Chapelle's full monologue

https://youtu.be/Un_VvR_WqNs

The one thing that hit me, with all the Kahnemann and Malcolm Gladwell I read this year, and other personal stuff going on, is all these people walking around, these bodies, me, are still 9/10 chemistry and raw emotions and psychological traumas and a bit of intelligent consideration, maybe a tiny bit of enlightened thinking thrown in, and perhaps humor or orneriness to scramble it up. I look at the Rayshard killing, and for 40 mins things were ok, and then in 15 seconds it went to shit. Most of these "Karens" videos (*not* the woman walking her dog in Central Park) are likely women running around doing thankless work, and someone with a phone catches them in their worst frustrating moments, situations that maybe they didn't understand or were too flustered to control, or had more of an explanation than we see. I have my moments, but no one so far has a camera in my face to record it for all time, all humanity. "Humanity" - we use that word to sound noble, but it's just one batch of troubles after another.

Though actually things aren't that bad. Aside from Covid, the Trump years have just been about pissing us off every minute of the day. But there were no gas ovens. There was no drawn out Iran-Iraq War killing millions (though Xinjiang is bad). There were no famines in Ethiopia with wasting away babies (though pictures of cages from the border are bad). Gladwell talked about how people in London during the Blitz became immune to fear and troubles and danger. And under Trump, we became rather immune to good news. That cop putting his knee on George Floyd's neck, strangling him, and pretty much the entire world thought that was evil, even our usual racists. And even *that* was more or less criminal negligence, vicious uncaring mistreatment, sure, but not the ending that cop expected, was trying for. Those girls in that Birmingham church when I was a kid - those guys were *trying* to kill them. Those activists disappeared in Mississippi - those guys actively killed them. And the whole community largely approved, covered it up, denied these poor murdered souls justice.

We've come a long way. Chapelle is playing a pose here, trying to push people - whites - out of their comfort zone (and coming to grips with conflicted feelings on a weird day). But I know he doesn't think blacks shooting blacks in Chicago is any better. But still we're talking about Floyd, talking about black shootings, talking about police, but also small businesses, with the idea that we can do better, that it's not a lost cause. I voted for Reagan over Carter 40 years ago, and would do it again, for the simple reason Carter felt like he'd given up, that we couldn't fight back against the Soviets, the Ayatollah, the energy situation, all these seemingly insurmountable problems, yet 40 years later we got through all these and have new ones to face and shrug off. Maybe that's why people voted Trump, some little spark of connection that overrode Carter's good soul, his Habitat for Humanity, his better angels. Or maybe it was just a normal patch of bad road, and we got through it and it doesn't have more significance than that. We'll just have our ups and downs - don't read too much into it. And thank your lucky stars you ain't black ;-)

One thing Van Jones noted last night was that Trump actually got on the phone with some black leaders to discuss what could be done. Insincere, for sure, but it wasn't watered down with "all races should have equal opportunity" or some such. The Black situation is different from Asians, Hispanics, Natives, whoever, and we know it. I understand why Obama was reluctant to display "favoritism", but this particular pipe has a leak, and talking about replacing all the plumbing just slows us down.

With Covid, we look at points of transmission, effective & ineffective treatment, which classes of people are most vulnerable, most endangered. Sure, lifestyle choices make a difference, but still, we see what we can do to save and protect who we can, approach it both humanely and scientifically. 4 years ago "I can't breath" was less important than a football game or a pledge of allegiance to a flag. In 2020, by accident or good work or just getting more comfortable with a foreign idea, we're more accepting that *something* needs to be done. It's progress. It's hard to expect too much more from a plodding, sometimes well-intentioned, but often dim-witted humanity. It seems we're evolving, which is more important than a particular election, however relieved we feel.