MANSFIELD: A Trifecta of Thoughts

Mans

Playing a Con Game

Since the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement, conservatives of every ilk and stripe have attempted to derail the effort to call attention to the massive number of police killings (that some are now calling executions) by pointing to the number of so-called “black-on-black” killings, while conveniently failing to note that the vast majority of killings in America are the result one member of a particular race killing another member. But they don’t speak about “white-on-white” killings.

These folks are attempting to exculpate wrongdoing by overly aggressive cops by using the magician’s (or con man’s) trick of misdirection, utilizing legerdemain and the art of prestidigitation by getting the supposed suckers and rubes (black folks) to focus on the left hand so they don’t see what the right hand is actually doing.

Certainly there is great concern regarding the number of deaths in the black community, and especially those from gunfire. And for over half a century there have numerous organizations — too many to mention here, and if you don’t know any of them, you’re wasting your time by reading this — focusing their efforts on alleviating the conditions that cause the poverty which is the root cause of the inordinate amount of crime in inner-city neighborhoods. By no means have blacks been ignoring the problem.

But what those who want to maintain the status quo are suggesting is, instead of protesting police killings, these activists should waste their time and expend their energies marching and protesting in black communities against black youth killing each other, while paying no attention to police brutality, which is a large part of the problem. When law enforcement take black lives cheap, so too do black thugs.

But protests and marches won’t solve the problem of black petty gangsters shooting at each other. However, such tactics will bring about changes in how America is policed.

Indeed, efforts to reduce gun violence in black communities would be far more successful if not for the machinations of the same right-wingers who call for blacks to waste their time marching and praying would cease in their efforts to block any programs, take away any funding, and prevent any efforts by blacks that might have a chance of success in overcoming the very problems their racism has created for us.

As bad as things are in some impoverished black communities, we must never lose sight of how they got this way: By centuries of untrammeled racism. We did not do this to ourselves.

But the temerity of white racists knows no bounds. They want to tell black folks what we should be focusing on (and get upset when we don’t follow their orders), while at the same instance doing everything in their power to derail potential solutions. And we’re supposed to stay dumb enough to not wake up to the games they’ve been playing for centuries.

 

The Myth of Being “Twice as Good”

There’s been a persistent myth handed down from generation to generation among blacks who strive to achieve success: “We have to be twice as good [as white folks].” We have to work twice as hard, do twice as much, be twice as honest and upright  — and success will come to us. Bullshit.

Total bullshit.

History has proven again and again that in many cases we’re three, four and five times as good as the white competition, and the outcomes are still the same: We still get fucked over — last hired, first fired, and usually passed over for promotions.

As Ta-Nehisi Coates, the brilliant African-American author, writes in Between the World and Me — his award-winning new book, “All my life I’ve heard people tell their black boys and black girls to be ‘twice as good,’ which is to say ‘accept half as much.’ These words would be spoken with a veneer of religious nobility, as if they evidenced some unspoken quality, some undetected courage, when in fact all they evidenced was the gun to our head and the hand in our pocket.” Hush, truth.

 

Is It Any Wonder?

The next time someone expresses surprise at how badly Cleveland’s public schools are performing, they need look no further for a reason than who was at the helm of the system from 1998 until 2006: Barbara Byrd Bennett. Yes, the same Barbara Byrd Bennett who’s getting ready to do the perp walk in Chicago for participating in a multimillion dollar bribery scheme.

During her tenure in Cleveland there were those who spotted her manipulations and called her out for the snake oil saleswoman she’s turned out to be. Her vaunted improvement numbers for Cleveland schools were suspect back then, and now that her true character has been reveled, we know that she isn’t above putting a bit (or a lot) of yeast in her figures, if it meant bigger paychecks for her and her cronies.

This bitch was so dumb she basically told the bribers in an email to rush her the money since she had “casinos to visit.” She must have had a real gambling Jones, since she’s been earning over a quarter million a year for decades, but still needed more and more money.

Can anyone tell me what she got her PhD in? It certainly wasn’t in honesty, integrity or common sense. And she may be taking her daughter down with her if the hundreds of thousands of dollars she illicitly received for a “scholarship fund” for her twin grandsons weren’t reported on the proper forms. Ouch!

The feds really don’t play that greedy shit when it comes to public monies. The only thing that’s going to beat her to a federal prison will be the headlights on the bus taking her there. Maybe she can bunk with Jackie Middleton, another greedy bitch who stole from the poor to finance a lavish lifestyle.

And like I wrote when Jimmy Dimora got his comeuppance, “If they can’t teach public officials to be honest, can they at least teach them how to take a bribe without getting caught?”

Which brings me by circumlocution to Eric Gordon, the current schools chief, a man who’s known to be scrupulously honest. But some are questioning his ability to be successful long-term since, as the joke goes on the east side of Cleveland, he must think all blacks look alike. Many people who have met him on numerous occasions comment that each time they shake hands there isn’t the slightest glimmer of recognition on his part. And, yes, I too have met him on numerous occasions and can attest to the veracity of those comments made by numerous others.

Hey Eric, part of your job, like it or not, is political — and good politicians all learn to remember names and faces, at least of some black folks. Just sayin’.

mansfieldcity

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.

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