Juneteenth, A Day In Which We Celebrate The Eternal Victim
So New Jersey unveiled a 700-pound (they themselves admitted missing the mark by a century of pounds) statue of career villain, porn actor, and all around thug George Floyd, who became a martyr by getting himself killed, while drugged up, in the commission of one of his many, many crimes.
NPR listeners from all across the once united States can now visit Newark and celebrate Floyd's arrest for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon in Dallas, or perhaps take delight in one of his many thefts, or even his impressive treatment of a pregnant woman (Planned Parenthood, rumor has it, is creating a new award in his honor). Pilgrims will each have their own favorite.
The statue is rich in meaning:
"George Floyd represents a lot more than himself at this juncture in history," Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka said during a ceremony Wednesday where the statue was unveiled to the public. "Hopefully when people walk by it and they see it...hopefully it inspires them to become active in the struggles that are happening right here in Newark and right here in New Jersey."
That New Jersey erected this monument is telling. Floyd, I don't believe, did not commit many, or even any, crimes in that fine state, though I admit to not checking assiduously. We will give him the benefit of our doubt and suppose he at least shoplifted there. Yet maybe that is ungenerous of me, seeing some localities have decriminalized shoplifting. I don't wish to deny Floyd any of his accomplishments.
It's also important the statue is unveiled this week is time for our new national holiday, which almost every lawmaker bravely---O, so bravely!---gave the thumbs up. This is Juneteenth, the day we recognize the Eternal Victim, which in the USA is the black.
The Floyd statue gives blacks something, and someone, to look up to as they considered their cherished victim status.
"Son, you see that statue," a black father, possibly, can say, "That's George Floyd. Someday, if you learn how to take drugs properly, you can be like him, too."
"I want to a victim, too, dad."
Who doesn't? Being a victim means all the contests you have lost, all the opportunities that have vanished, all the goals that have been missed, are not your fault. They are due to "racism", a mysterious power that emanates from white people.
Some scientists say this emanation is pheromones, a biological chemical that causes in its non-white victims a desire to fail. But others say the powers are purely mental, something like ESP, a so-far unmeasured psychic "ray" which can't be shut off. Every time a non-white looks into the eyes of a white, he is lost.
We can ignore that controversy here. What's important here is that today is the day we recognize some blacks, alone among all races, had it, sometime log ago in the far distant past, worse than a few others, but only in some cases and locations. Once a victim, always a victim, as the old saying goes, that most special state being passed on genetically.
How far we have come! How far we have to go!
Take systemic racism, the scourge of the Eternal Victim. It's so bad at Harvard University, for instance, whose endemic racism Harvard themselves admit, that blacks are admitted only at rates about four times higher as whites and Asians, even though they perform far less well academically. "[A]n African American in that [lowest] decile [a measure of academic performance] has a higher chance of admission than an Asian American in the top decile" (I left out the percentages).
The same kind of sickening racism against Eternal Victims is found in medical schools. Blacks at the lowest range of MCAT scores are admitted at rates nine times higher than Asians. But, at the highest range of MCAT scores, blacks are admitted only a mere 1.6 times higher. A travesty.
Many more examples could be had, but why prolong the reader's misery? We all know the stories.
I know what you're thinking. Racism won't be eliminated until we stop requiring from blacks any measure of achievement or merit or sense of responsibility. As all our great rulers always say "We have much work to do."
This is why the statue---now one of many icons to his martyrdom---of George Floyd is so important. It is a constant reminder that a life of absolute depravity is something worthy of emulation for all Eternal Victims everywhere.
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