Kansas City Sunday Night Contemplation: Chicago Deadly Police Shooting And The Broader Implications Of American Rage Porn

At the risk of reaching too far away from this cowtown on a rainy Sunday night, consideration of a deadly police shooting in Chicago is in order if only because the fallout threatens to impact the discourse of the entire nation on an extremely touchy subject.

Also we'll engage in bit of a personal aside and acknowledgement that the rules have changed . . .

It used to be that carrying a knife in the street whilst high on PCP was pretty much "justifiable cause" for police to shoot a guy to death. Apparently, that's not the case any longer.

Right now on social media a bevy of angry, old (mostly white) dudes are complaining about political correctness or whatever imagined oppression they can name for their wasted lives as these codgers articulate silly social media talking points and plan to waste votes on the game show host Trump pretending to run for president.

On the other side, #BlackLivesMatter protesters are taking to the street for this knife-wielding PCP addict and ignoring the implication that advocacy on behalf of a junkie might elicit more drug addicts with blades roaming the streets of urban core neighborhoods. Protest is portrayed as a challenge to "white privilege" when it just might be one more reason why minority neighborhoods are often home to higher crime rates. Again, it's hard to get over anybody taking up the cause of a PCP-addled teen on walkabout with a knife . . . Like it or not, the guy who easily could have hurt innocent people in his misadventures that might have been related to reports of burglarized cars that brought police to the scene in the first place. 

For Kansas City the important part of this topic is the question of (self)-righteous indignation and media representation. Locally, advocates for Ryan Stokes have a far better case than this guy and his kin who were part of a purported $5 million settlement. But there's very little room for a discussion on this story because both sides would rather protest or name-call rather than communicate. Inasmuch as the American discourse has devolved into mostly an online display of rage porn, there is a more important discussion that needs to take place.

Like it or not, standing up for a PCP addict waving a knife around makes life harder and more dangerous for urban core neighborhoods because police could feel doubly threatened when responding to similarly dangerous situations.

Call it the "Ferguson effect" or "de-policing" but the fact is that when police can't protect themselves and other people against a junkie with a knife . . . Nobody in the urban core is safe.

And this isn't a cheer-leading "support the thin blue line" screed . . . Over the years TKC has endured friends and acquaintances killed at the hands of police for the results of their actions whether it was swinging a knife, barbell or just failing to listen to commands. Certainly, police oversight is important and part of the process of a vibrant Democracy.

But this recent protest movement and culture war backlash epoch is different. Few people are concerned with finding solutions. The culture war game is an industry and scoring political points is far more lucrative than working to create safer communities.

The end result is an industry of rage where neither #BlackLivesMatter nor #AllLivesMatter and ultimately #NoLivesMatter except those who share the same political alliances.

 You decide . . .