20) – Social Media Edition

February 8, 2020June 12, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Happy chocolate-covered stuff!

I suppose this is – by default – the Valentine’s Day Edition of Blue Serials this month.

I’ll be honest. This is NOT one of my favorite holidays. It seems contrived and completely driven by guilt, expectations, and consumerism. It also makes it REALLY hard to get into any decent restaurants for several days before and after.

I mean, I’m glad you’re SO IN LOVE, people – but I was wanting an apple pecan salad, dammit!

Since it is the time of the year for celebrating dysfunctional love, however, I will be offering you a few Blue Cereal-approved love songs, each with a tainted twist. Don’t worry, however – there’s still plenty of education and educational news to discuss this week.

Are You Sure That’s How Karma Works?

A high school principal in Camas, Washington, is in hot water for a Facebook post made in response to news of Kobe Bryant’s death:

“Not gonna lie. Seems to me that karma caught up with a rapist today,”

Ouch.

Principal Liza Sejkora of Camas High School (Go Papermakers!) was put on leave and later resigned, despite having deleted the post once she learned how many others had died in the crash.

In response, students at the high school organized a walk-out, which was apparently approved by administration as long as they agreed to stay in the building while leaving. Nothing is more “public school administration” than asking students to go through the motions of socio-political engagement without actually doing it. It’s like letting them cut school as long as they do it in class and keep up with the work assigned that day and don’t disrupt others, or having students work together to develop classroom rules and policies as long as they end up with the same 12 already on the laminated posters from last year.

In the district’s defense, they were partly concerned about the death threats and promises of retaliatory violence against the school due to Sejkora’s comments. The only thing more American in the 21st century than social media outrage is the predictable number of people who want to literally kill you and everyone you know for it – and tell you about it, repeatedly.

But hey – good people on both sides, amiright?

Whatever the school’s safety concerns, it turns out you simply can’t control the moral outrage of small-town white teenagers who are practically Canadian. They left the building anyway and milled around just outside for a bit.

Turns out was pretty cold, which kept indignation to a minimum, but they nevertheless took a few minutes to chant “Kobe! Kobe!” and wave an American flag in order to demonstrate their reflective analysis of the complicated dynamics of the situation and explore the tension between the First Amendment and the realities of public school policies and politics.

It’s a legitimately complicated issue, although the moment the community outrage machine was activated, Doctor Sejkora’s fate was sealed and neither statutes nor reality were of concern any longer. Plus, she should have known better. Setting aside whatever Kobe Bryant did or didn’t do, is it genuinely possible to pay the slightest attention to American politics, entertainment, and industry and still believe that doing horrible things to people – even sexual assault – might hurt your power or prestige?

There’s far more risk of being demonized and losing your job over the faux outrage of a few teenagers and their bored parents. I’ve watched it happen too many times. It’s surprising I haven’t grown cyncial or bitter over it.

Are You Sure That’s How Twitter Works?

Doctor Sejkora isn’t the first educator to find herself in trouble over social media posts. The only truly surprising thing is that teachers still don’t recognize when they’re putting themselves in precarious employment circumstances. And it’s not just the few who are against rape – it covers the political spectrum:

A Fort Worth, Texas, teacher was fired just this past June for multiple Tweets petitioning President Trump for assistance. My personal favorites were “Anything you can do to remove the illegals from Fort Worth would be greatly appreciated,” followed by her home phone and cell numbers. She apparently didn’t understand how Twitter works – what with it being so new and unknown and barely used in 2019 – and believed her tweets were private merely because they were addressed to @realDonaldTrump. “I need protection from recrimination should I report it to the authorities but I do not know where to turn… Texas will not protect whistleblowers. The Mexicans refuse to honor our flag.”

It’s weird that there’s no record of him stepping up to help her. He’s usually so loyal and self-sacrificing for those who throw themselves on the fire to support him.

