Kenosha

There are a lot of horrible things that happened as the result of the even more horrible police shooting of Jacob Blake, Jr. in the back in Kenosha, Wisconsin last Sunday.  There were the subsequent protests that devolved into violence, some of it the result of black anger at the police but far more likely brought on by right-wing troublemakers.  There was one right-wing troublemaker in particular, Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two people with a long gun during the protests and was not arrested (he turned himself in to police, most likely because his image was caught on video).  There was the destruction caused by the riots that resulted from the actions of people like Rittenhouse, who was descried as "troubled," though a black man would have been called "violent."  But the most horrible thing, apart from the actual shootings, was particularly horrible.

The Republicans exploited it at their heinous convention, especially Donald J. Trump.

The Republicans tried to pin the riots on failed Democratic policies in cities and states under Democratic control, and they tried to tie this to Joe Biden, saying that this is what Joe Biden's America would look like.  No, no, no - this is what Donald Trump's America already looks like!

And there's been a pandemic, not to mention a hurricane in the Gulf Coast and severe thunderstorms in the Northeast (a couple of which generated tornadoes) souped up by climate change, which Trump denies.

There are some mitigating factors about what happened in Kenosha.  One is that Jacob Blake, Jr. is still alive, though he's likely to be paralyzed from the waist down, and as a survivor of a police shooting, he has some strong testimony to offer.  Another is that sports leagues, included the lily-white National Hockey League, temporarily suspended play in protest of the Blake shooting.  And the fact that Rittenhouse, the white kid, was ignored by police even after he killed two people even as Blake was shackled to his bed - not for medical reasons but for standing charge against him for sexual assault (which apparently hasn't been proven yet) - should make more people aware of the inconsistencies in policing in America.  (To be fair, Rittenhouse has since been charged with homicide.)

Alas, Kenosha seems to be helping Trump more than Biden, at least for the time being.  While Trump parades around with swagger and vowing to restore law and order in a situation his penchant for lawlessness and disorder has helped create, Biden has done little more than condemn the violence in low-energy, meekly presented social-media videos without addressing the larger question of whether the violence in Kenosha has made suburban voters and particularly voters in crucial Wisconsin feel less safe.  Democrats are now worried as to how Kenosha may play into Trump's hands despite his Orwellian efforts to deflect blame for violence happening on his watch as a result of his embrace of chaos to others.

Biden has nine weeks and change to sharpen his condemnations of violence that comes out of peaceful protests as well as call out rhymes-with-glass-poles like Kyle Rittenhouse for adding fuel to the flames.  He plans to hit the campaign trail after Labor Day with pandemic-restricted events, an acknowledgment that his basement campaign no longer works.  And I hope Kenosha is his first stop.  The virulent racism in These States may have helped Trump during his party's connection week (don't get me started on Mike Pence's comments), but, hopefully, it won't help him for long.

To The Letter

A couple of weeks ago, after Trump made his "pilgrimage" across the street from the White House  to hold an upside-down Bible to prove . . . something, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered the painting of huge letters spelling out "BLACK LIVES MATTER" on Sixteenth Street NW, in the block between H and K Streets, which leads to the White House from the north.   That block of Sixteenth Street NW was officially named "Black Lives Matter Plaza.")

What Mayor Bowser did was something very American, though, I'm sorry to say, it wasn't free speech. 

In no way am I suggesting that I have any problem with the Black Lives Matter movement.  I support most of what they do.  I just don't support this. This stunt is typical of something peculiarly and regrettably American - the Big Statement, the oversized, Brobdingnagian gesture that is deliberately out of scale and out of proportion to make sure that people Get It.  Two of the most obvious examples of this include Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, with its giant busts depicting four U.S. Presidents - only one of whom ever set foot in the Dakotas - and the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, which, although a gift from France, still fits the American penchant for gigantism.  Paul Fussell noted the kitschiness to Lady Liberty's execution, complete with a torch that lights up at night.  Want a more recent example of bigger being better?  How about this giant bust of John F. Kennedy, in the Washington performing arts center that bears his name, which one wag has called a "mud monster?"  This pseudo-impressionistic sculpture was meant to honor the individual for bringing high art and culture to the forefront of American consciousness, but that person in fact was Kennedy's wife Jackie.  Jack preferred Sinatra to symphonies, and his idea of classic literature was Ian Fleming.

And although they were built to make money rather than statements, I can't help but mention the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, with its giant indoor amusement park, and the American Dream Meadowlands Mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, with its indoor ski slope.  Although constructed for commercial purposes, these establishments - inspired by, all things, a foreign landmark, the West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada - are in keeping with the American idea of bigger being better,  the idea that the best way to impress the masses is with sheer size.  Size, alas, does matter, and it certainly shouldn't matter as much as the black lives Muriel Bowser seeks to call attention to.    

And though I would have renamed that block of Sixteenth Street NW George Floyd Plaza, because that would have been instrumental in giving him a sense of permanence and importance in the civil rights struggle and would have been much less awkward than naming a street for a slogan, Black Lives Matter Plaza is certainly preferable to a number, and definitely preferable to a letter, as east-west streets in downtown Washington are named.  

I don't know why Mayor Bowser thought that painting BLACK LIVES MATTER would have an effect on Trump, unless she figured he'd see it every time Marine One lifts off from the White House lawn. But most people who see it will see it from ground level, which doesn't have the same effect.  It might even throw off some motorists.  People in the upper floors of the adjacent buildings alongside Sixteenth Street NW will see it all the time long after receiving the same in the news media and may even stop noticing it.  Whether those letters are there to stay or not -  I guess it depends on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election - is a moot point, as the American penchant for making grand gestures with all of the subtlety of a pie in the face or a talk-radio show will continue.

Don't believe me?  How about the painting of large letters spelling BLACK LIVES MATTER on a street in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood recently?  Or the painting of large letters spelling DEFUND THE POLICE on a Seattle street?  And dig this. A black activist asked recently on Twitter who should be on a black Mount Rushmore.  No.  It's not that black people need a Rushmore-type monument of their own to counter the original Mount Rushmore.  It's that the original Mount Rushmore was such a ridiculous idea in the first place.

And do black people really want to be as ridiculous as white people by making oversized gestures that insult people's appreciation for subtlety?