Y'all Come Back Now, Ya Hear?

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As I may have mentioned elsewhere, even though I current live in Virginia, I grew up in the real south - Memphis. As I was perusing the news this morning and thinking about what to write here this morning, I came across this story about Hillary making a whistle stop visit to my home town and affecting a southern accent for the home crowd, her being a former first lady and all from neighboring Arkansas.

I have no idea how things are in Memphis now, but her touting her Arkansas first lady credentials really doesn't hold much appeal for me. When I was growing up there, Arkansas was a pretty foreign land to us. The Mississippi river was both a cultural and physical barrier. When I think back on growing up in Memphis, there really wasn't much on that side of the river but miles and miles of flatland and mud flats. The only industry there was the dog track. Even back then it was a despised institution which managed to irk both the southern baptist with it's sinful gambling and the animal lovers with it's exploitation of man's best friend. Thus, the state government that would allow such a thing was in my mind always a little backward and pitiful.

But what exactly did Hillary say and do in her brief sashay through Memphis? Well first she made her stop at LeMoyne-Owen College, a historically black college, located just a few blocks from Beale Street. I must admit I have never been there as that part of town was not someplace I had any reason to go to. Of course I have never been to Graceland either, so I don't have any feelings about it either way.

Her visit there was of course to burnish her reputation with the black voters as the wife of the first black American president. I do however wonder what black voters think about her adopting a southern accent every time she is confronted with a room full of black faces. Probably the more interesting question is "Why does she do this?" In attempting to relate to them is she taking on the persona of the white slave owners that subjugated their forefathers? There are some rather interesting things going on there that warrants further study, but frankly I am just not motivated to look into it.

There was one other thing she did there that should be noted. She talked to the family of Darius Stewart, offering them her condolences. Who is Darius Stewart? Another unarmed black child killed by a white cop, that's who! Well, that of course isn't the whole story. It turns out he was a 19 year old who had outstanding warrants for being a child molester. This is how the shooting went down. The police did a traffic stop and issued a ticket to the driver. At the same time, they looked up the ID of the passenger and found he had an outstanding warrant for arrest. They put him in the back of their cruiser while they took care of the driver and sent him on his way. When the officer went to get him out to put the cuffs on him,  he tore into the cop. The cop was loosing the fight when he pulled his weapon and shot Darius, once in the arm and shoulder, and the second time in the chest.

My theory is this was effectively suicide by cop. Anyone who knows the prison system knows that child molesters generally get the worst treatment by their fellow inmates. This fact was not lost on Darius, and when he knew that he was going to be faced with a humiliating trial followed by years of the hardest type of time, he made a decision right then and there to try to escape at all cost. With nothing to lose, trying to fight his way through one cop in order to secure his freedom seemed like a reasonable alternative.

It's a pretty sad situation all around. I can't imagine what Hillary though she could accomplish by inserting herself into it. I guess it was a crass effort to align herself with the "Black Lives Matter" crowd. She certainly did that, then neatly side stepped that issue today by tweeting today:

"Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported" 

 What about Darius's victims? Don't their black lives matter too?