Harvey's Wrath & White Privilege in Charlottesville

Family Research Council Pres. Tony Perkins

Having seen and personally experienced the devastation of Superstorm Sandy here in New Jersey back in the fall of 2012, my heart goes out to the thousands of people and animals facing what some meteorologists are describing as a 500-year flood event.

Speaking of floods of Biblical proportions, it's ironic that Tony Perkins, the hyper-conservative gay-bashing president of the virulently anti-homosexual lobbying group the Family Research Council, had his home destroyed in flooding that hit Louisiana last week.

As Sky Palma observed in an article for Deadstate.org, on Tony Perkins' radio show in 2016, he piously agreed with self-described "Christian prophet" Jonathan Cahn that "Hurricane Joaquin was a sign of God's wrath for the legalization of gay marriage."

Joaquin killed 34 people and caused over $200 million in damage when it slammed into the Caribbean back in September of 2015 - so I'm guessing that Tony, who the Southern Poverty Law Center reports once spoke in front of a white supremacist group and purchased the mailing list of former KKK leader David Duke for a political campaign he was running, is coming to grips with the old adage that Karma is a bitch.

There's no question that Hurricane Harvey is shaping up to be one of the most devastating weather events to strike the continental U.S. in years, but it irks me when some journalists and media outlets excessively dramatize it or crank up the fear factor in their coverage.

Last night I was at my local having a couple of drinks and a news report came on the television with the graphic "Harvey's Wrath", and as I scanned some stories about the hurricane this morning on the Web, I noticed that a lot of outlets are using that same phrase to describe the damage.

As if a naturally occurring weather event was endowed with malice and somehow got pissed off and decided to intentionally strike the coast of Texas and Louisiana.

Some of the 120 members of the FDNY & NYPD
headed to Texas to assist with flood relief 

With Texas Governor Greg Abbott calling for federal aid, given my predilection for politics, I would point out that back in  January of 2013 when Congress was voting on additional aid for Sandy relief, 179 of the 180 no votes came from Republican Representatives.

And at least 20 of those no votes were from Texas Reps. Just sayin'.

As you watch Harvey unfold, and calls for federal assistance increase, remember that Donald Trump proposed cutting FEMA's budget by a whopping11%.

With thousands, of law enforcement, firemen and EMT's risking their lives to help rescue stranded victims who were either unable or unwilling to evacuate before Hurricane Harvey hit, it was reassuring to see that Trump woke up this morning and sent out a Tweet promoting a book by the unhinged nutjob Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke.

(No doubt traumatized storm victims huddling in shelters whose homes have been destroyed found THAT comforting.)

That said I wanted to take a few moments to pivot to the small fraction of bad cops that permeate the ranks of law enforcement.

Just because the Department of Justice under Attorney General Jeff Sessions has decided to essentially ignore the systematic racial bias that it's own research has found to be rampant within a number of police departments around the country, it doesn't mean the issue is going away anytime soon.

In recent days a couple of pretty disturbing examples have surfaced which demonstrate why Sessions' "ostrich head in sand" approach to a major human rights and justice issue in the United States seems so out of step with reality.

Bart Alsbrook

After an investigation by KXII-TV reporter Rachel Knapp, Bart Alsbrook, a reserve police officer recently named as the interim chief of the Colbert (Oklahoma) Police Department, was discovered to be the operator of two different Websites devoted to white supremacist / Neo-Nazi beliefs.

As Knapp's investigation revealed, Alsbrook's name and address were found on documents used to register both Websites, ISD Records and NS88.com - both of which sell a range of offensive racist memorabilia including patches, records and videos aimed at the fringe white supremacist subculture.


According to KXII-TV, Alsbrook was also identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as being the Texas coordinator of a group called Blood and Honour - a slogan listed on the Website ISD Records.

As a result of Knapp's investigation, this morning Tom Porter of Newsweek reported that Alsbrook is stepping down from the Colbert Police Department.

Much more disturbing is the New York Times article by Frances Robles published on Friday about the newly released video footage showing a white supremacist protester at the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia two weeks ago who pulls out a handgun, yells out the word "Nigger" and fires a shot into a crowd of anti-racist protesters.

A community activist quoted in the article was quoted as saying that there was a group of Virginia State Police behind a barrier about ten feet from the shooting at the time but none of them did anything when the shot was fired even though they clearly heard and saw it.

That kind of reaction stands in stark contrast to the heavily-armed riot police in Ferguson, Missouri who assembled en masse (complete with armored vehicles) when crowds of peaceful protesters gathered to protest the killing of Michael Brown back in 2015.

An as-yet unidentified man firing into a crowd of
protesters in Charlottesville as State police watch

It's not my intention to focus on the "few bad apples" in the proverbial barrel, guys like Bart Alsbrook, or Ray Tensing, the University of Cincinnati police officer who was wearing a t-shirt with a Confederate flag on it under his uniform when he inexplicably gunned down unarmed African-American motorist Sam DuBose in 2016 after a routine traffic stop, are not isolated examples.

The ranks of law enforcement are populated by a lot of people like that.

Individuals whose personal racial or ethnic bias calls into question their ability to conduct their jobs objectively in accordance with the oath they take to protect and serve.

Do police officers have the right to their own personal beliefs? Sure they do.

But when those beliefs or views obstruct their ability to do their duty, and such actions come to light in the media, it undermines community trust in, and respect for, law enforcement.

So they make it harder for the vast majority of police officers who do the job the right way; like the men and women working to rescue flood victims in Texas and Louisiana right now.

It's unfortunate that the negative actions of the few outweigh the positive actions of the many, as a black guy in America I get that - I'm sure there are many Sheriffs in American who find former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's actions repugnant.

(Leave it to Trump to pardon a bigot convicted by a federal court of using his authority to systematically violate people's Constitutional rights, especially a man whose shown absolutely no remorse about it.)

But like many people of different races, ethnicities and religious backgrounds, I'm left wondering why a group of Virginia State Police just stood there while a white man pulled out a gun and fired it into a crowd in broad daylight, and did nothing.

As someone observed on Twitter about this disturbing 37-second video, it is the very definition of white privilege in America - especially considering the number of unarmed African-American boys and men who've been shot and killed by police officers who simply THOUGHT they had a gun.

It's a troubling reminder that the way people are treated by police officers in this country can be very different depending on the skin color (in the case of the guy in Charlottesville) of the person who pulls the trigger.