This last week one trial began- that of former Brooklyn Center police officer Kimberly Potter over the shooting of Duante Wright- and one came to an end- the trial of actor Jussie Smollett who was found guilty of faking and reporting a hate crime against himself. Both cases garnered an extreme amount of media attention at the time of the events and at the trial, which meant that the facts of both cases were (and will continue to be) fed into the Left’s systematic racializing machine (SRM). This “machine” works by taking each and every aspect of a person or event and running it through a series of woke filters, so that a narrative full of racism and oppression will always comes out the other end. This is what happened in the Rittenhouse and Arbery cases, so that even though the cases were different in their facts and outcome, both were still seen by the Left as examples of systematic racism that required the same old solution- tearing down the old “system” and replacing it with some as yet undefined new one.
For the time being, this machine will continue to be used whenever it can, and its output will only get worse. For as we shall see, we are reaching a point where creating and sustaining such a jaundiced view of the world as held by the likes of Black Lives Matter, will become the norm unless resisted.
The Trial of Kimberly Potter
On April 11th, 2021 police officer Kimberly Potter pulled over 20-year old Duante Wright and his girlfriend for expired tabs. After his license was run, and other officers arrived, it was found that Wright had an outstanding warrant for his arrest for “first-degree aggravated robbery, fleeing from police, and possession of a handgun without a permit” from a 2019 incident where he tried to rob a woman. When the officers attempted to handcuff him, Wright violently resisted and jumped back into his vehicle and tried to escape. During the ensuing struggle, Potter who had mistakenly drawn her pistol, shouted “Taser, taser, taser!” It remains to be seen (Potter is expected to testify at the trial) whether she expected the other officers to tase Wright or she meant to tase him without realizing she was holding her pistol. Nonetheless Potter shot Wright, who managed to drive away for a few blocks before succumbing to his wounds and dying on the scene.
Coming as it did only a year after the George Floyd case, Wright’s death sparked another round of protests and riots as a crowd of people surrounded the Brooklyn Center police precinct. Of course, as is now requisite when a white officer shoots a black man, rioting and looting began in earnest. Having learned their lesson about the bad optics of standing down during the George Floyd riots, the Mayor of Brooklyn Center took control of the situation, while Governor Tim Walz eventually called in the National Guard to use tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds.
From that moment on professional racial-rousers like Al Sharpton, Benjamin Crump and Maxine Waters (who made an appearance at the riots in Brooklyn Center) used the SRM to turn the Potter-Wright case into another flashpoint in the ongoing racial-culture wars. As a result, Potter resigned from the force shortly afterwards, and was arrested and charged with second-degree manslaughter. Later however, Minnesota’s own Attorney General Keith Ellison, bowing to pressure from activists groups, upped the charge to first-degree manslaughter.
Eventually, the furor over the case subsided and most people forgot about it until now, as the trial is starting. BLM activists and other online racial-rousers are taking advantage of the fact that most people will not watch or delve too deeply into the trial, as well their faulty memories of what they think happened last year, and have reactivated the SRM to color the narrative of the trial. Furthermore, having learned how much they can get away with during the Rittenhouse trial, activist are once again trying to intimidate and sway the jury. An activist named Cortez Rice, who bragged about having people in the Rittenhouse trial secretly filming the jury, was arrested recently after livestreaming himself leading a protest (allegedly) outside of the apartment building where the judge presiding over the Potter case, Regina Chu, lives. It is not known whether or not he was really at Chu’s apartment building, but his point was made: if you oppose cases that BLM has chosen to champion, then your privacy and perhaps your safety are forfeit. So while the winter weather may put a damper on any attempts at rioting and looting, Governor Walz is still prepping the National Guard to be called up in the event of a dangerous situation.
The Trial of Jussie Smollett
On Friday, after nine hours of deliberation, a jury found actor Jussie Smollett guilty of 5 felony counts of setting up a false racial hate crime against himself. Smollett, a minor actor on a show called Empire, supposedly received some hate mail at the show’s set, but it failed to bring him the level of attention he coveted. So he conspired with two Nigerian brothers who he had met on the set of Empire to stage an attack on him. And thus began Smollett’s attempt as a budding screenwriter, as he tried to make the public believe that at 2 a.m. on one of the coldest nights of 2019, while heading to a Subway for a sandwich, that one of Don Lemon’s “black holes” transported two Trump supporters, who just happened to be carrying some rope and a bottle of bleach, from “MAGA country” into downtown Chicago. There, in the dark, they were able to identify Smollett on sight as someone who was black, gay, and had “campaigned hard against 45”, and so attacked him, put a noose around his neck, and poured bleach over him before Smollett fought them off- with his sub sandwich still intact!
