“Violence on many sides” yup mm-hm sure 👌

On the Statistical Anomaly — or not — of White Supremacy

Statistical anomalies can be tragic and regrettable without serving as evidence for anything all.

Less than 50 officers are killed in the line of duty each year on average, not counting accidents or injuries or deaths from illness. In the grand scheme of tragedy, this statistic means that policing is not a particularly deadly career. At the same time, this doesn't preclude officers from being brave and noble individuals worthy of appreciation.

The majority of those officers killed in duty are killed by white Americans.

By contrast, police are responsible for killing around 1000 people each year, and a disproportionate number of those people are black Americans, usually men, and whom in the vast majority of cases, did nothing to elevate the conflict but for existing in a high-tension situation with an armed officer while also being black.

These are all facts.

The photo on the top left was taken during the Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas last night, before further violence took place. This photo represents an ideal situation: if cops are meant to professionally stand against injustice, then it is right that they would stand in solidarity with those suffering from injustice. I like to think that the moment reflected here is an accurate representation of the majority.

The photo on the top right is the tragic reality that black Americans are forced to live with every day, due to the aforementioned statistics of black Americans being killed by cops. Regardless of your feelings towards police, you should be able to empathize with the fear that black Americans are feeling — because it is statistically justified. This is unfortunate, but it's the truth.

(If at any point in this ranting you have thought to interject something to the affect of "But isn't every death tragedy?", you're part of the problem, because that is such an obvious and foregone conclusion that it doesn't even bear clarification.)

At the bottom of this photo, you see a tweet made by a former US Congressman, in the aftermath of last night's protest and subsequent anomalous shooting. 

And that tweet at the bottom? That is the source of all of these problems. That is the insidious virus of white supremacy laid bare for all to see, by a white man in a position of power and influence. It still exists today, still oozing like snake venom through the veins of our country.

And it is not a statistical anomaly.

It is men like this who create a system that continues to keep black Americans down 150 years after the formal end of slavery.

It is men like this who pass laws that lead cops — essentially their employees, or at least, the professional enforcers of their will — to profile, punish, and sometimes and with increasing disproportionate frequency kill black Americans.

It is men like this who use their power to appeal to the most rotten fears in the hearts of white Americans, by pointing to statistical anomalies like a sniper at a Black Lives Matter protest and use that as evidence or justification of some greater evil, while ignoring all other steadily persistent evidence to the contrary. It is these same men who will readily classify any white shooter as a "lone wolf" or as "mentally ill" — perpetuating the idea that white people are allowed to be individuals, while all minorities must stand-in as representatives for their entire group.

It is men like this who encourage others like them to deny their human impulse for empathy. It is men like this who are the problem. (And yes, it is men like this who make up the bulk of Donald Trump's support base.)

I try not to be the person who shares every single meme in the wake of every single tragedy, who participates in the back-patting performance art of social media America. I try to stand in solidarity with my black friends, and let them feel their grief, while also knowing that I can never fully grasp what it is like to be in their shoes.

It is 2016 and these 3 photos represent 3 vastly different realities that all coexist in the United States of America today. Do you see the problem now?

A Louisiana Literacy Test For Black Voters, Circa 1960

You have 10 minutes, and if you got one answer wrong, then sorry, you can't vote today.

Granted, the above test is not explicitly racist. But even the worst apologist can't deny the inherent classism of it. Technically speaking, this test was only administered to voters who couldn't prove a certain level of education. Which is kind of arbitrary, no? That's not like carding someone to buy alcohol. There's no visual indicator of someone's education, is there?

Well, sure, if we consider that education is a privilege, not a right, one that is much more easily accessible to people of a certain class. And in Louisiana in the 1960s, most of those people "of a certain class" were of a certain pigment as well...

(and hey, don't get me wrong: there a lot of dumb people in this country, and that they have a voice in our so-called democracy could be seen as an impediment on progress. But as appealing as it sounds to oppress those faces, suddenly your progressivism borders eerily on fascism...)

