Tragedy for Travis Scott and fans
The Tuesday Talking Points!
If it’s Tuesday, with a nod to Peter Abelard's Sic et Non, it’s time for Hobbs’s Talking Points!
1. Is the City of Houston to blame for the tragedy at Travis Scott's festival that ended with eight people dead?
No!
As I move steadily towards the Big 5-0, I admit that I am not that “hip” to many of the modern Hip-Hop stars, including Travis Scott, the Houston native whose stage name has filled media pages since this past weekend when eight concert goers died at his Astroworld festival at Houston's NRG park.
NY Times writer Joe Coscarelli described the young rapper as follows: Since 2015, when he established himself as a reliable concert headliner, Mr. Scott (born Jacques B. Webster) has gained an international reputation as a star attraction and an evangelist for good-natured physical expression — what he calls “raging” — whipping up mosh pits, crowd-surfers and stage-divers as his shows teeter on the edge of mayhem. In a rare trajectory, the smash hits came only later.
After learning more about who Travis Scott was, my knowledge of his artistic impact was enhanced this morning when I read a response to my Facebook post about the tragedy from my dear friend and Spelman Sister Chanae Davis, a Houston area lawyer who has followed his career since it took off in 2015: “He is a very talented artist who is also lauded and respected as a meticulous producer who takes too damn long to deliver the beats🤣 I love his music! Also, he is from the great state of Texas, specifically Missouri City where I raised my sons. I love love love rap music, old and current, and I was headed to this festival the last time they had it but I refused to pay $500. Such a tragedy. My heart goes out to those who died and those who were injured. Coachella (Music Festival) is hard to recreate.”
My quick clapback to Chanae was that it would take a command performance live from Heaven by Prince, Michael Jackson, and Marvin Gaye for me to pay $500 to attend a concert 😆. But in all seriousness, I now better understand that Scott is a talented young artist and businessman who, I also learned, is the father of billionaire Kylie Jenner's toddler (and a second child that’s coming soon).
So, returning to the “is the City of Houston at fault” question, while personal injury lawyers will undoubtedly start any lawsuit off by naming Houston PD along with every potential defendant, when the dust clears, the “deep pockets,” as plaintiff’s lawyers say, are Travis Scott, organizer Live Nation, and the venue, NRG Park.
Cognizant that Houston police chief Troy Finner directly expressed concerns about crowd control to Scott prior to the show, and realizing that the rapper, organizers, and venue carry millions in insurance for tragedies of this sort, I suspect that many of these cases will settle—and settle rather quickly—in the days ahead. But it still won’t be easy because with that number of concert goers, the lawsuits won’t just include those who lost their lives, but also those who were injured physically, and those mentally injured after witnessing bodies being trampled in horror.
While I greatly respect Scott's humility in paying for funerals and refunding those high priced tickets, I sense that he has some really tough days ahead stemming from a tragedy that very well could have been prevented. To that end, my prayers are with the victims, concert goers, and with young Mr. Scott and his family!
2. Did the 2016 presidential election provide a teachable moment about “assuming” electoral outcomes in advance?
Yes!
Facebook Memory reminded me this morning of a piece I wrote five years ago today that analyzed Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton, one that led to my eventual nickname “Hobbstradamus.”
Without adieu, check out my thoughts that were expressed only hours after the biggest presidential upset of all time unfolded:
November 9, 2016
“Many of you may recall that about a week ago, I suggested that Donald Trump could win the presidency. I am not the modern version of Nostradamus or Edgar Cayce, but what I am is a really good listener and over the past few weeks, I listened carefully and with an open mind to some of my real life friends and acquaintances who were planning to vote for Trump. I did so to better understand their position free from my exclaiming ‘he is a racist, sexist bigot,’ a phrase that usually gets folks to clam up.