In Clark’s defense, the President can say whatever he likes on Twitter without repercussions. Then again, he was born rich, white, and male. Georgia Clark is only one of those three – and thus, her actions have consequences. Still, it’s a wonder she doesn’t have her own show on Fox or a post in the President’s cabinet by now. Maybe I’ll tweet them about it and see what they can do…

Are You Sure That’s How Catholicism Works?

It’s not just public schools. A teacher at Bishop England High School was let go – not by being fired, but by simply not having her contract removed – for her passionate defense of a woman’s “right to choose” on social media.It turns out Catholics are traditionally pro-life. Who knew?

She in turn sued the school for violating her First Amendment rights, despite having signed a contract agreeing not to do stuff like that.

Teachers accepting jobs at Bishop England sign contracts agreeing to speak publicly and to act in accordance with Catholic beliefs, regardless of whether they are Catholic, to aid in the “intellectual and spiritual development of students according to the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Roman Catholic Church.”

Oops. And all the times I just clicked “I Agree” so I could move on with my life…

Are You Sure That’s How MySpace Works?

The examples of educators getting in trouble for social media behavior are endless, and it’s not a new issue. Seems to me it was somewhat more understandable a decade ago that many teachers were unclear what they could and couldn’t get away with on social media. As reported in this 2010 article from the National Education Association, the problem goes back as far as – wait for it – MySpace:

The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch ran an exposé entitled, “Teachers’ Saucy Web Profiles Risk Jobs.” One 25-year-old female bragged on her MySpace site about being “sexy” and “an aggressive freak in bed.” Another confessed that she recently got drunk, took drugs, went skinny-dipping, and got married.

Come on, who HASN’T done those things and bragged about them publicly? I, for one, am totally a freak in bed, and most of my marriages have resulted from drug-induced skinny-dipping. That doesn’t mean I’m not an excellent model for young people.

As a Blue Cereal public service, here are a few general guidelines to follow, although details may vary depending on your district and the political leanings of your community.

It’s generally frowned upon to suggest you’d like to murder a teenager with a sniper rifle.

Don’t suggest that your gay kids are perverted by a sin that spreads like cancer.

Videos of yourself pole-dancing naked are probably a deal-breaker, but pole-dancing in exercise clothing as part of workout trend is still a gray area.

Also unclear is the status of topless selfies texted to a colleague who later shares them with students. Since this is not a problem if you’re a dude, should it be a problem if you’re a babe?

It’s a DEFINITE no-no to vent publicly that a bunch of 5th graders can suck your ****. (Who knew?)

This one’s for administration and the community. Shocking as it may seem, not every random rumor or scandal involving a teacher is true. Sometimes teenagers and their parents just love cranking up the community outrage machine without having actual facts or caring that much about reality. On the other hand, schools are supposed to prepare young people for real life after high school, and doing this certainly fits that description.

Are You Sure That’s How Russia Works?

It’s not just in the U.S., it seems. A teacher in Russia this past year was forced to resign after pictures surfaced showing her in a swimsuit and an evening gown (although not at the same time). Oddly, the evening gown was the less appropriate of the two, given that she’d just competed in a swimming competition – something they apparently frowned upon in Russia?

Here’s the most interesting bit, however:

After the story made headlines, Russian educators, both female and male, launched a flash mob posting their photos in swimsuits, underwear and sportswear under the hashtag #teachersarehumanstoo, to defy the hardline approach.

Are You Sure That’s How Blue Serials Works?

OK, I confess – we really only covered one recent education news story this week. It ended up leading to a kind of “theme,” if you will. Still, I hope you found it both enlightening and inspiring.

If not, please rant about it using obscenities and such on social media. Don’t worry – you have complete First Amendment protection no matter what your profession or what agreements you’ve signed. I’m sure of it.

If you have education news to share or want to write a Guest Blog Post anytime in the month of February, this is your chance. Just email me at [email protected] and let me know. You COULD win a rare #11FF Lunch Box for sharing the love!

Appreciation (A Post About Thanks and Adding Value)

July 22, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

It’s a tough stretch for much of #oklaed and those in whom we’ve invested our recent energies.

Primaries seem like so long ago, runoffs are still a month away, and the general elections… oh dear, the general elections.

