Tavis Smiley Spoke a Prophetic Word (And He Certainly Wishes He Hadn't)

There's no need to watch the entire video below to see what I'm referring to in the title. Watch until 2:15 or so and then come back to me.

You may find yourself wondering why I would bring up that particular exchange at this moment, and what I'm on about by doing so. Wonder no longer, gentle reader. The grand jury has ruled in the John Crawford III case in Ohio.

The grand jury declined to file charges for murder, reckless homicide, or negligent homicide against the officers who shot Crawford on sight as he stood alone in the pet aisle in his local Walmart citing a lack of probable cause. It's important to point out that Mr. Crawford lived in Ohio, an open carry state, so even if he were carrying a loaded rifle he would have been within his rights to do so. It would appear that, at least in Ohio, a person ostensibly exercising constitutionally guaranteed rights is subject to being killed by the police on nothing more than the word of a person, whose reliability is never once questioned, making a 911 call. Upon seeing Mr. Crawford for the first time, the security footage of the incident shows, the police never challenged him. They never said a word to him before opening fire. They simply fired their high-velocity assault weapons at him. He was struck twice—once in the arm and once in the side resulting in what the prosecutor in this case called "a catastrophic wound" through the liver which Mr. Crawford could not have survived.

Despite declaring that Mr. Crawford had done absolutely nothing wrong, Prosecutor Piepmeier cited the officers' training for active shooter situations as justification for their actions in this case. It would seem important to point out that no shots were ever fired by anyone other than the officers who killed Mr. Crawford. One must conclude that, at least in Ohio, active shooter situations do not require active shooters. This fact is troubling in the extreme.

One is left to wonder what might have instigated the events which ended with Mr. Crawford dying on the floor of that aisle. If you watch the two videos of the press conference, the security footage makes it plain that Mr. Crawford's actions were being blatantly misrepresented by the single person who was describing what was happening. Never once did Mr. Crawford "wave (the gun) at a couple of kids" as the caller, Ronald Ritchie, claims. (Incidentally, Ritchie is just a peach.) Never once does Mr. Crawford appear to be "trying to load it" as Ritchie claims. In fact, Mr. Crawford's presence never caused a moment's concern for the mother who appeared with the two children Ritchie tells the 911 dispatcher had the pellet gun waved at them. None of them even appear to notice Mr. Crawford.

My wondering what might have led to this tragedy is fairly transparent, I would say. It's clearly race, which brings me back to Tavis Smiley's comment which ended his conversation with Bill O'Reilly. In the midst of all the furor over the summer involving open carry demonstrations during which Second Amendment activists (notably, white ones) carried assault weapons strapped to their chests into several restaurants and big box stores. I point out that they were almost exclusively white people because, despite causing quite the uproar, managed somehow not to be killed on sight by the police. Sure, there were plenty of other white folks whose blood pressure shot through the proverbial roof upon gazing at these people strolling nonchalantly toward them with assault weapons, and there were some calls to the police. Still, no activist was even threatened with deadly force as a result even though at least one was quite belligerent (not to mention inebriated) when confronted by law enforcement. But one black man holding a pellet gun in plain view in an open carry state was killed on sight by police.

I like Tavis Smiley quite a lot. He's an insightful and diligent man, and he's not afraid to challenge bullshit when he hears it. I can't imagine that Mr. Smiley is surprised by Mr. Crawford's killing, nor can I imagine that he is terribly surprised that Mr. Crawford's death has been officially determined as a no-fault deal—sort of an, "Oops! Our bad!" thing on the part of all involved in his death.

How long can we, as a society, expect to continue to pretend that killing black men for no good reason is just part of the cost of doing business in America? It's possible to conclude that the police didn't murder Mr. Crawford, technically speaking, but what reasonable person can watch the security footage of Mr. Crawford's killing and think there wasn't at least some negligence involved on the part of law enforcement? By any reasonable standard, there would definitely appear to have been no small measure of recklessness, for that matter. Yet we respond with an official shrug because training. Far too many of us can watch the footage and say, with a straight face no less, that no one is criminally responsible for Mr. Crawford's death. How? How is this conclusion possible absent deep wells of institutional racism? (Hint: It's not.)

