What a mess.
I could write about six freestanding posts about this incident, the resulting trial, and the nauseating news media spin being placed on the matter from both sides of the political spectrum. I, however, have a limited attention span for people and events this annoying. Two will have to do.
To begin with, this whole fiasco arose out of the Kenosha, Wisconsin, Black Lives Matter rioting, easily the least defensible of all last summer’s uprisings over presumed racism where there was none. It’s a close contest, with the Briana Taylor riots in Louisville and the Atlanta rioting over the jerk killed at the Wendy’s after he tried to shoot a taser at a cop, running close behind. But the riots over the shooting of Jacob Blake were even less justified than these, and no rioting is ever justified. Blake was a felon, he was in the act of a crime, he was harassing his alleged rape victim, he was armed, and he was placing children in peril. He should have been shot, and his race was irrelevant. Never mind: both the NBA and Major League Baseball allowed players to engage in one-day strikes over the incident, though they didn’t know the facts. Ugh.