The Republican National Convention has been a mess so far, and there’s no telling what its Democratic counterpart will be like. Nationally, the ‘Right’ openly despises us while the ‘Left’ suddenly wants to befriend educators over edreformers. Do we run to the guy who beats us or trust the one who keeps cheating on us?

Locally, animosity over policies and posts has spilled offscreen as the provocative becomes personal and the political, omnipresent. I’ve unwittingly conflagrated several one-on-one conversations as I let tone trump substance and forget that the argument is never more important than the person.

Sorry, J.B.

Privately, I hear again and again how whipped people feel – teachers, administrators, parents, bloggers, advocates, candidates… even sitting legislators. It’s not quite despair, but it’s certainly not some new form of radiant hope.

Teachers are stressed as back-to-school nears, and the realities of larger classes, fewer resources, and a haunting lack of actual clarity about just what’s expected THIS year hover over its approach. There’s something… taunting about the realization that – once again – new end-of-instruction tests are being proposed and new guidelines for ‘The Annual Shaming’ via A-F School Report Cards are being introduced and OMG-what-exactly-were-we-fighting-for-how-is-this-new?

Of course, such things seem petty in light of mad loners shooting our best, power continuing to abuse our weakest, and rationalization and cognitive dissonance stamping out the last bases for a “national conversation.” Different lives matter only to specific groups of people, and language is chosen to obscure intent so we don’t have to be honest even with ourselves about the true states of our hearts and minds.

Also, it’s hot. Like, Africa hot. Tarzan couldn’t take this kind of hot.

Still, I believe.

I’d like to take a moment and appreciate what many of you are doing, and how you’re doing it. I’d like to add a different perspective for those of you struggling with your own at the moment. And I’d like to point out an increase in value. An increase in hope, and quality, and style – because of you.

Thank you, so very much, to all of you who ran in hopes of improving our collective situation and came up short in your party’s primaries this season. Your efforts made a statement, and your words and your handshakes and your time made a difference. We may not see it all yet, but you cast your bread upon the water and it will come back, even if it takes many, many days.

You spent your time and money and put yourselves out there, drawing questions and criticisms and sometimes mocking disbelief that you’d even dare think you could make a difference.

I want to assure you that you have, and that you still are, and that anyone who says otherwise is either lying or wrong on an epic scale. And I’m right about this.

Thank you, so very much, to those of you still running – in whatever party – in the sincere conviction that we can do better, and that we don’t have to marginalize, segregate, or bully our way into prosperity for a few at the expense of the whole. You’re still in it, but sometimes secretly envy those you defeated in June – the ones who’ve gone back to their ‘real lives.’

Thank you for sacrificing yourselves and the comfort and security of your families and friends for the good of the rest of us. It matters. It matters whether you win or not, and it matters even if we don’t always agree with you on every little thing. You’ve thrown yourself into the breach, and we cheer you wildly. Illegitimi non carborundum!

Of course we want you to win – it’s something that colors every conversation and nags at every day for me. But even if you don’t, your voice has had and will continue to have an impact. Your efforts are not and will not be in vain. The results we can count and see are important, but they’re only part of the story. Faith, I’m told, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Have faith in what you’re doing.

Thank you, so very much, to those of you advocating on your blogs and on social media and in the press and through personal messages. I write about candidates and positions and like to think that I play a role, but I’m humbled and amazed by colleagues and peers who share their hopes, their fears, their experiences – even their pay stubs – in hopes it will make an issue a bit clearer or a position somewhat more relatable.

I’ll let the rest of you in on a blogger secret – we value and appreciate the kind words, the shares, even the respectful clarifications or disagreements… but we feel the venom and the vitriol sent our way, no matter how small a percentage of the whole. It follows you into those moments just before sleep or jumps you while you’re showering yourself into consciousness the next morning.

Your mind knows the importance of perspective, but your inner dialogues doesn’t want to let that scab heal sometimes.