While most people just could not fathom how someone could seriously assert, let alone believe, such a ridiculous story, thanks to the SRM there were in fact a whole host of people who did. Everyone from actresses Ellen (Elliot) Page and Alyssa Milano, to politicians such as Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden could not tweet fast enough to signal their support for Smollett and to disparage anyone who would even think of questioning his story. The usual talking heads in the legacy news media, also swallowed Smollett’s tale who, in between fawning interviews such as by Robin Roberts, managed to find yet another way to blame Trump for something bad happening.
In the end, “Juicy Smoollié’s” (Dave Chappelle's humorous moniker for Smollett) story could not hold up to scrutiny, as security camera footage, his cell phone data, and eventually the testimony of the Nigerian brothers all pointed to the fact that “Juicy” was a mendacious and attention-seeking actor trying to raise his pay and “creds” by playing the victim. A few people like Don Lemon (who had been in contact with Smollett during the investigation) and Robin Roberts, have walked back their previous support and even admitted that they might've noticed some “red flags” all along.
However, the SRM is a well-oiled machine and most of the people who thought Smollett’s story was just too “Juicy” to let go, have yet to admit they were wrong. Meanwhile, others like Ellen (Elliot) Page found a way to talk out of both sides of their mouth, by saying that even if Smollett’s story might not be true, it is still true. In an op-ed she wrote for The Hollywood Reporter Page wrote, “I ask you not to question our pain, not to draw into question our trauma, but to maintain, wholeheartedly, that hate violence exists...the merits of one case should not and cannot call that into question.” Thus, as always, the facts of the case (or even to life itself) are secondary to the narrative.
The Coming Event Horizon
In the radio drama series of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a whimsical economic theory called “The Shoe Event Horizon” is explained. The theory states that, when a society sinks into depression, people cheer themselves up by buying something. Since they are depressed, they are looking down and hence will see their shoes, so they will buy a more expensive pair to feel better. As more money is spent on shoes, more shoe shops are built, but to keep up with the increased shoe demand more and different types of shoes will be made. This will cause people to buy still more shoes, but the quality of the shoes will increasingly diminish in order to meet the demand. This situation will turn into a vicious cycle, until the “Shoe Event Horizon” is reached, where the only type of store that is economically viable are shoe shops. With only shoe shops left, society ceases to function, and the economy collapses, sending the world spiraling into ruin.
Obviously Adams is writing this theory as pure satire, but since our culture already seems to be living inside of any number of dystopian novels or films that are supposed to be science fiction, it is as a good a descriptor of a common thread running through the Potter-Wright and Smollett cases. Replace the “shoes” in the theory with “race” or more specifically with “racism” and you have where our culture is now.
Our freedoms and prosperity have not saved us from the debilitating effects of the breakdown of our cultural norms and institutions caused by the SRM. This leaves the current generation with little or no meaning or purpose in life, so they reach back into the past for some struggle or movement, such as Civil Rights era’s fight against real institutional racism, to vicariously fight for things they already have, in order to fill the emptiness in their lives. When that doesn’t bring the fulfillment they want, rather than reassess their actions they redouble their efforts, even if they have to redefine the word “racism” and in some cases, stage their own hate crimes to demonstrate the racism they so desperately need to exist in order to “stay woke.”
When that starts bringing them the attention and fulfillment they’re after, they become trapped in Adams’ vicious cycle where more and more people will find more and more racism and racists everywhere they look. This is where we are right now and at some in the very near future we will reach a Race Event Horizon where the only news worth reporting, the only movies worth making, and the only conversations worth having will be about race and racism. All other topics will fall into disfavor and will not be talked or thought about in person or online.
In the radio drama, the main character Arthur Dent arrives at a planet that was destroyed by the Shoe Event Horizon. While there he and his companions are captured by guards that limp, and are brought to meet Hig Hurtenflurst, the head of the Dolmansaxlil Shoe Corporation, the one who destroyed to planet by using force push more and more shoes on people. Arthur asks why the guards are limping and Hurtenflurst responds, “Their feet are the wrong size for their shoes.”
This absurdity is a fitting summary of the world we find ourselves in as seen in the two trials and the coming Race Event Horizon. It’s not the racist narrative that doesn’t fit reality that is the problem, it is you and your attachment to traditional ideas such as Christianity and its impact on our nation’s legal and cultural heritage, let alone rationality and common sense that are the problem- you’re ideas are the wrong size for the narrative. God help us in keeping that coming Horizon at bay.
Photo Credit- news.yahoo.com