This Is What Black People Need To Do If They Want Authority Figures To Treat Them With Respect

Compare with...

And yet, we don't see this...

All comics (which are separate, but thematically connected) written and drawn by Matt Borrs.

Legal Experts Explain Why The Ferguson Grand Jury Was Set Up For Failure

Presented without comment, because it's self-explanatory.

How Ferguson Showed Us The Truth About Police

Written/drawn/narrated by Molly Crabapple for Fusion. Presented without comment.

"If You Own The Washington Redskins, You're A C**k"

"Hey wait remind me again how it came to be 
that being a stupid american is a desirable trait?"

On the bright side, at least we're making a little bit of progress on this:

In Landmark Decision, US Patent Office Cancels Trademark For Redskins Football Team"

(source)

"This Video Seems Silly, But It Makes A Good Point"

It's no big secret that I have an odd relationship with clickbait-y headlines. There's value to them, because they work — but the trick is in finding the right balance between intriguing your audience, and just plain pissing them off.

With the launch of ClickHole today, and particularly with the video below, I think The Onion has found the perfect equilibrium.

That was beautiful, man.

Attack of the Literal Grammar Nazis

Today on "Idiotic Psychopaths Desperately Hoping For Public Relations Damage Control," following on the recent news of the NRA asking their members to maybe not show off their Open Carry rights by "casually" bringing assault rifles into restaurants even though it is technically legal in some places, my buddy Jake retweeted a cryptic link from Heeb Magazine, which in turn led me to this remarkable gem:

Yes, that is a tweet from the actual real-life official twitter of the American Nazi Party, in which they are being fascistic about grammar. They are literally Grammar Nazis.

Perhaps more disturbingly, I agree with them. Good grammar IS important. I share personal philosophical beliefs with the American Nazi Party. This realization was slightly disconcerting, of course, so I decided to peruse their Twitter feed to see what other kinds of causes they tweet in support of. Things like...animal rights...sustainable organic foods...they're vocally pro-life...and encourage a straight edge lifestyle (less surprising than it should be)...they're anti-corporation, and support local businesses....ooh, and they also love Moms! Er, wait a second...

Okay well then so ignoring that last little hashtag there, and the swastika, and the specification of "Aryan" moms above all, maybe Neo-Nazis aren't so bad? It seems they care about a lot of the same things I care about, or the things that people like me care about. That's kind of weird, right?

Oh. Well. Nevermind. We're now back to your regularly scheduled supremacist scumbags. Still, this is certainly a lesson in the banality of evil — that for all my touchy-feely artist progressive politics, I could (unfortunately) find some commonality with the American Nazi Party. And in a weird way, I kind of respect their attempts to police the grammar of their followers. Poor language skills often (though not always) betray a lack of education, and, well, they wouldn't want us got-dayum libaruls to think that modern-day Nazis are ignorant, now, would they?

Ahem. Right. Anyway.

Discovering this horrifying corner of Twitter reminded me of a happy little tune I used to sing with friends when I was just a wee young lad haunting American Legion Halls across Connecticut. It went a little something like this:

Smart People Who Are Funny But Then Also Sexy And Plus Smart

Here's a little video I put together for the upcoming world premiere of Lydia R. Diamond's Smart People at the Huntington, which starts previews this Friday and runs through June 29. Check it out!

We've also got one of those fancy 35 Below parties planned for it, after the Friday night performance on May 30. $25 gets you tickets + access to the party, including free drinks and live music. So it's basically a pretty sweet deal. Woohoo!

Lá Fhéile Pádraig!

