Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Pieces of a Man

Vegetable Primavera over Polenta
This week (March 22nd) a local black man was murdered by a white racist that came to New York to 'kill black people'. The man, who was 66 years old was known around town by many for his enjoyment of taking pics with the stars.  It is so sad.  When I read the story about getting stabbed multiple times from behind, I thought again about how our own real American in-house hate crimes are every bit as horrific in my mind as all of my fear of outside terrorism combined. But I try not to worry about any of the many potential dangers in general.  People are upset that Trump has made no mention of the event.  The power of all of these articles shape my own thoughts too.  I found myself struggling with my own opinion of whether it's appropriate to call it terrorism. I always felt the distinction would be if the asshole was affiliated to a political group or movement.  He says he is not, unless you want to say he's part of the hate racket, which he'd qualify.  Says he wrote out his whole plot on his computer so we'll soon hear all the venom.  In the end, even if it does matter what its called, it remains harrowing.  And a nice good man died. People do die every day on the streets of big cities and if you zoom in, its all noteworthy.  But this is national news. For that reason, I think it's important that it be handled properly and even scrutinized. This story has many elements to help us come together.   A man that admittedly hates black people and has all his life, preconceived this entire plan.  He's not insane, he's held jobs, he's not gonna get the privilege of being called schizophrenic or mentally ill. Everything was deliberate from what I understand right now.   Everyone can see this was very, very wrong.
An article by Shawn King admits his own employer made a huge error in prominently mentioning that Mr Caughman had a criminal record, a bit of his history that had no place in a story about his brutal murder since it bears no relevance.  I totally agree.  He is the victim here.  An innocent stranger of a heinous crime.  Not only that, it's typical, this weird corralling of the mind in print, insinuating the victim sort of had it coming.  http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/king-no-place-attacks-character-timothy-caughman-article-1.3007995.  You see this time and time again but this is a new day.  People will be called out.  We must progress.  Time is of the essence.
Today I just feel so paralyzed by everything I'm reading.  Day after day, human behavior seems to plummet into some darker hole in internet land.  I'm not talking 'them' or 'us', I'm talking 'we'. But this particular incident took me down.  I can'ts takes no mo!  It is too much for people to bear all of these thoughts on a constant daily basis.  My mind is not capable of sorting through this much data. What will be the result if it continues like this? I'm already becoming immobilized.  So much happens each day.  But this was so outrageous. If this was God forbid, say a young white NYU college student walking to class and a black man who tells the police he has hated white people all his life and came to NY solely to murder as many white people as possible....can you even imagine the rage that would ensue?  First of all, they would not be in a courtroom telling the story, they would be in the cold, cold ground.
The murderer, although disgusting, is not the story for me because I know there are crazy sick idiots out there.  That doesn't surprise me one bit. What shocked me is how damn fast that dust settled and got swept up, thrown out and now it's as if nothing ever happened.  Trump is not the kind of president that would protest.  But this is not something to blame on the POTUS.  This one is for us. We the caring people of all races must rally.  We have to calmly and mindfully challenge and defy any mishandling of this killer for Timothy Caughman.  That is a grander stand than some ignorant tweet against racism, ensuring our laws punish void of class or color.
I managed the shit out of this vegetable primavera over creamy Parmesan polenta.  Zucchini, mushrooms, yellow peppers, basil, black olives and lots of freshly grated parm gave this dish so much damn fortitude.  Just what the country needs right now.

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