What I quickly realized was:
*Most of these friends were white men and women who shared one concern that none would say on social media but felt comfortable enough to say in private, which is that they do not believe that any woman should be President of the United States. Emphasis, again, on ANY, with their rationale being that women are too emotionally unsteady to provide the calm leadership necessary to deal with crises both foreign and domestic. I know, I know, such sounds like a Colonial America mindset, but moving forward, instead of designating such views as ‘deplorable,’ as a father of a politically precocious young daughter and uncle of a brilliant niece soon to graduate from Amherst College with plans to attend law school at Georgetown or Yale, my question is what must those of us who know that women have always been qualified to lead do to ensure that the achievements of strong, perspicacious, and courageous women with steely nerves are projected in the popular media and on film to combat these commonly held beliefs? (Nota Bene—To keep it 100, this ‘woman know your place' mindset is also found among some Black folks, too, many of whom do not support black women among the leadership at HBCUs or in the pulpits among Black religious denominations).
*The term ‘Bradley Effect’ was coined in the 1980s when former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley (D), who polls suggested was strongly in the lead in 1982 to become the first Black governor of California, was soundly defeated by Republican George Deukmeijan. The "Effect" essentially meant that folks were lying to pollsters by saying that they would vote for the Black candidate, only to get in the voting booth and vote for the white candidate. So this morning, I coin the "Clinton Effect" to denote inaccurate polls in swing states of Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia, states that Clinton was projected to win but ultimately lost to Trump or narrowly won (Virginia).
*Some of my friends (and clearly millions of voters) had no problem with a woman being president, but they had MAJOR problems with Hillary Clinton becoming president. Indeed, no candidate is perfect, but Clinton had many, many flaws that made her struggle to defeat socialist Bernie Sanders in the primary, and ultimately proved the difference in her loss to Donald Trump. Clinton is not a natural campaigner or mesmerizing orator like her husband, Bill. Clinton's position on the Iraq War and cozy relationships with Wall Street made many Democrats and Republicans alike skeptical of her supposedly populist reform messages. Many millions of Americans still remain uncomfortable with the multiple millions of dollars that Wall Street concerns paid for both Clintons to speak at their events, and some remain insulted by Hillary Clinton's acts during the Benghazi ambush and her defiant tones during the congressional hearings about the same. Others realize that Clinton avoided any form of indictment about the private email server due to cronyism, something that was flagrantly flaunted amid reports that the DNC did everything within its power to screw over Bernie Sanders. Or, the time that Attorney General Loretta Lynch met privately with Bill Clinton out in Arizona while the e-mail server investigation was wrapping up and, not to be outdone, news that Clinton crony Donna Brazille leaked debate questions to help give Clinton a competitive edge over Sanders.
Further, some Black Democratic voters never made peace about the legacy of both Clintons with respect to welfare reform, the Crime Bill, and free trade that impacted midwest factory jobs that had put food on the table for many workers for decades, and while Black turnout was still reliably strong for Clinton yesterday, one must ask whether those Blacks who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein in swing states could have proved helpful in very close contests?
Who knows...
In summary, even "I'm with Her" as a campaign slogan captured what many felt was a forced feeling—not organic—a notion, if you will, that it was Clinton's time. Looking back this morning, clearly it was not her time and Democrats will be left to wonder whether that air of inevitability scared off other less flawed candidates or stymied Sanders's populist, outsider message that could have appealed to white working class voters who all but abandoned the Democratic Party this cycle?
Yes, the 2016 election was an opportunity lost for Democrats and as we face the reality of a President Trump, should signature Obama administration measures like the Affordable Care Act get gutted, or should a bevy of Antonin Scalia clones get nominated and confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Democrats will not be able to point the finger of blame at Republicans for supporting their candidate in record numbers, but at themselves for not realizing that Clinton's baggage would prove to be a Cross to Bear that weighted her down among Independent and moderate Republicans who may not like Trump, but who liked her even less.”
Lest we forget!
Thank you for subscribing to the Hobbservation Point—have a wonderful Tuesday!