I'll leave you with the following. What of our intrepid crime fighter, Ronald Ritchie? He is on record as giving false information to the 911 dispatcher. Watch the security footage. He's describing a scene which is definitely nothing like what is taking place before his eyes. The video shows such a mundane scene that, had one been unaware of how this incident ended, easily could have concluded with the police looking for Ritchie to ask just what the hell he thought he was doing making that call. One is still forced to wonder how he has not been charged with, at the very least, filing a false report. I can also come up with at least reckless endangerment as another potential charge against Ritchie, but for the life of me I can't find any indication that he will ever stand in court to answer for what he did. More than anyone else, Ritchie is responsible for the death of Mr. Crawford. Yes, even more than the officers who shot him. After all, they were proceeding solely, if inadvisably, on his word. If he hadn't decided, somewhere in the dark recesses of his brain, that a black man with a gun is a mortal threat by definition then none of this is likely to have ever happened. Ritchie, in the meantime, gets to spend another day walking this earth as Mr. Crawford lies beneath it.

We cannot continue down this path.

The Double-Edged Sword of White Privilege

So says the spokesperson for a conspicuously monochromatic group demonstration.

The most unintentionally ironic line uttered during the Support Darren Wilson rally is as follows: "Can justice ever be attained if one side's supporters are living in fear of speaking out?" The answer, of course, is no. Just not for the reasons she thinks. Justice cannot be achieved when an entire group of people lives in fear of speaking out, and the protests in Ferguson over the killing of Michael Brown are a direct result of just such a group casting aside that fear to demand, at long last, justice.

What has long irked me about these sorts of demonstrations in support of the status quo is the mindset which must necessarily inspire them. As is evident in the video above, the woman speaking—and being cheered by the crowd in the process—appears to believe quite sincerely that she is one of the beleaguered and the oppressed. Being a white person myself, I know for a fact that at one point in my life I held this same mistaken view of my lot, but it was based in a fundamental ignorance of how good I actually have it as a straight, white male in this culture. I believed that because I hadn't had everything handed to me in life that I understood what it meant to suffer injustice, and to an extent that is in fact the case. We all experience things which are unfair to us. We've all missed out on important things in life because someone decided to behave selfishly or cruelly. My father was fond (and I do mean fond) of pointing out to me the fact that life is not fair. He was right. It's not fair, but what he and I as straight, white men in this culture do not, in fact cannot, understand is just how much more unfair it is to anyone who isn't a straight, white male. This is not to suggest that straight, white men lack the mental capacity to comprehend how much better we have it. It is to suggest that we have no access to any means of directly experiencing how much worse others do.

While white people in this culture do not necessarily experience more favorable outcomes in life than every other non-white person, we do have a much smoother path to achieve those favorable outcomes—most especially if one is straight and male—and therein lies the error white people make when we find ourselves standing before a respectably sized crowd of other white people bemoaning how unfairly we're being treated at a time such as now in a place such as Ferguson, Missouri and the surrounding area where this rally in support of Michael Brown's killer was held. There is a subset of white people in this nation, or perhaps the subset is the group for whom what I'm about to describe is not the case, who are convinced that because they can point to non-white people with significantly more money or power or education than they have themselves it then necessarily follows that everyone everywhere is totally equal in our society. I would suggest that the vast majority of white people who hold that view also hold that they themselves have never been racist or sexist. They have non-white friends, after all. They have commiserated with women they know about sexism and sexual harassment, but one must wonder what those they claim are their non-white friends, as well as the women with whom they've commiserated, would have to say about such matters. Oddly, we very rarely hear that side of the story since, apparently, white people believe that simply by invoking the infamous "some of my best friends are [insert name of group here]" defense we have done all that is required to justify ourselves and our views.

I recall an incident in my life several years back when I was first beginning to become aware of how much privilege I've been bestowed by virtue of being born who I was, where I was, and when I was (and literally for no better reasons). So I asked a lesbian friend about something I had often said as a means, I thought, of expressing my solidarity with those who were promoting the cause of marriage equality. In brief paraphrase, the exchange was as follows:

Me- You know how I often say that your marriage is just as valid in my eyes as mine is even though mine is officially recognized while yours isn't? Is it wrong of me to believe that?

Her- Yes.