OK, not me so much. I actually find the abusive feedback dynamic rather bizarre. But the less dysfunctional, more emotionally stable bloggers and advocates, with perspective and souls and better tastes in entertainment – many of them feel it more deeply than you’d think. And I love them, and I thank them. The blogs, the Facebook posts, the candidate lists – the work they do, and the knowledge they share. I adore them.

Thank you, so very much, to those of you who disagree with grace and style. You speak and write to a mutually-defensive group not always known for receiving constructive criticism well, but you speak up anyway because you care about truth. Thank you to those of you who risk backlash because you believe reality is an essential ally to meaningful improvement. Some of you are quite funny, which makes pretty much anything palatable as far as I’m concerned, while others are simply well-spoken and sincere. How do you DO that?

God forbid we ever deteriorate to the point we merely echo one another, broken up only by periodic pats on the back. Thank you for your blunt-but-gracious dissent, and for establishing a tone of mutual respect – the maintenance of which it then becomes our obligation to maintain.

You make me want to think more clearly, and write more gooder. You prompt me to check my attitude – especially when I’m on what I believe to be a righteous tear. Gracious but reasoned dissent forces all of us to become better thinkers.

Once, I even realized I was wrong about something. Not that we want to always go THAT far.

Take care during this stretch of mortal plodding. Stay cool, and drink plenty of water. Love someone it’s hard to love and say something nice to someone annoying.You amaze me, people. You make my part of the walk so much better, and this fallen world slightly more tolerable.

Thank you.

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An Early Xmas Venti

November 17, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

You read somewhere online that Christians are mad about coffee cups. You already despise a certain breed of religious person, and this seems to fit that profile. You and a hundred others you follow rant about those nuts and their damn cup obsession, eventually blaming them for not doing more for the homeless, for trying to run your life and ruin your relationships, and for that one pastor who molested that boy.

3 days later you realize that at no point have you actually seen or heard anyone mad at a cup (unless you went to the trouble to track it down as part of your outrage over what the hell is wrong with those people). You decide it doesn’t matter because screw them, you’re an enlightened scientific type who refuses to believe crazy things without evidence.

Unless it’s a massive uprising over a coffee cup. That you accept on faith, because… Christians.

The most popular idealized version of ‘Christmas’ utilized by seasonal TV shows and movies, and aspired to by families who’d like very much to consider themselves ‘traditional’, was birthed in the early 19th century through the writing of Washington Irving and Charles Dickens.

Christmas trees, colorfully wrapped presents, family festivities and such, weren’t without precedent, but neither were they what normally came to mind every time it snowed in prior centuries. And those songs which seem so timeless now – perhaps even a bit quaint? Few existed before the 1800s. Many of the most popular are less than 100 years old.

In other words, travesties like “Run, Run Rudolph” or those Jingle Bells Dogs have just as much historical credence as “Angels We Have Heard on High.”

I know, right?

To further carve the ‘X’ out of ‘X-mas’, non-traditionalists are quick to remind us of the pagan roots of many yuletide traditions – throwing around terms like ‘winter solstice’ to explain why we shouldn’t care whether or not Target uses a glowing plastic baby Jesus in their displays.

But knowing the origins of something doesn’t automatically reshape our emotional expectations and ideals. We are not a people known for clinging to our own history, let alone that of the grander human story. Trivia from 2,000 years ago isn’t likely to compel us to give up our caroling, forsake our eggnog, or burn our DVDs of Scrooged, Elf, or the Die Hard Trilogy.

Our experiences and holiday yearnings aren’t about objective history or Druidic roots. They’re about hopes and feelings and stretching ourselves higher than we usually reach. They’re about redemption and clinging passionately to a faith which seems less and less generally understood with each passing year.

And yes, for many, they’re about the Baby Jesus and God becoming man to redeem us from our sins. Go ahead, godless and truculent – laugh it up. Your day is com-

Er… I mean, we just wish you could see the true joy of the Reason for the Season! Or something.

I’m not looking to defend an ‘Old Fashioned Christmas’ or to lament the cesspool of humanity that is Black Friday. Spend your holiday with family and feasting, in prayer and meditation, or naked on the couch Netflix-binging – it’s your call. This is ‘Merica!

