So there was this charity event. It was held at an Elks Lodge. The lodge is in Glendale, California. The host of the event was a retired cop. About half of the 50 to 60 guests were cops.
You can probably already tell this story isn’t going to go well.
Somebody took some video. Salon reports on what the video shows.
In the video, Gary Fishell, a former federal investigator, sings a parody of the song “Bad, bad Leroy Brown“:
“Michael Brown learned a lesson about a messin’
With a badass policeman
And he’s bad, bad Michael Brown
Then it gets worse; go there if you want to read the whole thing.
It’s the fascism again. It’s racism too, obviously, but it’s also the fascism I was talking about in regard to the New York police commissioner and the PBA. It’s rejoicing in superior force, even in cases where it’s not called for. It’s saying jump when we say jump or we’ll kill you, and isn’t that glorious of us.
It’s also disgusting.
In an interview with TMZ, Fishell’s lawyer says that Fishell now realizes the song was “off color and in poor taste.” “He’s a goofball who writes funny songs,” his lawyer continued. “He thought the room would get a kick out of it.”
Sigh. Point missed. Reality evaded.
Myers was unapologetic about his guest’s chosen form of entertainment: “How can I dictate what he says in a song? This is America. We can say what we want. This is a free America.”
Yes yes yes, and nobody’s arresting him (or shooting him), but there are plenty of things people are free to do that are nonetheless despicable. That “funny song” is despicable.
A representative from the Glendale Elks Lodge condemned the performance: “It’s deplorable and inappropriate and the Lodge will take disciplinary action against [Fishell] and possibly the people who organized the event,” a trustee said. “We don’t stand for any racist things like this.”
This country is shameful in so many ways. Like this one, via Amazing Maps on Twitter:
Prison Population per 100,000 people (2012)
May the Ghost of Jim Croce visit this schmuck this Christmas Eve and kick his lily white ass.
Right. But by the same token the rest of us can say what we want. What I want to say is that Fishell is a disgusting asshole glorying in the murder of an unarmed black man.
We’re Number ONE! We’re Number ONE! Oh, wait…
@2 Al Dente, I would correct that as “glorying in the murder of an unarmed black teenager.”
I loathe the “I can say whatever I want, this is Murica!” response to criticism. It always follows the same pattern:
1. Person A says something despicable. Sometimes in the presence of people who laugh and/or agree
2. Lots of other people criticize Person A for what they said, and the people who enabled them if applicable.
3. Person A and their defenders point out that they have the legal right to say what they want.
4. The conversation is shifted to people having the right to say terrible things, and the issue of whatever terrible thing was said is dropped in public discourse.
5. Mission Accomplished
To be fair, there’s no official data for North Korea’s population imprisonment rate.
I think the best response I’ve heard to head this off is: If the best defense of what you just said is to point out your legal right to say it then it is probably not something worth saying or hearing.
“He thought the room would get a kick out of it.”
And I’ve no doubt that most of them did.
Jeremy Shaffer @6
Good response.
@5: ….or a few countries in Africa.
I’ll bet NK would be the same dark red as the USA, or maybe it’d even need a new colour all its own. But then “better than a dirt-poor police state run by a family of sociopathic lunatics who hold demi-god status” isn’t much of an advert for The Land Of The Free, is it? (Which was perhaps your point).
Without the blatantly racist perversion of a song by a blatantly racist cop, what follows might be viewed as done in extremely bad taste. As a response to it, however, I think it’s appropriate.
“Cops Murdered Michael Brown”, with all apologies due to Queen, and their 1974 song, “Bring Back That Leroy Brown” (which was itself a response to the Jim Croce song).
Listen to the song with vocals removed while reading. The original song can be heard here.
————————————————————
Murdered, murdered, cops murdered Michael Brown
Murdered, murdered, cops murdered Michael Brown
Bet your bottom dollar bill he was a black man
There’d be ‘splainin’ to do if the dead man were white
Darrell Wilson’s racist attitude
Is why he shot Michael Brown
In that backward Ferguson town
Cops have too much latitude, babe
Murdered, murdered, cops murdered Michael Brown
Murdered, murdered, cops murdered Michael Brown
Calling it “justified” makes no common sense, no no
But blowing brains out is typical cop style
Forget about trial or taking them to jail
Just give him the death sentence
Cops are facing the heat, courts give them shade
“All black men wanted, dead or alive!”
“Wooh wooh! Big bad black man! Wooh wooh!
“Wooh wooh! Big bad Michael – Brown!”
Murdered, murdered, cops murdered Michael Brown
Murdered, murdered, cops murdered Michael Brown
Michael Brown’s mother had a nervous breakdown
She had a nervous breakdown
Wilson blew her oldest son away
The townspeople stood in protest
Cops put guns to their heads,
And unless I be mistaken
This is what they said:
“Do you want to end up dead like Michael Brown?
Bring it you animals!”
Murdered, murdered, cops murdered Michael Brown
The murder caused a might fine sensation
It even got a word from the black President
(The ineffective black President):
“Next time, obey the cops whether
They’re beating you or kicking you with shoe leather”
Wilson is a killer
I don’t care what the “officials” say………..
Wilson in a murderer!
Lock him up!
To be fair, there’s no official data for North Korea’s population imprisonment rate.
24 million North Koreans, 6.6 million Americans in prison. So the US prison population is a bit more than 1/4 the entire population of North Korea. But per capita does make more sense, because otherwise the numbers are unbearable.
I miss the time when Bob Dylan would have written a song about Michael Brown and Darrell Wilson, that would have had everyone singing through tears of rage.
Q: What do you call a retired cop?
A: A good start.
Dylan? Really?
Seeger, perhaps.
Phil Ochs.
Sili I hate to tell you but Seeger is no longer amongst us.
I think Sili is doubting that Dylan wrote many songs that we sang through tears of rage.
Joe Hill.
So, if this is America where ‘we can say what we want’, then why were they working themselves into a lather because the Ferguson protestors *supposedly* said ‘death to the police’ or something like that?
Seriously this is horribly dismaying. What levels of contempt and hatred must they have towards black people to sing jokey songs about this kind of thing?!