(scene)

What that experience taught me, and I had to really think about it for an embarrassingly long time to suss it all out, was that while the larger attitude I had adopted which said that same-sex marriage is equally valid and valuable and meaningful is both laudable and correct, it's not enough. The fact is that our society was (and, by and large, still is) refusing to admit same-sex couples into a class to which my admittance was guaranteed and unchallengeable. Unless and until that changed, it didn't actually matter how high-minded I was about the issue because reality differs from my convictions. It isn't possible for me to hold, in any appreciable way, the attitude that her marriage was as valid as my own because the reality in which we live did not allow her to enter into a marriage that was, in point of fact, as valid as my own. Believing in the principle of it is a necessary condition for justice to be done, but it isn't a sufficient one. We white people often pat ourselves on the back because we've managed to convince ourselves that, simply because we say the right things and honestly believe them, we've done enough. We've done our bit, and now all we have to do is sit back and wait for the rest of the world to recognize how awesome we are and join us. That is the sort of thinking that is only possible when one's privileged reality has prevented an understanding of the fact that those who lack that same privilege are barred from an existence you take for granted.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (yes, a white man is about to invoke the most emblematic American civil rights leader of all time but please do your best to keep your entirely understandable cringing at bay long enough to allow me to acquit myself in this thing) made famous the phrase, "Justice delayed is justice denied." To me, at least, the truth of that statement is both intuitive and powerful, but I had no idea for most of my life that I really didn't understand it. My response to it was to think, "Wow, that's such a profound thing to say, and it's clearly true." Then I would go about my day without actually considering what it might mean to me if, say, I had to experience such a delay in justice. I operate under the assumption, inadvisable as it may be, that if I should need to seek justice then I will both find it and do so in a timely manner. My experience thus far has not done much to contradict that assumption, and hopefully things will remain that way. But other people who aren't straight, white men in this culture cannot afford to operate under such an assumption. Reality doesn't permit them to, and just because I've got mine it does not then follow that I am blameless in the fact that others do not have theirs. This is the mental ascent I've found is most difficult for white people to make.

The fact that I, as an individual, have not personally committed some grave injustice against any individual or group does not lift from me the responsibility I bear for the injustices others suffer as a result of the system which has been tailor-made to benefit people like me. That's the flip side of privilege. While I did nothing to deserve the privilege with which I have been bestowed, I also can do nothing to abandon it. No matter what I say or believe or do, the system under which we all live benefits me in ways it does not benefit others who differ from me, and so long as that systemic injustice remains I cannot be absolved of the guilt for it. Even if I speak out in support of equality, even if I put my reputation and my body on the line in defense of the cause of equality for all, until such time as equality for all becomes a reality the responsibility for the injustice of inequality falls on me along with everyone else who benefits at the cost of others. All of us who share this guilt would do well to remember that, should we find ourselves angry about our lot, it's not the people who suffer in this system who are at fault. Uprisings such as what we've witnessed in Ferguson do not shift the responsibility for these injustices to those who have decided to protest what they have borne without respite for a lifetime. It's the fault of everyone who came before us to build and maintain this unjust system. Our anger is rightly directed at our ancestors who first committed these injustices then codified them, built them into a system rigged to preserve our undeserved privilege while offering just enough window-dressing to allow us a means to assuage any guilt which might arise—provided we don't look too closely—and ultimately at ourselves for being so slow to recognize what we've been doing to others without so much as a second thought about how this system we so enjoy came into being and to what purpose. Since we can't hold the dead accountable, we're really only left with one group we can hold accountable: Ourselves.

The Crazy Is Strong In This One

In case you haven't yet had the pleasure of making his acquaintance, meet Rick Joyner.




Now, ol' Rick there is part of an elite cadre of Christian fundamentalist crackpots who make our good friend Pat Robertson look like a measured and thoughtful individual. There are quite a few these days, and they all seem to believe that Obama is the Antichrist. They simply will not let that canard go. According to these folks, the nation is so far gone at this point there remains virtually no hope for us. Things are bad—really bad—in their eyes. My personal theory is that Joyner and his lot believe things are so bad as a result of the fact that the influence they once wielded over a few crucial people in government has been eroded to the point of rendering them essentially irrelevant.