But I’d respectfully suggest that the aches and fears some have over the ongoing de-Christing of the season may not be proof they are fascists, or oppressors, or Fox News morning show hosts (except the ones who are). It may simply be that they feel like something special is being taken away from them for reasons they don’t entirely understand.

Imagine that every winter, your homeowners association wants to make sure its members are prepared for the extended cold. Based on calculations you’ve never thought to question, a rep shows up at your door most years with a hot pizza, a pamphlet on staying warm, and around $400 in cash for groceries, electric bills, or unexpected expenses during the freeze.

One season they change the algorithm – something about family size, income, and who knows what else. That year your rep brings you a frozen pizza, a pamphlet, and $300 to get you through. It’s still appreciated, and it’s not like you rely on it to survive.

The next winter it’s $250. The following year they simply email you a PDF of the pamphlet. Soon there’s no pizza at all, just coupons for Papa Murphy’s. The total resources are still being allocated, but they seem to be going to people who haven’t lived in the neighborhood all that long – people who don’t always follow the unwritten rules of the community.

You’re still receiving more than you’ve paid in, and more than most neighborhoods do for their people. But as the rep hands you that $200 and the coupons, you feel violated. Taken advantage of. Not because you’re going without; because you’d grown so accustomed to having so much more.

Now imagine that a small, but angry and vocal, vanload of outsiders show up chanting and ranting about those nasty, hateful people trying to take everything you own and ruin the wonderful block party mentality which prompted the assistance to begin with.

It’s easy to see the absurdity from a distance. Even easier to succumb to fear and frustration when you’re cold and expected pizza.

The solution, at least in the allegory, is to find and get to know those new neighbors. Learn their stories. Chances are, given the opportunity, you’d have shared with them anyway. You’re not a bad person – you just… didn’t see it coming.

And it’s easy to confuse what you’re not being given with what you have and don’t wish to sacrifice.

‘Less’ looks and feels a whole lot like ‘loss,’ after all.

As to those of you rejoicing every time another Baby Jesus is kicked off the courthouse lawn, keep in mind that feeling first and rationalizing later is hardly exclusive to people of faith. It’s human nature – even for you I-heard-it-from-Neil-deGrasse-Tyson types.

You don’t have to accept others’ perceptions, but your blood pressure might go down a bit if you assumed the less-than-worst of those expressing frustration. Sure, it would be nice if reason and research won the day more often, but how many of us choose a spouse, an outfit, or even a restaurant only after a day in the library and a pro/con spreadsheet? We’re simply not that detached from our own perceptions and experiences.

I’m not sure we’d want to be.

So Eunice wishes people still said ‘Merry Christmas’, and Bob forwards that urban legend about candy canes representing Jesus and his cleansing blood. None of them took part in the Crusades. Very few of them ever sent Falwell money. Most of them have never yelled ugly things at anyone different than themselves.

And virtually none of them – almost zero – ever gave the tiniest thought to the design on Starbucks coffee cups.

Happy Holidays soon. And “Merry Christmas” starting in a few weeks as well – but only if it really bugs you.

#BlackLivesMatter – Better Voices Than Mine

October 14, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I read something this morning which kicked me in the gut – “What #BlackLivesMatter Means To Me (Spoiler Alert: I’m Not Black)” by Isa Adney on HuffingtonPost.com. It’s not short, but it’s well worth a complete read.

A few highlights which particularly struck me:

I would guess that most of the people using #BlackLivesMatter probably have the courage and strength to fight for this because someone in their life told them that they mattered, and now they’re trying to get the rest of the world to see it too, not for themselves, but for the 7th graders.
But the kids who don’t have those influences in their lives – someone telling them why they matter and how to ignore the hate – are in danger of growing up to believe that “people like them” cannot {fill in the blank with their hopes and dreams here}…
And that’s not okay with me.

And this:

I get confused and scared talking about my own identity, let alone someone else’s. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. I didn’t want to make things worse. I didn’t want to say something unknowingly racist. I didn’t want to add any more painful rhetoric to the mix. That’s the last thing we need.

