So Who's Driving The Bus?

    Don’t you just hate it when you’re trying to settle in on a cold Sunday afternoon and you decide to catch a football game because there’s no way you’re gonna get even nine holes in, because like I said…it’s cold! The upside is, you have the place to yourself and you get everything set up; Sunday papers, tall glass of cranberry and club soda, maybe some chips, or cheese and crackers, maybe even fill up the bowl with peanut M&Ms! I have to put some music on because if the game I pick has Jim Nantz I’d rather take an icepick to my ear drums than listen to Mr. Nantz. But that’s just me. So now I’m good to go - bring on the game!! But…and there’s always a BUT. And this very thing happened a few months ago.
    The BUT is, I got stuck with either Eagles vs. Washington, and some other game on another network, including the Red Zone on ESPN. I don’t watch too much live sports anymore, but I was in an NFL mood and if couldn’t get my boy Tommy (that’s Tom Brady to you heathens), I’d take what the networks gave me. And as soon as I saw Washington I knew I was screwed, because I was going to think about politics the rest of the day. I mean, I like discussing and writing about politics as much as the next guy. But not on Sunday, when I finally want to watch a football game! Ugh…  
    So I muted the sound, turned up the music and started reading. I take it you didn’t start reading the sports pages, did you Peter! No I didn’t, Sancho. Because the former Redskins, turned Washington Football Team, now turned Washington Commanders (and you know they’re going to be called the Commies until someone comes up with a better name), got me asking myself, “Who is it that drives the bus when it comes to things like this.” I think we know, but let’s dive in.

    The first thing I started reading was a piece on “Defunding The Police”. That thought segued to Philadelphia, since I’m in a suburb. But you could pick any major city today, and since I try to keep these things to a minimum amount of words I’ll keep this as brief as I can. Philadelphia has become a hell-hole. And with all due respect to the shooting gallery known as Chicago, Philly is slowly becoming, if not already, the murder capital of America. Congratulations, City of Brotherly Love…you suck. That’s what happens when you defund the police AND have a district attorney that doesn’t want to prosecute anyone. This isn’t calculus, boys and girls. 

    The other part of this equation is that inner-city residents, mostly middle-aged black men and women, would rather have MORE police! Go figure! Now, I know you can make polling numbers say different things depending on the questions, etc. Hell, they once thought Dewey beat Truman, and that Hillary beat Trump. So, sometimes the pollsters screw up; comically so. But consistent Gallup polls from the summer of 2020 up to the present show that approximately “61 percent of Black Americans want police to spend the same amount of time in their neighborhoods as they use to, while 20 percent answered they’d like to see more police presence, totaling 81 percent”. Only 19 percent of those polled said they wanted less police presence. I assume those are the gang members. Look, this isn’t an article about police brutality and the tragedies and murder(s) that took place against young black men at the hands of white police officers. I’m going to get to that piece, shortly. But this is about who is asking for these types of reforms.

    Let’s move on to our Latino brothers and sisters, shall we? That same afternoon, I picked up an article discussing the word “Latinx.” I, being a dope, of course assumed it was a misspelling. I was, as I often am, wrong. It seemed that many people of Hispanic descent wanted this term to be used to define themselves as gender-neutral. Well, that would also be wrong. Because according to those pesky poll numbers, only 2 percent of Hispanic voters refer to themselves as “Latinx”, while nearly half find the term to be offensive. The most recent polls show that Hispanic voters prefer “Hispanic”…go figure, while 21 percent favor “Latino” of Latina” to describe their sex/ethnicity. Astoundingly, 40 percent found the term Latinx “offensive.” My guess is they didn’t know how to pronounce it. Was it as if you were saying “Sphinx”? Or was it Latin-X, like the The X-Files! Hey, I finally got an X-Files reference in! That said, there was a small but significant percentage of Hispanics who hadn’t even heard of the term. How good is that!

    Anyway, just like the above “Defunding the Police” push did not originate in the inner-city, predominantly black community; the whole “Latinx” drive did not originate in the Hispanic community. Both began with the Progressive Left. These people actually are pushing ideas that hardly anybody wants! It’s almost like an old plantation mentality. A bunch of middle-aged white people want to tell Black and Hispanic Americans what’s best for them. C’mon, you know who you are. And don’t get me wrong, some of them actually mean well. It's a paternalistic thing, which actually is even more insidious. I think for the rest of them, it’s just about power. They are looking for votes, or they just want to make sure they can call the shots for as long as possible. And don’t worry, the article is coming that whacks the crazy right-wing fringe who are guilty of many of the same things. They just come at it from a different direction. 

    So, circling back to the Washington Commanders, I think the new name is stupid, but what I think, as usual, doesn't matter. I wasn't a fan of the original change, either. Poll after poll for years seemed to indicate that Native Americans had no problem with the name "Redskins." It wasn't 100 percent, but it was well into the majority. Man About Town Chip Magee (a suburban DC resident) and his friends are convinced that those same progressive thinkers were behind the change. I mean, the owner, Dan Snyder, is an idiot but that doesn't mean the name should have been changed. Although maybe the sentiments of Native Americans has changed over the decades. But at the very least, let Native Americans make the call. That's gonna take more M&Ms.

    Well, that’s the rant for today. I’ll end with the words of Jason Reilly, the awesome, wise, Black conservative columnist for The Wall Street Journal. One of his first books was titled “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed.” How good is that! 

    Here endeth the lesson.

write to: magtour@icloud.com