Posted on 08/18/2014 8:20:40 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It was in a college theater class that I learned about a genre called “Theater of the Absurd.” These were plays written mostly by European playwrights between the 1940s and 1960s, as well as a certain style that flowed from their work.
What reminded me of this is now “playing” in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was – select one – a) innocently walking down the street when a police officer shot him to death without provocation, or, b) walking with a friend in the street and told by a police officer to get on the sidewalk, whereupon a physical confrontation occurred and Brown allegedly tried to grab the officer’s gun and was shot by the cop, now identified as Darren Wilson. This after Brown allegedly robbed a convenience store of some cigars and was seen on a store camera intimidating the clerk as he walked out, which may, or may not, have been related to the shooting.
The rioting and looting that followed and the pundits who weighed in with the familiar narrative about slavery, discrimination, stereotyping, joblessness, lack of education and absent fathers, are familiar scenes we have watched in incidents dating back to the race riots of the 1960s. Blue ribbon commissions have been appointed to study the “causes,” laws have been passed, little has changed.
The Theater of the Absurd, as defined by The American Heritage Dictionary, is “A form of drama that emphasizes the absurdity of human existence by employing disjointed, repetitious and meaningless dialogue, purposeless and confusing situations, and plots that lack realistic or logical development.”
Doesn’t this sound like Ferguson, Missouri, in recent days?
The cast of characters has expanded with the introduction of the National Guard, ordered to Ferguson by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon to quell the unrest, much of it apparently fomented, according to some locals, by outsiders taking advantage of the situation to engage in criminal activity.
Just how absurd things are getting in the St. Louis suburb and in some of the commentary written before all the facts are known can be seen in these headlines on the Drudge Report: “George Zimmerman attorney urges caution” (Zimmerman was found not guilty in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin); “Iran’s Ayatollah weighs in;” “Jesse Jackson: ‘state execution.’”
If jumping to conclusions were an Olympic sport, some of these loudmouths who insert themselves where they don’t belong and frequently fan flames instead of working to extinguish them would win gold medals.
The shooting galleries in Chicago and other major cities leave hundreds dead each year. Most shooters and victims are black, or Hispanic, but only the local news gives coverage. There are no statements from the president. No FBI or Justice Department investigative task forces are sent from Washington. I have yet to hear a credible explanation for this.
It is the same when a child disappears. A white child, especially a female, gets a lot of attention, a black child, no matter the gender, not so much. Isn’t this a form of racism?
One more question that adds to the absurdity: Why is so little attention paid to African-Americans who have overcome difficult circumstances to become responsible citizens and committed husbands and fathers? Possible answer: It doesn’t play into the media’s stereotypical portrayal of the black man as a frightening, threatening menace to society. Blacks who loot stores make for more dramatic pictures than those who are law-abiding. (To their great credit, Brown’s parents have repeatedly called for calm in Ferguson, to little avail.)
Don’t the major media have a bias of their own in these matters?
It’s all so absurd.
Blacks lose another one of their best and brightest, by their own claim.
Think about that.
What do you imagine his I.Q. was?
THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION is now in session - - - all rise!
The way the media is pushing this story, you have to wonder if they are this desperate for viewership; or maybe they are trying to save the Obama administration from the avalanche of bad news that is engulfing them.
One year ago in Oklahoma, three Black punks shot a 22 year old Australian exchange student in the back killing him. Why were there no riots, burning and looting by the white community? Where were Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to denounce this senseless crime? The Aussie student was out running and did nothing to provoke this attack. The three punks drove up in a car and just shot him in the back because they were “bored”.
The “media” is pushing the story because they think they’re dying to become part of the story.
The police need to shut them down because they’re contributing to most of the problems. The crowds are acting up trying to get on camera, interviewed, and so on.
“Cameras down, don’t shoot!”
This just in..... Brown was on synthetic marijuana.(bath Salts)...
You know, one would be tempted to say the kid was subliminal.
I don’t know for sure.
I think these kids, many of them, are capable of so much more. Sadly they grow up with grown-ups talking down society to them, showing by example they can’t make it, and destroying the child’s ability to think constructively.
Then you have them many times being told by their parents that they are just as good as any white guy. And in truth, if they simply followed the rules like more white kids did, I think they could achieve far more. But they don’t.
They relish the idea of living outside the societal rules that other humans live by, so they they can’t function in a modern day society. They don’t get eduction. They don’t get apprenticeship. They don’t have fathers around. They are a lost generation, with new ones growing up around them.
Then the last straw, is when they go to church and other social events, the parent, the family, the friends, the community expresses to these kids that they are doing just fine. Have your substitute daddy, the government and the gangs. You’ll be a real success.
So these guys confront the police, and they have the idea they are invincible, and that the police will back down. They think they are lord of flat-bush or something, and they try to pull the same bull-crap they do on the neighborhood kids, and it doesn’t work.
The guy could have a fairly decent mind in truth. He was just filled with all the negative energy that one could stuff into one kid.
Look at what is happening now. He is known to have robbed a convenience store. He is on film assaulting the proprietor.
At least some of the eye witness accounts back up the officers version. The guy was shot from the front. From what I understand he was head first laid out in the officer’s direction, which seems to back up the officer’s account.
So what do the black folks do? Why they tell the media, their community, and worst of all their kids, that this was not the fault of the man who died.
Honest to God, you just can’t fix stupid. These folks have lived for generations like this.
Look at all the immigrants we have coming into this nation with nothing, and they claw their way up in ten to fifteen years. They own a business, property, send their kids to the best schools, turn out the most brilliant kids, and the blacks completely miss the object lesson.
You don’t want to make assumptions about blacks, but for heaven’s sake, what are you to do in the face of what goes on decade after decade?
Do they ever want to be a success, or not? Evidently not!
I still don’t think they’re too stupid to learn. They have chosen not to learn.
Look at the blacks to do succeed. How do they do it, the ones who enter academia and succeed? They do it just like the whites, asians or others that come and work hard.
Who knew? When will blacks across the nation know?
Perhaps never.
BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES.
Exceptionally great book, lousy film.
IMHO, the injuries and murders in Chicago easily trump anything Ferguson can conjure up.
However, Chicago is mostly black on black violence, so it doesn’t count.
Good remarks and questions. I think he was angry anyway. Then he got amped up chemically, and was aggressive with the cop as he was with the store manager.
Still waiting for pics of cop to be released, assuming they took them post incident, a la’ George Zimmerman.
Good point. They can’t release them though, because it would be inflammatory to show the officer with bruises that would corroborate his story.
Perhaps they’ll release them over Holder’s objection anyway.
There’s a good book on the making of that terrible film. “Well I’m from the south and I’m beginning to not like this...”
Astute observation - might be useful to ask them why all their best and brightest are finding demise in criminal/seedy/confrontational/aggressive situations - at the hands of would-be victims. They don't seem to care a whit about all those being killed by their own thugs - must be that only the real gems end up in confrontations with the law and Whitey...
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