And certainly this:

People don’t fight injustice because it’s fun or because they’re bored or because they want to start conflict or enjoy defending themselves and blocking people on Twitter who they thought were their friends. This stuff is not fun. No one wants to fight this fight…
Experience has taught me that if someone is saying they feel like they don’t matter, it’s really important to listen to what they have to say. Because it takes a lot of courage to say that out loud, knowing the backlash that’s coming, knowing that some people will think you’re trying to get attention, that you’re making this up. Because somehow in saying you feel broken, some people think you’re blaming them for breaking you and then they think they need to defend themselves because, really, they weren’t trying to hurt you they were just trying to live their lives and do their best. But in most cases that defensiveness quickly turns cruel, making you feel like you matter even less, making you need to fight harder, speak louder, and the cycle begins again.
And I’m afraid of how many people have to die before that cycle breaks. The lack of compassion even now, after people were shot in a church, messes me up in my core, sends shivers up my entire body. Makes it hard to breathe.

I’ve tried before several times to express my thoughts and frustrations on this nightmare of an issue. Most were such rhetorical train wrecks they were never posted, and the few which were – while sincere in and of themselves – proved a bit awkward and incomplete compared to what I’d hoped.

Adney at least has the credibility of being a woman of mixed ethnicity – as in, she’s dealt with some of the headaches which accompany being biologically and culturally interesting. I’m an old straight white guy. A Republican until a few years ago. An evangelical back in the day. And I’m not even a proper progressive now – I’m just so $#%&ing sick and tired of watching people who look like my students getting killed under the most %$&*est pretexts, and why the $#%@ is this even a DEBATE?!

I’m telling you, it slices the conservative right out of you – quickly, and without anesthetic or proper sutures.

After the smug and bewildering announcement by Robert McCulloch last November that it was all good that Michael Brown had been shot by police for insufficient deference and that the real victims – the REAL VICTIMS – were the grand jurors who had to TALK ABOUT THIS for a couple of days, well…

I kind of lost my mind.

I had to leave social media and the blog for a few days just to regroup.

I have a certain longing for social justice, but nothing as passionate or noble as many around me. Truth be told, I’m far more easily fired up by inconsistency and blatant bullsh*tting swallowed whole to salve consciences sick with cognitive dissonance and assuage collective guilt grounded in apathy.

In other words, I wish my outrage were holy, but it’s often just… outrage.

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I took to following numerous #educolor voices on social media, occasionally commenting or responding, but it didn’t go smoothly. Mostly I was simply irrelevant – a check to the ego, to be sure, but hardly shocking or offensive. I’m small potatoes, and contributed little more than ‘yeah, me too!’ most of the time.

And I’ve made some friends – or at least developed positive rapports to whatever extent Twitter allows. I’m thankful for those who endure and interact with me – especially when I’m slow.

Then I was blocked by someone rather well-known, who I respected, and with whom I’d even had a few brief, positive exchanges. I never found out why, but suddenly every time I wasn’t welcome in a discussion or found myself misunderstood in a comment or unable to procure a reply to a question, it seemed more… collective? Alienating?

But who was I to fuss? Am I seriously going to get all offended or hurt because people who are confronting death and injustice and constant personal threats and character attacks via the anonymity of social media aren’t catering to my ego sufficiently? Really, Blue – #WhitePrivilege much?

So mostly I just shut up, retweeting or sharing the best or most important stories or comments as they came my way. The biggest difference has been in my classroom, where I’m utilizing the freedom of tenure to full effect by engaging students in conversations about current events and issues under the rather loose umbrella of American Government studies.

Because these are my kids.

My Hispanic students are under no illusions regarding the stereotypes impacting them, nor are my Black students – although the young men tend to speak less freely of such things than the young ladies. My kids from miscellaneous ethnicities and faiths are surprisingly open about race, religion, and culture, and not at all bitter most times about the nonsense with which they must deal on a regular basis from friends as much as strangers.

