BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY JULY 29, 2019) — THE PLANET steps aside today for this guest column from John McWhorter. We occasionally publish guest columns not because we agree or disagree with the content but because they are reasonably well written and contain arguments pertaining to relevant social issues. Up or down, left or right, if you have something to say, we invite you to put it into words. We will publish submissions that meet those simple criteria. We do it as yet another way to make this site responsive to the need for open exchanges in the free marketplace of ideas. As the local mainstream media restricts opportunities for free speech, THE PLANET seeks to expand those opps.

With that, we present a column dealing with the problem of black-on-black violence. It seems fitting we should publish it now, with  presidential politics on the Democrat side having been reduced to one issue: race. That issue will dominate the upcoming Dem debates, we predict. Frontrunner Joe Biden will be standing between Kamala Harris and Corey Booker, the marshmallow in the ‘smores. By the time the two have done with Biden over “white privilege” and shrieking “racist,” Biden will emerge the stronger. The polls won’t show it, but Dems will secretly realize that Biden is their only chance to avoid getting overwhelmed by the President in 2020 — secretly, because not one in their number has the pragmatism let alone guts to reign in then eliminate race-themed politics. Trump presides over a strong economy and record-low unemployment, with the Fed about to lower interest rates.

Dems until recently had one other issue beside race: impeachment. Then they had the brilliant ides to call Robert Mueller to testify on the Hill. End of discussion. They thought Mueller would come in with enough loaded ammo to sink Trump. Instead, a tired, old, feeble looking Mueller took the hot seat with a cap gun with no caps. James Freeman of the Wall Street Journal put it most cleverly when he asked, “Did Robert Mueller Read The Mueller Report?” Kyle Smith of the New York Post called Mueller’s appearance “the Al Capone’s Vault of political news.”

The Dems blew it big time, and now they are left with a party hijacked by the a contingent so far left it can’t be found on the wing. They’re trying to push Biden, their only real chance, out of the way with by playing the race card. All that brand of totalitarianism will achieve is self-immolation.

Now to the guest piece.

———- 000 ———-

Special to THE PLANET

By John McWhorter

The reason Black Lives Matter has a lot of eyes rolling is not because people don’t care about black people and don’t understand the problem with police. The problem is that the typical black man in a particular kind of community is at much, much more risk of being killed by another black man. And you can’t argue it away. There are all these sophisticated feints such as saying that there’s a difference between the state murdering and citizens murdering. But none of it goes through.

Hundreds of black men are killing each other every summer. And so I think, in short, Black Lives Matter is important. It could make an important difference in modern black history. But for it to be a movement that resonates historically, it has to add a new wing where it firmly says and stands behind the idea that black lives matter when black people take them too.

There has to be a second wing that goes into black communities and works in a real way on the black-on-black murders. That would make Black Lives Matter complete. As it is now, it’s incomplete, and it looks shrill. The idea that Black Lives Matter only when white people try to take take them looks childish,  peevish, wrong, and incomplete.

I am never more struck than I am lately about how certain sentences that you hear often enough are accepted as truth until they become almost a kind of music. You take a group of people who are all the same color and you put them together in neighborhoods where job opportunities are not great. And the inevitable result is that the men are going to start killing each other over trivia?

That is an equation that I don’t think any historian or any anthropologist would think of as applicable to homo sapiens that we know.

A group of people who are poor, all put together in one place, without a whole lot of opportunity will start killing one another. No. If you think about it, it would be considered racist if a white person said that 75 years ago.

But today we’re somehow encouraged to think about that as an “enlightened” or “humane” take on what goes on in black America. And as far as changing the subject, all you have to do is think about the mother who just lost her second son. Now go up to her with a pad and tell her, “Well, this is really sad, but we’re really more interested in things that the state does. We’re really more interested in things that people who are responsible for the public order do. Now the fact that this was done by somebody who was from three blocks over, well, we’re sorry, that’s regrettable, but we’re not concerned with that. We’re doing this now.” It seems almost inhumane yet we’re supposed to accept that as wisdom.

And it’s not that the black men shooting each other are evil. I understand their humanity too.

But the idea that democracy is threatened by the white cop whereas if the kid from three blocks over does it, well he’s just an ordinary person? No!

The situation that we’re in now is as if—think about Selma. Think about watching people coming over that bridge with the terrible things that happened, and meanwhile over on the other side of the bridge, black teenagers were killing each other by the dozens every summer. And the idea was, “No, we’re not really going to think about that, because they kinda can’t help it, and that’s not important.” Imagine what Selma would’ve looked like if that’s what the situation was. That’s where we are now. And no amount of fancy Latinate words can disguise that simple fact from me or most of America watching.

———- ooo ———-

THE PLANET thanks our guest writer. We invite anyone to submit columns to this website. We will publish irrespective of political leaning, as long as they are well written and argued.

—————————————————————————————————–

“Television has changed the irresistible force to an immoveable object” — Laurence J. Peter.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL

The views and opinions expressed in the comment section or in the text other than those of PLANET VALENTI are not necessarily endorsed by the operators of this website. PLANET VALENTI assumes no responsibility for such views and opinions, and it reserves the right to remove or edit any comment, including but not limited to those that violate the website’s Rules of Conduct and its editorial policies. PLANET VALENTI shall not be held responsible for the consequences that may result from any posted comment or outside opinion or commentary as provided in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and this website’s terms of service. All users of this website — including readers, commentators, contributors, or anyone else making use of its information — hereby agree to these conditions by virtue of this notice. When PLANET VALENTI ends with the words “The Usual Disclaimer,” that phrase shall be understood to refer to the full text of this disclaimer.