Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Be Thankful For Small Favors: New Hampshire Is Not Texas

Just when you get frustrated about some lunatic New Hampshire state Representative who believes SMOG is the major threat to Hampton, New Hampshire (sort of like the Dr. Stranglove character, Base Commander, Jack D. Ripper, who thought fluoridated water was the greatest threat to America), you have to get some perspective when you see real life in McKinley, Texas on youtube. However bizarre things may seem in New Hampshire, we do not hold a candle to Texas. 

Really, we have to be grateful to be living in a time when every citizen has a video camera and all the spin and fluff and obfuscation by which police cover up what they actually do in the wild can be quickly exposed.

So much can be seen on youtube which could never be understood in conventional newspaper reports and the limits of print media and of news media can be seen in bold relief when you see the unedited events, the raw data as it were, on you tube. 

There is also a very useful posting with a narrator, Cenk Yugar, of "The Young Turks," who makes no pretense of being non judgmental, but who gives an unusually complete account of what happened.  He does not need to comment on the nature of the white adult women who apparently initiated the altercation at the swimming pool where the episode began. Once you get a look at those white women, no  more need be said. 

The short summary is a Black teenager invited some Black friends to what appears to be a neighborhood pool for a party and white adults using the pool objected to Blacks using the same water. They hurled insults at the Black adolescents, telling them to go back to their Section 8 (welfare) housing where they belonged. (No matter, the Black kids were just as affluent as their white antagonists and in fact, most of them lived in the same neighborhood.) It was just raw racism, which, given the fact this is Texas is not surprising. And once you look at the women who started things by  slapping the adolescents, you do not need a whole lot more explanation. They look like candidates for some of those postings called, "Shoppers At Walmart" which document the extent of American grotesque.

But the best part is when the police arrive and you can see the star of the show, a policeman named Eric Casebolt, is not the sharpest blade in the drawer.  He throws an apparently innocent Black teenage girl in a bathing suit to the ground, pulls his gun and the Black males around her sensibly retreat.  No attempt to discern the facts is made. It is clear for Officer Casebolt the Blacks are guilty of Bathing while Black, Breathing while Black and  Speaking while Black. 

It's all there, bare, unvarnished and very real.

Fred Rice, it turns out, is small potatoes. 

2 comments:

  1. Mad Dog,
    Agreed, thankfully our resident nut-Fred the Smogmaster-is not armed, well actually he probably is, but thankfully does not have a cruiser and a badge at his disposal..Nor is he likely to be able to duplicate that weird running roll that Officer Casebolt performed when he arrived on the scene. Not many people would, it's obviously something the good officer must have perfected in his backyard. I have to confess I was fascinated (and amused) by that move and figure that grand entrance alone would have made it apparent he was a few cards short of a full deck, even before he began to threaten and brutalize the teens..What was up with the heavyset white guy who's blank facial expression appeared more like what you'd expect on someone who was alone in a park rather than on the face of someone standing next to Officer Crazy as he pushes the young girl into the ground..All joking aside, there has to be a better way for police departments to weed out, during the hiring process, power hungry nut jobs like Eric Casebolt. Their existence in the ranks is an insult to all the honorable, well trained and decent cops out there.. I also agree with you on the godsend the ability to video is, without it he- and a lot of his fellow aberrant brethren- would have been able to terrorize citizens for years, before they eventually seriously injured or killed someone...Officer Casebolt left out on the prowl in a cruiser is a situation that would not have ended well...
    Maud

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  2. Ms. Maud,

    And this is what happens in the light of day, with citizens around to bear witness. Can you imagine what can happen in a jail?
    Remember strip searches?
    And our Supreme Court is still more worried about the jailers than the handcuffed women and men who come under their control.
    Mad Dog

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