"But John," one might wonder, "if they're irrelevant at this point why pay them any mind at all?" Good question metaphorical person who acts to allow me to justify taking up other people's time. We pay attention to these people for a couple of reasons: 1) They provide all manner of free entertainment; and, 2) These sorts of people are the ones who advocate murder and sedition because, surprising though it may be when you first hear about it, their priorities and God's happen to match perfectly. Admittedly, the second reason is far more important than the first one.

If you watched the video above (and if you haven't I'm confused as to why you would be reading down here) you'll know that Joyner squandered good bandwidth to make the following case: "We're recklessly disregarding our Constitution! It's the foundation of our republic! My suggestion for fixing this untenable situation is to disregard our Constitution and abolish the republic in favor of military dictatorship. It's important that we get the right man in the White House, and clearly the people can't be trusted to do it." I'm guessing Joyner is of the opinion that Rome continued to be a republic in more than name once Julius Caesar decided to hang on to that dictatorship the Senate bestowed upon him by establishing himself as emperor. Because everyone knows any self-respecting republic has an emperor. It's simply good manners.

Fortunately, there are few people who are sympathetic to Joyner's views these days. Unfortunately, the people who remain sympathetic tend to be easily motivated to act, and a good many of them are well-armed.* I don't fear for our republic. Obama, for all his faults, is a pretty middle-of-the-road politician by American standards. By the standards of the rest of the Western world, he's pretty damn conservative. Assuming our current president manages to royally screw the pooch for the remainder of his time in office, we'll still be fine. We've survived far worse. It's worth making note of people like Joyner, however.

Exceedingly few conservatives would nod in agreement with what the Rickster says in the video I feature in this post. The same goes for evangelical Christians. Of the people I know who are gun owners, every one would oppose his idea of an armed insurrection against our government despite the fact that most of them aren't terribly fond of Obama. Real patriots believe in the enduring value of our system. They hold that you go about changing our system by making your case and winning the argument. Still, the system is flawed. It's messy. Hell, our government shut down this morning because one party refuses to accept that it won't get its way on a particular bill it doesn't like, and it claims it's doing the will of the American people despite the fact that polls show 72% of Americans do not support what it's doing. Said Grand Old Party is also dangling the possibility (again) of an unprecedented default on the debt as a backup plan to defund Obamacare just in case its current tactics fail. What I'm saying here is that things can get crazy with us, but we've endured. We will continue to endure. Hopefully, we'll grow out of this stage in which a vocal minority (with lots of financial backing from powerful groups) can hold the rest of the nation to ransom sooner rather than later, but that day will come.

People like Rick Joyner are not patriots. They're zealots. They're theocrats. They carry on ad nauseum about loving liberty, but their idea of liberty is everyone else doing what they say. Their influence waxes and wanes, but they do not disappear. Not entirely. Not ever. Thanks to today's technology, it's far more difficult than at any point in our history to consign them to the obscurity they so richly deserve which is the primary reason why it's worth keeping an eye on them, and when they reveal their true selves as Joyner has here we do well to hold them to the ridicule they have earned.

*Studies have shown that fewer and fewer Americans now own more and more guns. Plainly stated, certain people are hoarding weapons, and a whole bunch of those people are doing so out of fear of the government. That being said, I'm not trying to besmirch all gun owners. I know quite a few, some of whom are in my family. I'm impugning gun owners who believe the same sort of thing Joyner believes. That's an entirely different exercise.

Automatic Thinking

Back in the middle of July I posted a somewhat lengthy entry on white privilege. As I am wont to do, I have found myself thinking back on it on a somewhat regular basis since. I feel the need to point something out that, in my then-indignant state of mind, I failed to mention at the time of that particular entry. Namely, the thing that most upsets me about seeing evidence of the sort of prejudicial and bigoted mindset on display in the open letter to the president by Dr. Jones (and, unfortunately, not the Dr. Jones who Short Round was talking to) is how easy it is for us to fail prey to that mindset. I do it.

The worst part for me personally about that mindset is how effortlessly I find it comes to me. There is a psychological phenomenon known as Automatic Thoughts which is a pervasive (and rather devastating) feature of anxiety disorders. Hey, look! The magical interwebs have provided a handy video to help you understand what I'm talking about! It also offers helpful strategies on how to deal with the problem! Yay, interwebs!




