Profiles in global bigotry and systemic racism

The Tuesday Talking Points

With a nod to Peter Abelard's "Sic et Non," if it's Tuesday, then it's time for Ol' Hobbs's "Yes" or "No" analysis of the hottest headlines.

1. Were the liberators of Auschwitz in 1945 heroes when considering that the Nazi SS had all but abandoned the notorious concentration camp by the time the Red Army showed up?

Yes! 

Last week David Dushman, a former Soviet Red Army soldier whose tank was the first to smash into the electric walls of the infamous Auschwitz Concentration Camp, died in Munich, Germany. Dushman would later become a champion Fencer and Fencing coach, but as a battle hardened 21-year old, he was the first to view the horrors of the Holocaust as the Soviet Army liberated approximately 7,000 nearly skeletal victims who were considered too weak to embark on the death march that the Nazis forced upon 60,000 other prisoners as they fled the oncoming Soviet Red Army.

Recalling that day, Dushman in 2015 said: “Skeletons everywhere. From the barracks they staggered, between the dead they sat and lay. Terrible.”

Terrible, indeed, thus the importance of liberating and chronicling the horrific pictures that are permanently etched in the annals of history as an example of man's penchant for inhumanity towards his fellow man. 

Dushman, a war hero, was 98 years old...

2. Was the lax security for the January 6th riots an example of white privilege?

Yes!

Close your eyes and imagine for a moment that Donald Trump had defeated Joe Biden last Fall and with the outcome being challenged in the courts, in the run-up to the election certification, Capitol Police received intelligence reports that large segments of militant Black and Muslim Biden supporters were preparing to travel to Washington D.C.—heavily armed—to storm the Capitol and literally stop the election certification. Now, considering those hypothetical facts, do you believe that the Capitol Police would have been reinforced with military units prepared to use violence to stop any violent Black and Muslim incursion into the Capitol Complex?

My simple response is, "Absolutely!"

Yesterday, a bipartisan congressional report was issued that once again proves that while large segments of Trump supporters were brazenly posting on social media that they were planning to invade the Capitol to "Stop the Steal," as Trump falsely and repeatedly Tweeted in the weeks after his defeat, that the Capitol Police only labeled the security threat as “remote” to “improbable."

Again, what reason could there be to dismiss the then clear and present danger other than the complexion of the majority of armed protesters who didn't even try to hide their intentions on January 6th? 

I have long suspected (and now know for sure) that the only reason that officers refrained from shooting large numbers of armed rioters who destroyed federal property and led to the deaths of five people that day was because the sea of rioters had the proverbial "complexion for the protection." As I always say, if "Equal Justice Under the Law" is more than just a mere slogan, then the January 6th mobsters who have been indicted in federal court must be punished for their crimes the same as any other insurrectionists charged with murder, mayhem, and inciting riots.

3. Was F. Lee Bailey's impact as a trial lawyer diminished due to his late career disbarment?

No!

If you were an older child or adult in 1994-95, then you remember exactly where you were when you learned that O.J. Simpson, the Heisman Trophy and NFL Hall of Fame running back known as "The Juice," was sitting in the backseat of his best friend Al Cowling's Ford Bronco—fleeing from the police with a gun pointed at his head—after failing to turn himself in on charges of murdering his former wife Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. You also remember what was dubbed as the "Trial of the Century," one that featured a coterie of star lawyers that included Barry Scheck, Alan Dershowitz, Ron Shapiro, the late Johnnie Cochran, and now the late F. Lee Bailey. 

While Cochran would eventually eclipse Shapiro as the team captain and be remembered for his opening and closing statements that were nothing short of brilliant for that particular jury, most legal scholars agree that his "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" closing theme would not have worked if F. Lee Bailey had not totally eviscerated LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman during a lengthy and excruciating (for Fuhrman) cross-examination that drew out the detective's racist past, racial biases, particular disdain for Simpson, and the possibility that he planted the tight fitting gloves on Simpson's property only hours after the murders.