I have the most entertaining young lady of devout Islamic faith and far too much wisdom and insight for her years whose calling in life so far seems to be helping clueless peers transfer their good feelings towards her personally to the wider variety of people around them who are less comfortable being outliers. She does so with a constant smile, but I know it makes her tired.

Stop killing my kids, you twisted $%#&s. I’ll pay for the candy bar or whatever, but stop tasering their genitalia while they’re handcuffed to a metal chair, you sick bastards.

MY KIDS.

As I suggested earlier, though, my outrage is hardly pure.

I’m bewildered and in a constant snit that we see so little discrepancy between our lofty American ideals and the treatment we’re allowing towards people of color by local law enforcement.

I teach the Bill of Rights, and hate how often I must preface amendments with “in theory” just to maintain basic credibility. “In theory,” no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law. “In theory,” you have a right to be informed of the charges against you, and confront those accusing you. “In theory,” no cruel and unusual punishment is permitted. “In theory,” your right to be secure in your persons shall not be violated without a warrant based on probably cause.

“In theory,” all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. “In theory” these include Life and Liberty.

I love our founding ideals, and these aren’t them. I’m bothered that more people aren’t bothered. It’s so damn wrong how many of us are OK with this, as long as it’s a bunch of ____________ who were probably asking for it because-you-know-how-those-people-are.

Each new killing sparks debate over whether or not the victims were ‘doing anything wrong,’ complicated by how often those playing for Team Protect’n’Serve lie lie lie until exposed, at which point they simply change the lies or choose some new justification which the rest of us gladly swallow because oh-my-god-wouldn’t-it-suck-if-we-really-had-to-get-our-souls-around-what-we’re-rationalizing? Somehow calling this out means hating cops and wanting them all killed – WTF?!

But it often doesn’t matter to me whether the deceased were stealing cigarettes or talking back or known to smoke a joint or two or whatever other things explain summary execution these days if your pigmentation prevents entrance to the ‘brown bag’ clubs.

Because that’s not the point.

We have some pretty lofty ideals about who we are and how government should work. Ideals worth killing the British over a few centuries ago. Ideals worth forcing the South to stay in the Union and give up their way of life. Ideals worth trotting out anytime we send our soldiers overseas to demand that others emulate or embrace us. Ideals cited anytime we wish to justify our economic or political maneuverings.

The thing about ideals, though, is that they require application when it’s time to make decisions.

If you’re only a vegetarian until that steak on the grill smells pretty tasty, you’re not really a vegetarian. If you’re only a devout Christian until it’s uncomfortable and you’d rather go along with the crowd, you’re not a particularly devout Christian. If you’re only a committed spouse until a really exciting opportunity to play around comes up and no one will ever know and besides we were drinking, that’s fine – but at that point you cease being a committed spouse.

Ideals are only ideals if they apply in real life. If they only work in the neatest, cleanest circumstances, they’re not really our ideals – they’re just stuff we feel better saying, but don’t actually believe.

If our lingering claim to fame as a nation is that we’re still pretty bad-ass militarily, have decent purchasing power, and that we’ve embraced a half-dozen spin-off reality shows built around a sex-tape protagonist, let’s go with that. America – the Chris Jericho of countries! The Rolling Stones of nation-states! The Yahoo.com of democratic ideals!

Country music fans everywhere will buy the bumper stickers: “America – we’re still around in some form or another!”

But stop trotting out our damned founding ideals if we have absolutely no intention of applying them consistently and universally – to all people, in all situations, whether we like them or not. Forget the Confederate flag controversy – stop waving the Stars and Stripes if it’s only to cover up our comfort with killing one another, as long as the victims are primarily the dark or dirty ones we never meant to get along with anyway.

Isa Adney’s piece is a far better read than mine, by the way. It’s thoughtful, and transparent, and honest, and so very well-written. She’s an ideal spokesperson for the perspective she represents.

I’m pretty good at several things, but speaking thoughtfully or concisely on this issue doesn’t seem to be one of them. I’m so genuinely thankful there are better voices out there than mine.