Now, you may be thinking, "But John, I don't have an anxiety disorder. How do automatic thoughts have anything to do with me?" Well, smarty pants, the actual psychological thingy-bopper may not technically apply to you in an anxiety disorder sort of way, and aren't you the lucky one for that fact? However, the basic idea still applies to my overall point.

We all have been conditioned over the course of our particular existences to think in certain ways about certain things. Sometimes, this conditioning is good and beneficial. For instance, let's say you see what looks like a tasty egg salad sitting on a table at a picnic or family reunion or (insert name of other uncomfortable social gathering here). Sure, it's a bit warm out, and you have no idea how long that egg salad has been sitting there. Maybe you're living in a parallel universe in which it's always the early 1960s, and people still make egg salad. Maybe you're at a gathering of hipsters, and the egg salad is ironic. I don't know. Regardless, there's egg salad. It's warm out. You feel lucky.

Well, you're not feeling so lucky after spending an evening with your new bestie, Mr. Toilet, and his sidekick, Mr. Strategically-Placed Large Soup Pot. And guess what? You've just been conditioned never to eat egg salad that has been left out too long again. Or maybe ever. Depends on how smart you are. Anywho, that's the good (albeit unpleasant) sort of conditioning. It keeps us from repeatedly making poor decisions.

Then, of course, there's the not-so-good conditioning we all experience. It's the sort of conditioning which, when left unexamined and unchallenged, leads otherwise respectable, often well-meaning people to be inveterate jackasses and presume to know a thing or two about someone they actually know very little about. It's the sort of thing which leads us to see someone who fits a particular stereotype in some way and make the leap to believing certain things about that person which we have no way of knowing without spending a significant amount of time with her. Or him. It's nearly always a her or a him, is what I'm saying.

So we end up seeing a woman who maybe reminds us of someone else we've met before, or at the very least reminds us of someone who has been described to us by someone we trust, and we assume we know her. Maybe she's a woman with expensive shoes, a pricey mobile phone, a couple of tattoos, and a gold tooth who also happens to be on Medicaid so we assume she's somehow defrauding all of society. Maybe she's a 20 year-old pop singer who's been a celebrity since she was a tween, and now she's behaving rather strangely (at least compared to how she behaved when she was a tween) while singing her hit on a television program infamous for featuring people behaving strangely. Or for behaving strangely while other people are not behaving strangely as they accept awards for something someone else thinks should be awarded to another person with the GREATEST VIDEO OF ALL TIME! No matter what else may be the case, we're absolutely certain we've got a good bead on who that person is.

See? It just happens without us thinking about it. Almost as if it happens automatically. So "automatic thoughts" isn't just a clever name. Except we don't have to give in to the habit of believing that just because a thought comes to us effortlessly and seems to fit perfectly that it actually represents reality. None of us—from the most famous to the person you pass on the street yet never notice—is so easily reduced to a single idea.

I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to allowing these sorts of assumptions to gain traction. There's a reason why, as I read the post on FB which lead to both my original entry and this one as well, I knew EXACTLY who Dr. Jones was describing. Because I've been conditioned to make the same assumptions he has. My privilege as a white male virtually guarantees that the Enigma machine in my brain is going to decode perfectly the message our doctor friend is sending, and it's going to happen so quickly that if I'm not extremely mindful my racism and my sexism filters are going to let it slide right by without a second glance. That doesn't mean that these sorts of messages which do get through also determine how I behave, but it does mean that I'm far more prone to making the wrong decisions about what to say and do based on the wrong assumptions at any given time. It means I have to work that much harder to be aware of the privilege I possess. And, perhaps most importantly, it means when someone who doesn't have my privilege decides to take a risk and point out where I've said or done something careless because I'm not really required to be careful I have to rein in my ego long enough to realize that whether or not that person is taking that chance to help me I still stand to benefit by listening.

Sometimes I Think Pat's Really Trying to Help and Then He Starts Talking

I'm not entirely sure what I could possibly add to make Pat Robertson look more ridiculous than he makes himself look here. I have to say, however, that I'd like to see some form of documentation on that claim Pat makes about the Homosexual Community© placing draconian laws on the books. Has there been a change in government of which I am currently unaware? Are those nefarious gays now our overlords who pass laws requiring the we do not discuss their activities? Oh, wait. I believe that last question pretty much covers it.

