Seriously, it’s a lot going on and to devote separate blogs to them would tire me out, so here goes:

BP Oil and the White House. It is my understanding that the White House and subsequently Congress’ hands are proverbially “tied” with regards to cleanup issues concerning this oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  Because for the federal entities to declare BP incompetent to handle this spill only leaves the feds with the clean-up bill and, as Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said so eloquently, “To push BP out of the way, it would raise a question: Replace them with what?”   Governor Bobby Jindal, Rep.-La. has requested more “boom” which from what I can tell is merely styrofoam and some plastic that’s buoyant and keeps the oil slick from moving closer and closer to the coast line.

But, what’s at issue for me is that how is it that a company that netted over $10,000,000,000 in 2009 profits is acting so slowly as though they do not have the resources to handle this oil spill.  Also, what’s even more scary is that the federal government allows for a $75,000,000.00 cap on liabilities owed in a case such as this.

Really? for a company that easily makes close to $100,000,000 per day in gross income prior to expenses to only be liable for 75% of a daily income seems unconscionable.  Yes, Big Oil is in bed with Congress, and yes even the White House headed by our blessed President Barack Obama.

Rand Paul Needs To Go Somewhere and Saddown. So Rachel Maddow had great fun last week with the interview heard round the world.  Seriously, it was classic Maddow as her facial expressions told the entire story of the train wreck of an interview Rand Paul gave.

and

Seriously, this guy is trying to run for office.  Dear Lord, I’m sure Sarah Palin almost peed on herself in great joy when she heard this comments.  Honestly, I’m saying nothing different than what Maddow picked up on and tons of other political bloggers, we have a guy who’s against public discrimination, but believes so whole heartedly in the private sector that he’s seemingly okay with discrimination if that is the prerogative of the private business owner.  And he went so far as to classify racism as “bad business practice.”

Is this guy for real?

It’s 2010 and this debate is at the forefront of his campaign.  Even Rachel was just shocked that they got rabbit-holed on this one.  And for Paul to pick any hot-button issues to deal with, he picks this one as far as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And naturally, he tries to tie all of this crap to some warped and twisted interpretation of First Amendment Rights.  But I guess, in his own words, with regards to the candidacy of pure unadulterated fools, “sometimes accidents happen.”

Jody Weiss and the Chicago Police Department.  Okay, granted Chicago is not even a close second to the state of emergency and martial law in Jamaica at the time, but I live in Hyde Park here in Chicago and there are no blue light police boxes mounted to light poles in my neighborhood.  I would have to walk close to a mile in each direction of my house before I would find one.  And when I’d find one, I’d find one almost every corner.  So I’m sure to those residents, it often feels like its police-state with someone always watching you.  And as a black man in America, I naturally get nervous every time I see a police car, be it local or state.  The level of distrust that blacks, across the board regardless of class and income level is absolutely astonishing.  However, the argument as to societal influence or personal responsibility is always a valid one.

On one hand inner city blacks often suffer unwarranted and unnecessary harassment on behalf of police departments, but when historical numbers show that black men in my age group have a high incident of illegal behavior, then what’s the counter-argument?  The counter-argument is that men in general across racial boundaries have a higher incident of illegal behavior.  So that last night, around 11 pm as I was coming home on 55th and Lake Park and saw a group of black teenagers, or early 20s coming from under the viaduct just being loud and enjoying the hot summer night, they had a much higher chance of getting rolled on by the police than the same bunch of rowdy white kids doing the same thing on the same street corner at the same time of night.  And what scared me even more was that after I paused for 5 secs before allowing myself to jump to conclusions, I easily saw myself as being a part of that group.

This goes across the board with organized crime as well.

Street gangs are a form of organized crime, but the federal laws do not treat them as such, nor does general policing tactics allow for such a wide berth as others.  So when Jody Weiss in a press conference regarding the shooting death of on-duty Chicago police officer Thoman Wortham IV last week said that the “code of silence” had been broken which lead to the arrests of two of the suspects in the case, black folks in Chicago silently shook their head because we knew that it was coded language specifically speaking to blacks in black communities.  As if to say that their isn’t a “code of blue” which means officers don’t snitch on other officers, or a “code of silence” in mob families.

And by all accounts Weiss is a joke and is doing nothing more but ruining police and community relationships as if they were already strong in the first place.

The Shooting Death of Aiyana Jones. It was an accident.  I don’t think anyone is denying that, but still I heard the argument from someone on Twitter that this was the result of the violent culture of the family that she was a part of, therefore not totally the officers fault.  That the house in which Aiyanna was a part of was full of illicit activity with people coming in and out all times of the day and night–essentially saying that something like this was bound to happen.

The reason I can’t align with this type of logic is because of the storied history of police and black people.  Police in many communities are legalized terrorist organizations and they play on the fear of residents and use their authority unfairly.  We see this in many movies with art imitating life.  And we know that in the Jim Crow south that police departments were inexplicably linked to the Ku Klux Klan and their brand of terrorism.  Sure Aiyana could have been brought up in a different environment, but to make that argument makes it seem as though persons wanted a seven-year-old killed.  It was an accident.  And accidents happen, this one was just an unfortunate tragedy.

And we’ve got to do something about these no-knock warrants.  In 2006, Atlanta police shot and killed a 92 year old woman who had fired back to what she thought was intruders because they had the wrong house.

Leave your comments and rebuttals down below.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL