Have you seen a pattern recently in the American media? There seems to be an endless stream, almost every day, of African Americans getting shot by police – seemingly for no reason. Afterward, the community protests and subsequent riots ensue. It’s not just one city. It’s all across the country. It has been going for some time, remember Ferguson? But recently, this same story has repeated itself more regularly. It started with the George Floyd shooting by police in Minneapolis. We all saw what appeared to be horrific actions of police when trying to apprehend Floyd by placing his knee on his neck, which we were told killed him. Weeks later, the actual truth came out – see here.
We now know that the shooting of Jacob Blake which sparked the current violent riots in Kenosha, WI had another side to the media’s story. He was in the act of a felony, resisting arrest and armed with a knife! The media have just now released a “shocking video” of an incident that happened in March 2020, of a man named Daniel Prudes who died in police custody. The media left many details out of that story for the first 24 hrs, like he was a mentally ill man, completely naked, high as a kite on PCP, and was spitting on officers claiming to have COVID. The autopsy claims death resulted in physical restraint, excited delirium [and] acute phencyclidine [PCP] intoxication.
Here is the latest headline from Teen Vogue, “18-Year-Old Deon Kay’s Fatal Shooting by Police Sparked D.C. Protests.” The story goes on to say about the Deon Kay shooting, “I’m a Black person living in this city. I’m tired of seeing people like me get murdered. I’m tired of the mayor not being accountable for it.” Murdered? After the fog cleared, as we have seen so many times, the man had a gun and threaten police officers. A relative of Deon’s told reporters that police shot her nephew in the back, and the bullet pierced his heart. What do you think will happen when you threaten a police officer with a gun … duh?
So what is going on here? The pattern seems so predictable to make it happenstance. Is there a knowing or unknowing collusion to create a narrative of “systemic racism” to push a political agenda? Are Democratic party officials, political operatives, and media using African Americans as pawns, or cannon fodder, to push an agenda to secure their votes? Victimization is a powerful political tool to obtain votes and make political opponents feckless. But to encourage and to use unsuspecting actors on the ground to fulfill a narrative would be insidious.
Let’s examine the modus operandi on how these folks may be using African Americans to achieve their political and subsequent financial objectives. It goes something like this:
- Portray African Americans as a victim class that are being targeted by police.
- Encourage policing policies that enable marginal criminal elements, via defunding police, soft prosecutions, no cash bail, and early prisoner releases.
- An event occurs where police are required to threaten and/or use lethal force – preferable with an edited inciteful video.
- The media jumps on a leading bleeding story of police using force, but only giving one side of the story that shows excessive police force to gain sympathy.
- Ill-informed public outrage occurs, leading to protests and subsequent riots in the affected community.
- A few days or weeks pass, and the truth comes out that the perpetrator, in fact, was mostly a part of the criminal element and was resisting arrest, often justifying the use of police force.
- Social Media and search engines suppress and censors the subsequent truth from being place into the public domain to maintain the narrative.
- With the passing of time and disinformation, truth is either forgotten, considered police excuses, and even conspiracy theories.
- Search and/or even encourage the next event to occur and find the next African American martyr, to become the next piece of cannon fodder.
- The narrative is re-enforced – rinse and repeat.
A disturbing effect on society occurs when this insidious modus operandi cycle of victimhood occurs – here are a few:
- A whole class of people is celebrated as martyrs, which encourages more events to occur, to create more martyrdom.
- Communities are destroyed with the ravages of the looting and rioting, making fertile ground to create even more events and criminal activities.
- Media obtains clickbait to enable advertising revenue, at the expense of human lives.
- Elites can point to “others” (i.e., policing, race, and other bigotries) as the core problems in society and not them.
- Political leaders having a ravaged debased population, have fertile ground to offer more government programs to correct. This will make this same population as their voter base and ensure a government money flow to vendors that will stand ready to provide services and make money to correct the manufactured problem.
Academics talk about African Americans’ loss of trust in law enforcement in terms of “police legitimacy,” a concept that describes a community’s faith in the police to keep it safe. Where police legitimacy goes down, crime goes up. When crimes do lead to police investigations, friction between law enforcement and minority communities can make cases harder to solve. At the same time, communities of color note the absence of police at times and in the places where they are needed most. Read more here.
Mostly this modus operandi has been effective. But recently, many African Americans are waking up – thankfully. A recent poll from Rasmussen shows that 36% of black voters approve of Donald Trump’s job as president. In 2016, Donald Trump won only 8% of black voters compared to Hillary Clinton, who won 88%, according to Pew Research. No, you may never find a memo giving orders that confirms this modus operandi, but nevertheless, none of the alleged nefarious actors in this scheme do anything to stop it. Hmmm …
VOTE wisely and don’t become anyone else’s cannon fodder.