To be clear, Bailey was famous long before the Simpson trial, having represented heiress Patty Hearst, Dr. Sam Sheppard (accused of killing his wife and the loose basis for the movie/TV show “The Fugitive”); My Lai Massacre Captain Ernest Medina, and a host of other high profile cases that are recounted in this article in the NY Times.

While Bailey would later be disbarred based on a dispute about fees with an alleged drug dealing client, that still serves as a footnote to a brilliant legal career and leaves one to wonder whether his fate would have been so harsh had he not been on the defense team in a Simpson case that ripped the scabs off of old racial resentments in America? Maybe, maybe not, but what we do know is that Bailey's legacy remains intact through his advocacy, one in which his flare for the dramatic elevated the oft mundane practice of law into an entertainment form unto itself, including the eventual establishment of the CourtTV network that's beginning are rooted in the Simpson trial. 

Attorney Bailey was 88 years old...

4. Do popular magazine rankings of HBCUs really matter?

No, not really!

If you are an active user of Facebook, every so often you will take the bait and click on an article that is utterly worthless and a total waste of time 😆. That's precisely what happened to me and quite a few of my fellow Florida A&M University alumni and supporters with this article that purports to analyze the worst 25 colleges in America as far as return on investment. 

The bait that piqued my curiosity was the below cover photo featuring FAMU cheerleaders and negative caption but here's the catch—FAMU is not even mentioned in the 25 listed "worst" colleges!

But the other catch, the one that further drew my ire, was that 12 of the 25 were Historically Black Colleges and Universities, including Claflin College, Benedict College, and Mississippi Valley State University, which clocked in at #1. The list claims that these schools are not worth the costs expended to attend, a condescending position that fails to account for the fact that these schools have been at the vanguard of Black progress for decades, or that these schools serve underserved populations—factors which cannot be reconciled by yet another "Best/Worst" list that does not account for the totality of their worth. 

Rankings in popular magazines can be fun ways to boost school morale, no doubt, but when they are skewed negatively by folks who haven't a clue about the missions of HBCUs, such lists are nothing better than cyber mullet wrappers. 

5. Are Florida Sen. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron Desantis clueless about the importance of Black history in America?

Yes!

Yes, in part actually, because both of these learned men know full well that Blacks in America have caught Hell from whites since the first enslaved Africans landed in Jamestown in 1619. What they do, however, is play to the racist predilections of an unlearned Republican base that despises Black history and Black people with limited exceptions—namely their Black sports heroes from their favorite college and pro teams of whom they "don't really see color" because they make them happy when they dribble a ball, hit a home run, or knock out someone on the football field or in the boxing ring, and Black politicians like Ben Carson, Vernon Jones, and Herman Cain who make a living off of absolving white Republicans of their racist words and deeds.

What's worse is that both Scott and Desantis are among a majority of Republicans who will argue that removing memorials to Confederate traitors is akin to erasing history, but yet they continue their fake issue assault on "Critical Race Theory," one that Republicans have made into the bogeyman because they do not want the history of those harmed by the Confederates, meaning Black people, to be taught in schools. And yes, I call it a "fake" issue because trust you me, teachers across Florida aren't teaching about the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow because most of them were never taught about it during their own educational journeys. Thus my contention that their argument is simply to enrage an unlearned base that gets riled up anytime they think that "The Blacks" are getting something special. 

As I reminded on Facebook yesterday, it is a shame that just last week, the Jacksonville, Florida schools system finally got around to renaming schools that were named for Confederate Generals and slave master/supporters Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, and Stonewall Jackson, among other deplorables. Public schools, mind you, with large Black student bodies who have had to see the names and pictures of former slavers on their public schoolhouse walls. Which is a shame because Germany would never adorn public schools or monuments with the names of Nazi leaders, but such is par for the course in the American South because far too many “leaders” are not ashamed of what the Confederate States of America was founded upon—which was Black enslavement, Black murder, and Black rape in perpetuity. 

So let us remind these "leaders" of why the complete telling of historical truths is important in a free and diverse society—even when the truth and renaming of schools named for evil men occurs over 150 years after the Civil War that they began ended in defeat for their white supremacy supporting “Lost Cause.”

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