Thursday, April 18, 2019
Pulitzers
In this NPR Morning Edition story, they highlighted the wins from 4 prize winning stories. There are LOTS of awards so they can't say a blurb about every winner. Just four of em. And three of them highlight were about shootings in Annapolis, Pittsburgh, and Florida. So they were pushing the gun ban angle by their selections there at NPR. Didn't mention the hard hitting Trump finanicals story winner. Mueller was a bust, gotta move on to another subject they think has traction. They think it is guns.
The 4th story mentioned was one about a residual Jim Crow law. One that allowed conviction even when a jury isn't unanimous. So: racism. Fair enough.
But it is odd, because Gun Control is HUGELY a residual Jim Crow law. All gun control is racist.
Which got me to thinking.
I don't think gun control is 100% racist. Just 80% or so? 75%? Still so very racist that arguing over the degree is slicing the baloney thinner. A meal that is all poison or only three quarters poison is still poison, after all. But that other part, the smaller sliver that isn't about race so much.
Communities that thinks guns are icky and consider it gauche to have a gun or bear a gun in their work or church. "It's just not done! We are a civilized news room, and few to no brown skinned people interact with us here, so its not our racism that makes us eschew guns for ourselves."
It's not racism that makes them choose to be unarmed and relatively helpless. They don't want to get their hands dirty. They have contracted off responsibility for their protection to the State. They think this removes them from the burden, but the shootings all proved that assumption or safety wrong. And now their world is upside down. And they lash out with... irrational policies that make taking responsibility for themselves even harder. And they can't see that. It's a mental disconnect they cannot see.
So... classist? In America? Well, we avoid a LOT of Class warfare in this country because we are America, and not Britain. But we still got some, I am forced to admit. But we also have self-deception. And these snooty people might just be sophists. A sophistry that can, in the end, be self-defeating in the cases where it turns deadly.
"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--..."
Gun control is very class-oriented. If you were around in the `60s and `70s, the "evil assault rifle" of the day was the "Saturday Night Special", a gun, as the narrative went, was fit only for killing.
ReplyDeleteThat low-income people couldn't afford to buy a Colt Gold Cup, a Python, a Model 27 or a Model 14 was a feature, not a bug.
Also, the awarding of the Pulitzer Prizes for journalism is very much a process that one could call "inside baseball" or "corrupt as all get out". A number of awards, funnily enough, go to newspapers who have connections with the Pulitzer Prize Board.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, the awards are merited. Sometimes, they aren't. the "aren't", in this case, was dubious on a few levels. But I'd probably be sliding into legal trouble if I said more.