this time around is he’s not in office and there are probably many people anticipating the same crap as four years ago.
Next there is Sen. Mitch McConnell, who refused to even allow a hearing when Merrick Garland was appointed by President Barack Obama. And then there’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) who criticizes young people like David Hogg who watched his friends and fellow classmates get gunned down back in 2018 because he wants people to go to “safer” schools. But like all bullies, Trump, McConnell and MTG cry foul whenever someone hits back.
Some bullies just live to be antagonistic. It doesn’t end at school. It happens in families, in towns, and at work. When you can’t get away from it no matter where you go, that’s a problem. So, why are we like this? I think it’s mainly because we can’t feel inferior to anyone. But that’s the problem. Stop thinking others are “better than you.” If Nex fought back, they shouldn’t have gotten in trouble. I hate to think Nex did all this just because they knew it wouldn’t get the attention otherwise. A non-binary Oklahoma students gets “jumped” and the powers that be try to cover it up. A non-binary Oklahoma student dies a day after getting “jumped” and they can’t cover it up.
I’m still holding out hope we’ll learn more. But a lot of people in the LGBTQIA community end up taking their own lives. And garbage like Dave Chappelle makes a joke about it. But if Chappelle, who was saying these jokes for years, wasn’t saying what the racist and bigots thought, he’d be their target. You can play the “house negro” all you want, but one day “massa” decides you’re not good enough for that anymore. One thing history classes don’t teach is how people would eat enslaved people because they considered them animals. Once the hen stops laying the eggs, it is cooked up.
And I’m sure a lot of this hate from these people says they want to raise their children in a “safe world.” And we all know what they mean by being “safe.” I don’t believe in God anymore. There might have been a Jesus Christ. But all the stuff that happens in the world doesn’t make a bit of sense if we say God punishes people because my brother and his husband got married. There have been so many people like Nex Benedict afraid to even come out as non-binary. Who were they bothering? Not I. Were they bothering you? Tell me how. Don’t quote the Bible. Give me a good solid reason. Let’s have a Gore Vidal/William F. Buckley debate on this.
If your argument is that you don’t agree with it, then there are people who don’t agree the re-casting of Aunt Viv on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. We don’t kill people over it. People like thin crust pizza and others like deep dish. We don’t pass laws telling people we will put them in concentration camps if they get one or the other.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 