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/12036874" iframe="true" /] Anyone who knows me can vouch for the fact that I love being Irish. I hold a great deal of pride in the culture, a feeling ingrained in me by my father since a very young age. We also know, of course, that I do enjoy drinking (as if the homebrewing section of my website weren't enough of an indicator). That being said, St. Paddy's Day (and that's "Paddy" for Pádraig, mind you. "Patty" is a girl's name, or what you might call a hamburger) inspires some conflicting feelings within me. I love the celebration of my heritage, and the recognition that it brings to such a unique and fascinating culture. But I find myself being constantly aggravated at the Plastic Paddies and rampant racism that accompanies the holiday. Sure, I plan on heading over to the pub on the 17th to enjoy a few pints, but that's not all there is. I plan on taking in a few Irish seisiuns, enjoying the music and the culture of Ireland, in addition to the drink. Too many people are happy to diminish the accomplishments of the Irish people and reduce us to alcoholic slobs. And while a great many of us do take to the drink — as well as there are many who actually suffer from alcoholism, which is far from humorous — there's much more about the Irish to celebrate. Unfortunately, most complaints about the depiction of Irish stereotypes in American culture are quickly brushed aside as essentially "white people problems." Despite the fact the Irish are generally an accepted — and celebrated — culture in modern day America (especially in Boston!), many seem to forget the years of struggle that our ancestors went through. Sure, it hasn't much affected me directly — no one's ever called me a "white nigger," or pointed to a sign saying "No Irish Need Apply" — but it affected my family, and thus, it's had affect on how I grew up and who I am today.

This week's post on Five By Five Hundred is brought to you by Brian Boru, Flann O'Brien, James Joyce, Fionn MacCumhaill, Brendan Behan, Samuel Beckett, Cuchulain, Maewyn Succa, and all of the other bright and brilliant faces of Irish culture that have had a positive impact worldwide.

"Nina Never Loved Me" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

(also, while you're at it, I suggest you check out The Shore, the newest Oscar-winning short film by Terry George)

It's All In The Ears

So apparently there are some people out there who are absolutely disgusted by the sight of attached earlobes. (I assume that these are the same people that experience actual physical revulsion at the sound of the word "moist") (you know who you are) Still, it got me thinking a bit about bigotry, and the features that people are born with that lead to discrimination. Thus, instead of stooping to making fun of Jeph Loeb again, I decided to write a short fiction piece about a world in which those with attached earlobes suffer from the same kind of humiliation, discrimination, and hate as some of the more persecuted minority groups today. I guess what I'm trying to say is, attached earlobes is the new Black. I mean, not that — I don't mean like — I'm not a racist, but — oh, forget it.

"Lobe Lobe Lobe" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

The Internet: Giving Dumb People a Voice

I've been pretty busy writing and re-writing the script for my play True Believers, but we finally start rehearsals today, so I'm pretty excited. Despite the gazillion pages I've written/re-written in the past week, I knew I still had a post due for Five By Five Hundred. I ended up scouring the YouTube comments on my Glenn Beck/J. Jonah Jameson mash-up video and found one particularly vocal YouTube commenter, whose breathtaking (really, the only word for it) diatribe I mined to create the "Found Poem" that makes up this week's entry. It does go a little past the 500 word mark — but it was all too priceless to pass up.

Oh, and also, please note: I did no copyediting of any kind. I simply add line breaks for emphasis. The text appears entirely [sic].

I'd like to take a moment to thank the Internet for providing ignorance with a voice, and providing the rest of us with a constant stream of entertainment and funny pictures of animals.

"Race and the Internet, According to Hogwild19100" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

Glenn Beck is J. Jonah Jameson

Did you hear? Spider-Man's black! Well, technically, he's half-Hispanic, half-African-American. He is not, despite Glenn Beck's mad raving, also gay. Nor is it Michelle Obama's fault. But here's some hilarious footage of J. Jonah Jameson that I dubbed with Glenn Beck's ridiculous rant about a (Oh Em Gee!) black Spider-Man:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkLNjDeaYPA&w=425&h=349]

Update: AOL's ComicsAlliance.com has also picked up the video as part of an article on the same topic.

Comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis, who is not only responsible for the creation of the new Spider-Man but is also the one who joked about the idea of the mash-up video in the first place (I can't take full credit!), has also been tweeting it pretty heavily.