Clearly, the Homosexual Community© has finally taken over everything and forbidden us all from discussing that fact openly. Hence, Pat's oblique comments. Sure. Seem legit.

Edit: If you've read much on this blog I'm pretty sure you expected me to lambaste Pat for claiming Teh Gayz in that hotbed of hairy man-love, San Francisco, are using special rings to surreptitiously spread AIDS. All I can say is that some things are so ridiculous that they require no lambasting from yours truly.

Bryan Fischer Confuses Me (Not for the First Time)

I've been kicking around a few ideas for new entries for a couple of weeks now, and I really had no intention to abandon my tried-and-true strategy of letting Pat Robertson embarrass himself. In point of fact, I plan to continue doing so, but I saw this video from Bryan Fischer today and had to ask my single-digit readership whether any of them know what he's on about?

In case you're unfamiliar either with Mr. Fischer or what he's referring to in this little spiel of his (or, if you're super lucky, both), I'll lift the curtain a bit for you. Bryan Fischer is the premiere mouthpiece for our friends-don't-let-friends-be-this-repugnant fellow mammals over at the American Family Association which has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. As for what's got him in such high spirits at the moment, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, has recently committed $250 million of his rather considerable personal fortune to the purchase of the Washington Post.

Now, why that purchase has delighted Fischer so much is beyond me even after having watched the clip above. I mean, did I miss the declaration of war against Scooby Doo at the last godless liberal chapter meeting? I don't recall any sort of hatred against that classic Saturday morning cartoon series coming from the Left (at least prior to the introduction of Scrappy Doo and his Puppy Power© war cry which I believe has lead to numerous homicidal rampages and is universally hated by all regardless of political allegiance or proclivity). If I'm honest, I'd kind of like to have a Mystery Machine lunch box myself—especially if it's vintage, in excellent condition, AND includes the thermos—because that would awesome. Not as awesome as, say, an "Adam-12" or "Emergency" lunch box with the same features, but still pretty awesome. Don't even get me started on the "Six Million Dollar Man" or the "Bionic Woman" lunch boxes because I'll likely pass out if I ever manage to find either one, but I digress.

So I'm going to toss this mystery (see what I did there?) out to you, my faithful reader(s?). What have I missed here which Bryan Fischer finds so endlessly enjoyable about this development?

Note to Bryan Fischer: You say a couple of times over the course of this clip that the Post is the premiere newspaper on the Left. Just so you know, that really hasn't been the case for quite some time now. One might even argue that it never has been. In fact, the Left reviles the Post pretty much to a person at this point because, let's face it, the old gray mare just ain't what she used to be. It's been a while since the heady days of Watergate, and, despite the fact that Carl Bernstein faded into a somewhat dignified semi-obscurity after all that hullabaloo died down, Bob Woodward squandered any capital he may have gained on the Left in helping bring down Nixon by essentially whoring himself out for the sake of access. One might say he is the originator of that particular journalistic sin which has become so prevalent in our day. So I would suggest you update your perspective on that claim, but considering you badly need to update the whole of your worldview to the latter half of the 20th century (at the very least) I suspect you may need to place this one a bit lower on the priority list. After all, if you plan to catch up to the rest of us you've got quite the row to hoe.

More White Privilege for Your Entertainment and Edification

So I've been absent for a bit. I was in Anchorage visiting family and enjoying their current heatwave (not kidding) featuring the longest stretch of days with high temperatures in the 70s on record. Okay, so I missed that stretch by a couple of days, but while I was there the high one day was 72F (22C for my non-existent, non-American readership), and I don't know how people managed to survive it. Down here in Arkansas we have days like that in December sometimes, but I'm not going to pick nits here. It was madness, people! But then one day was overcast, and the high was 54F (12C). That's how sanity made a comeback in Alaska.

Anywho, I found this gem on Facebook earlier today. Enjoy.

Dear Mr. President:

During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive Shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive
Brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone.

While glancing over her Patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medic...aid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer.

And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care?

I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture", a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance.

It is a culture based on the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me". Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.

