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Respect is earned. That’s a basic principle many of us humans live by. For sure, untold amounts of individuals we encounter in our day-to-day demand and expect our respect without offering anything in return, but life doesn’t work that way, and for those who believe in the law of reciprocity, they treat others the way they treat them, for better or for worse.
U.S President Mr. Donald J. Trump is the type of individual who demands respect – because he’s an entitled, rich, white man with, now as commander-in-chief, unparalleled power and influence – but he largely offers to the public an attitude of contempt and indifference: he appears to hates undocumented workers and immigrants, and doesn’t consider the poor. His proposed budget gives you not only insight into his priorities, but confirms his cruelness.
Mr. Trump is an infantile would-be dictator whose regressive agenda and misfit-populated administration needs to be conquered. It’s for that reason, among countless others, that I don’t condemn the artistic statement by comedian Ms. Kathy Griffin, who took and published – and later apologized for – a picture wherein she held a replica of Mr. Trump’s bloodied and severed head.
Beyond the statement being representative of free speech, to me it didn’t depict violence rather it showed a conquer; or at another angle, it promoted the act of conquering what Mr. Trump stands for.
The outrage which followed the publishing of the photo is faux and should be questioned, because it’s less violent than the body slamming of a journalist by a GOP candidate in Montana, which some on the Right blushed at, and it, I assume, created much fewer victims of trauma than, for example, police brutality and invasive street searches in Philadelphia, which most Republicans don’t even address in Washington, D.C., or elsewhere. Moreover, I would estimate more Americans are radicalized by Mr. Trump’s vicious and irresponsible rhetoric than by Ms. Griffin’s bold statement, which costed her dearly in terms of career opportunities.
Ms. Griffin, under fire, now says she crossed the line. But in my opinion, in Mr. Trump’s America, there is no line, and that’s the president’s doing. Ironic indeed, Mr. Trump now is a victim of the culture of mockery – think the disabled reporter – and dehumanization – recall almost anything Mr. Trump has said about anyone other than Whites – he created and mercilessly propagated.
Mr. Trump said Ms. Griffin should be ashamed of herself, but it is he – the shady politician who fired the F.B.I Director in order to obstruct justice – who should be not only ashamed, but shamed. Have we, Americans, forgotten Mr. Trump is the man who claimed, unprovoked mind you, that he grabs women’s vagina without expressed consent?
Some say Ms. Griffin, by posing in that manner for photographer Mr. Tyler Shields, showed no respect for the office of the presidency. I, however, think she showed as much respect for office of the presidency as Mr. Trump does.
Without reservation, I raise my hand to be counted among those who won’t condemn Ms. Griffin. Maybe I’m salty from not seeing Republicans forcefully denounce the many images published of former U.S. President Mr. Barack Obama being lynched or depicted as a subhuman. Or maybe I’m jaded due to the avalanche of racism and hate that followed the election of Mr. Trump, which he won’t strongly and routinely disavow. Whatever the cause, I’m choosing not ride the anti-Kathy-Griffin-bandwagon.
Ms. Griffin, despite her apology, has my respect for her form of protest. Mr. Trump, an uncouth lair who isn’t worthy to lick Mr. Obama’s boots let alone succeed him in the Oval Office, does not have my respect, and he will likely never earn it. Fuck Trump.
Thanks for reading! Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® and I’m Drumming for Justice!™
Photo courtesy of author.
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