7/21/10

You know what's annoying to me?  Ear wax.  That shit is just relentless.  That's not really what I meant to say though.  It just popped into my head.  The actual annoying topic for today is groupthink.  If you have a radio (or television, I assume), then you've heard of this Sherrod chick.  The civilized world is largely on the brink of financial collapse and this is what is on our minds.  Stupid. 

I'm not just talking about the general tendency of our media to beat a given topic into the ground though.  I'm talking about the pre-ordained reactions from people of all stripes.  Step 1 - observe something, Step 2 - consult your usual sources, Step 3 - react the same way as everybody else who is on "your side."  Stupid.

So Breitbart posts this video and everyone gets all fired up because the black chick said that she didn't want to help the white guy.  I don't watch television, but I did hear commentary on damned near every radio station from Nashville to Detroit.  Conservatives cheered gleefully about the black racism on display.  Liberals rationalized extensively, then reversed course and praised that Vilsack dude for reacting quickly.

Nobody even bothered to take the entire situation into consideration.  The NAACP had just called these Tea Party people a bunch of racists.  Breitbart seems to be a big fan of the Tea Party crowd. So what would this video really show, from his perspective?  Do you really think he was going for the "here's a black racist so suck it" angle?  Come on.  Why would anybody, including Andrew Breitbart, give a shit about Shirley Sherrod?  Maybe it's just me, but I never even gave a second thought to the notion that some unknown broad didn't want to help some unknown dude with some unknown thing.  That story could have taken place between any combination of people from any combination of races.  There's no story there.  I thought that the crowd reaction was the real topic of conversation.  She stuck it to whitey and then this holier-than-thou NAACP audience nodded and cheered.  That's what I thought the point was supposed to be.  "You love to call people racists but you should look in the mirror, you bunch of hypocrites."

Then, just like McCain whacking Phil Gramm for noting (correctly, in my opinion) that we've become a nation of whiners, the Obama gang had to whack this chick.  Why?  Because of a thirty second soundbite?  What was her work history that qualified her for whatever job she held in the first place?  Was that work history somehow erased by a blog posting that wasn't even really about her?  More groupthink.  "Oh shit, what will Limbaugh say?  We had better get ahead of this!"  Stupid.

I need to confess something now.  I once gave a guy a $950 price quote for advisory services when his situation probably warranted about $700.  Why?  'Cause he seemed like a dick and I didn't want him to hire me.  I forgot to mention that he was a black guy.  Should Quickway ask me to resign now?  Idiots.

So today I headed to work and checked in at the Country Fresh dairy on Plymouth.  My run to Grand Rapids was ready and waiting.  Beauty.  I flipped on the radio and hit 'scan,' then listened for a clear signal.  (I'm missing the XM already.  I ain't gonna lie to you.)  Each time I would get a station, I would hear someone talking about this Sherrod broad.  I already had concluded that everyone had jumped on the same wrongheaded bandwagon when the video broke, so today's groupthink narrative pissed me off even more. 

Today's story, from Fox News to NPR, was that this poor lady had been taken out of context and the whole world owed her an apology.  You had Glenn Beck warning people about context.  You had Robert Gibbs lecturing people about the need for all of the facts.  You had the NPR people praising her honesty.  You had the right-wing crowd criticizing Obama's haste.  You had the left-wing crowd blaming Fox News (even though she already had resigned before they even ran the story).  Damned groupthink.

The supposedly exculpatory part of the tape involved phrases like "his own kind" and other shit of that nature.  To my mind, this stuff was far more racist than her initially reported acknowledgement that she didn't really feel like helping the white guy in the first place.  His own kind?  Are you shitting me?  Invert the color spectrum and see what happens when anybody utters that phrase.  This was two steps above and beyond 'those people,' for Christ's sake.  What if I had sent that prospective client out of my office and referred him for financial advice from "his own kind"?  That's the kind of phrase that puts a permanent end to a career.  Yet, since people were embarrassed by jumping to the groupthink conclusion yesterday, they had to rebound to the groupthink counter-conclusion today.  Stupid.

If your coming of age story about racism is that you learned about class warfare along the way, but you still harbor your racist views, then it's a shitty story.  And I don't care how many news updates try to steer the groupthink otherwise.

By the time I got back to Livonia with the empty trailer from my drop/hook in Grand Rapids, it was getting to be about time for a ballgame.  Thankfully, something to get Ms. Sherrod off the radio.  I dropped my empty at the Country Fresh dairy and then scooted over to the Michigan Dairy to grab my loaded trailer of milk for tonight.  The trip out to Jackson was nice and easy, as was my delivery there.  I took advantage of the fairly level loading dock and moved all of the empty cases to the nose of my trailer, leaving me in good shape for a quick and easy unloading in South Lyon.  With all of the milk at the rear of the trailer, things were looking pretty nice indeed.

The drive from Jackson to South Lyon was a tricky one in terms of routing.  I wound up taking M-14 to US-23 and then continuing down some farm road.  Since there wasn't any scenery to check out in the dark, I would simply have to fake it.  Now that's acting, Jerry!  My unloading there was as simple as anticipated, then it was time to head home.

According to our dispatcher, he's trying to arrange it so that I'll have Mondays and Thursdays off from now on.  (I'll have the option of extra work but, for now, we're sticking with what was scheduled.)  Every time I've mentioned this to anyone, I've heard that it sucks not to have consecutive days off.  (Preconceptions  and groupthink, together at last.)  Not surprisingly, I disagree.  I like the idea of taking Thursdays off, then charging through the weekend (our busy time).  I'll be tired by Monday, just in time for another day off.  Then Tuesday and Wednesday are a little on the easier side, before it's time to take Thursday off again and get ready for another weekend.  Pretty ideal setup as far as I'm concerned, with the notable exception that I probably won't be watching a lot of college football this year.