Respectfully,
STARNER JONES, MD

A picture of our good doctor.

Let's see if we can break down the subtext here a bit. First, take a look at the wee-bit-too-vague-to-be-effectively-vague description.

1) Tattoos? Could be just about anyone under 40 these days.

2) Expensive mobile phone? Ditto. R&B ringtone? Hmmm. Well...

3) Expensive athletic shoes? Okay, now we're veering toward a more "urban" (to use the generally accepted kinda-sorta-race-neutral euphemism for "African-American" which is obvs totally accurate because EVERYONE knows all black people are denizens of the inner city) stereotype. It's not impossible that the good doctor could be describing a white woman, but youngish white women who sport multiple tattoos and go in for pricey mobile phones tend to wear throwback Converse or something more socially conscious these days. (Toms, anyone?) Expensive athletic shoes not so much. Do me a favor. Next time you walk into a Whole Foods look at what the employees sporting multiple tats and piercings have on their feet. If you see one with the latest pair of $200 athletic shoes endorsed by an NBA star please share a pic with me. Otherwise, I'm not inclined to believe it. Also, please do the same for any unicorns or Sasquatch you happen to encounter.

4) Gold tooth? At this point, Doc might as well start butchering vocabulary from Urban Dictionary in an attempt to relate with "the kids" who might be reading. "But John," you might ask, "aren't you engaging in a racial stereotype by saying that 'gold tooth' is code for 'shiftless black'"? Yes, I am, and the reason I am is to expose the fact that this guy is doing it. Be honest, if not with me then at least with yourself. When you read "gold tooth" did you think of a white person? Of course not. You weren't meant to. This whole parade of stereotypes is meant to evoke a singular image. Not because stereotypes are accurate, necessarily, but because they're useful shorthand for things we're not supposed to say.

5) Finally, to get to his point, he makes sure to say this person was on Medicaid. So what we're looking at here is really a not-so-cleverly reimagined cover tune, so to speak. It's a replay of the Golden Oldie, "Welfare Queen". Granted, not as ear-wormy as "Caribbean Queen" (you're welcome, btw), but Billy Ocean's classic '80s adult contemporary hit doesn't have the staying power of that perniciously persistent (hooray for alliteration!) tune, either.

I'll just bottom line it since we're running a bit long at this point. Do people like this exist? Probably. Most stereotypes have at least a modicum of truth which is why they seem plausible in the first place, but to suggest that the representation on offer here is applicable even to the greatest majority of people on Medicaid is specious, at best. In fact, like Welfare and Food Stamps, a substantial majority of people on Medicaid are white, poor, and they work. So what this "letter" to the president (and we all know which president despite the lack of a name) really amounts to is one more attempt to slander the poor by a privileged white dude who doesn't like that his money goes toward helping people he doesn't identify with personally. The medical doctor part of it, I would suggest, is meant to lend the whole thing a bit more respectability, but allow me to assure you that there are just as many medical doctors out there who are insufferable, selfish pricks interested in little more than the money as there are good, decent, selfless practitioners of the healing arts. Well, maybe not as many, but certainly enough to cast unwarranted doubt on others who became doctors for much better reasons.

There is absolutely no way this doctor can know who pays for this woman's phone. Or when she got those tattoos. Or how she came by those expensive shoes. Or really anything else of substance about her since he seems never to have bothered to get past his own smirking assumptions. He cannot possibly know what circumstances lead to her being on Medicaid. All he knows is that he doesn't approve of this woman's choices (which he also has no means of understanding without, you know, talking to her), and he resents having to pay for "these people's" Medicaid. Well, you know what, Doc? I didn't approve of the invasion of Iraq back in 2003. Some of my taxes still go toward paying for it, and will keep going toward paying for it for quite a while. In a society as diverse as ours, you are virtually guaranteed to disagree with some part of what your taxes pay for, but that's part of the deal. You don't have to stand by and say nothing about what you dislike about the system, but when part of your complaint includes dehumanizing people who don't share your standing within that system by using broad, unsupported, and inaccurate stereotypes you've pretty much just opted for going full douchebag. This guy also decided to spring for the full racist douchebag package. Why not? It only costs a little more, and he's a doctor so he can probably afford it.