The Message, The Messenger
and the Mess
By
Leonard Zwelling
It is reasonable to assume that the message of civility and
peaceful civil disobedience did not penetrate fully into the community of
Baltimore. But before we are too hasty in our judgment of others, let’s see
what this past weekend gave us in messages and messengers that may well go a
long way to explaining the mess.
Floyd Mayweather just cashed in on the largest
prize-fighting purse in history despite an equally notable history of domestic violence.
His camp even tried to keep two female reporters who have been on his case out
of the arena on Saturday:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/may/02/floyd-mayweather-cnn-espn-reporters-say-banned-fight
What’s the message we give our young people, especially
young black men, when people such as this are lauded in the press and richly
rewarded for their capacity to beat people up. Bad message.
Jameis Winston was selected number one in the NFL draft
despite a long and malevolent history of assault on women and the noteworthy
looking aside by the Tallahassee Police Department in the name of preserving a
number one ranking and national title for Winston’s Florida State Seminoles.
Bad message.
Bill Clinton claims the reason he took all that money from
foreign governments for the Clinton Foundation as well as for himself while his
wife was Secretary of State was that ”I gotta pay the bills.” Those must be
some bills if he needed to take over $500,000 per speech. What’s the message to
the world if his wife is elected President? You can cheat, take money, erase
your emails and break the rules and still be President. Bad message.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bill-clinton-defends-his-foundations-foreign-money-n352981
Finally, there’s Hillary herself taking all that cash and allowing
her husband to do so when the source for the money was the very governments
with which she had to deal as Secretary of State. This is outrageous and it
showed. My post on Hillary had 201 hits on Monday morning with 10 LIKES. That is the most “likes” I have ever had for
a post and suggests others are as appalled as I am at this behavior and the
fact that she still considers herself viable for the Presidency. My numbers
suggest she may be in more trouble than her camp would like to admit. She too
has a bad message.
Let’s add a true footnote in neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s
announcement for President and that of Carly Fiorina as well. The first
believes gay people choose their sexual preference and the second is a CEO who
thinks that the United States will be her next company and this time without a
board to fire her.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/09/technology/hp_fiorina/
I understand Charles Barkley is not “paid to be a role
model.” That’s fine. But the media is extolling the virtues of Floyd, Jameis,
Bill, Hillary, Ben and Carly and they should all be held accountable for their
bad behavior not rewarded with more money and praise let alone the highest of
offices.
The messages they give are bad. They are awful messengers.
They need to be held at least partially responsible for the messes they make.
When the poor see people like these prosper from bad behavior or in spite of
it, don’t be surprised that civil disobedience can get out of control. These six
people—men, women, black and white–surely are!
