Media of Mass Destruction 1

(To Be Continued . . .)


Alicia Banks refers me to Jasmyne Cannick's page and the story of Jessica Hall - a Black woman who has been convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for tossing a cup of ice into a car window of someone who cut her off in traffic.

Ms. Hall made a terrible mistake not unlike millions of similar mistakes we witness from time to time. The incident certainly posed a potential danger that should require she engage some hard core community service. It does not come close to the level of severity of punishment these people are proposing.

If that weren't enough, ABC News offers a poll on her sentencing by providing two right wing conspiratoral options. One choice leaves you agreeing with this travesty of justice, or either you submit her sentence is improper only because "society would be worse off with a mother in prison."

This of course suggests that to be overzealous and underhanded in an effort to ruin someone's life might be inappropriate for Black mothers - but ought be left open for consideration with women and men who are not parents, fathers, our youth and the elderly.

We know during the enslavement of African peoples, holes were dug into the ground in which to gently couch an African woman's pregnant belly while they whipped her back unmercifully. They did this to protect what they perceived to be just another future field slave. It is not believable in an anti-affirmative action dynamic that they are suggesting leniency for a Black mother, but rather they are inferring the rest of us are disposable.

ABC offers a quick, italicized, woefully lacking disclaimer that their survey is "not scientific." What they leave out is that their poll is a trick, and that they are consummate tricksters who are working overtime to keep us sufficiently divided.

With that, the scurrilous manner in which the media presents "information" - how they shape it, taper and funnel it is as destructive and brainwashing as are their deliberate omissions.

What they intend to leave out is that Ms. Hall's sentence is not only outrageous in the scheme of that particular street corner event, but it is ludicrous in a climate in which we are so nationally forgiving of bogus claims of weapons of mass destruction, the torture of the merely accused, and the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocents with bomb droppings.

After all, in the media Ms. Halls cup of ice has been called akin to "a missile." How odd it is that they get it so very wrong about real live missiles that weigh a ton while they attached terms of heavy weaponry to this Sister's cup of ice.

No more than 3 or so years ago, a Black man told me of being in the parking lot at a Detroit hospital and not moving quickly enough for a hurried White male physician who screamed he was a doctor, had to get to the hospital fast, and who spat into his car window and drove off.

Rather than follow his first inclination, he followed him, got his license plate number and called the police - at which point he was advised to wipe the good doctor's spit off of his car - and move on.

Let's call this medical professional Dr. McMissile given they've resorted to referencing Ms. Hall by that last name. They told my friend that Dr. McMissile's liquid bombing raid on his car was something he could easily get over.

I suggest that this event would be something we could all get over, but this pervasive rush to rename our people (for a second time) and perpetrate public hangings over matters that are eclipsed by much larger offenses takes legal precedence over all else.


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Please note, news is the jury found Ms. Hall guilty and recommended 2 years imprisonment, but the judge in the case sentenced her to 5 years probation. We could even quibble about whether 5 years is suitable . . .

Also note, while it seems most of us "get it" about this case, other responses suggest the powers that be have really acculturated many of us to not give one another the benefit of the doubt, while we make excuses for the oppressor ad nauseum. Many of us don't stop to assess, we don't consider, we don't imagine, we don't reason and we don't identify with just about anything that has to do with our own people. I just saw an article not too long ago that talks about how Black folk are increasingly impatient and really hating on one another for our natural responses to immense societal pressures.

In the meantime, people from other communities who perpetrate or encounter equivalent offenses to this one are pulled to the side, urged to apologize, shake hands and forgive and forget.

They don't even get a ticket.

The "One Love" is gone and we had better get it back before it is too late.






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