I wasn’t sure I was going to write about this topic, especially so early on in my blog. Part of my reasoning is that it was an older-ish news story and, even though this “scandal” was one of the reasons I decided to start this site, I wanted to try and stay more current. Luckily, I suppose, our president took care of that for me over the long weekend, though:
Another reason is that I don’t know how accurately I can write about this because I don’t personally know what it’s like to be black in the United States. I can’t truly understand what it is to experience racism like they have. I don’t want to come off as obnoxious, disingenuous, or self-righteous trying to explain my understanding of it when you, reading this, don’t know me or my sense of humor very well yet.
My last reason is that I strongly believe that, while average citizens might truly be angry, the outrage coming from the president and the conservative media pundits is inauthentic. They aren’t truly angry, but they know they can rile up their audience if they pretend they are. It’s largely meant to be a distraction for us in two ways. The first is keeping our minds off of other, more important things, like the CBO’s analysis of the tax bill, for example. The second is to avoid discussing the real issue that these guys are kneeling because of, which is a lot harder than berating them for disrespecting troops and the country that gives them millions of dollars to entertain it. But I find myself wanting to write about that real issue.
Proverbially Progressive 