I have a confession to make.
Last month I surreptitiously slipped out of my silo of truth and righteousness, crossed the great divide, and slinked through the realm of malice and deceit (aka Foxistan) to brashly practice what I preach: Love your enemies, and if you can’t love ’em, at least listen to ’em.
Well, I don’t love the stooges in Foxistan and I really don’t want to hear ’em or even look at ’em, but now and then, a masochistic curiosity gets the best of me.
And that’s how I happened to watch The Fall of Minneapolis, a slick crowdfunded documentary from Alpha News. The film mischievously casts doubt on the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.
Millions have now seen it. It’s “a thing” on the other side.
Facts were suppressed. Floyd was not murdered. Chauvin was sacrificed.
I never believed that.
Still, the film rattled me.
(My inherent skepticism sleeps lightly.)
Well, what if?
I immediately sought refutation of the film but, alas, serendipitously found validation of it from two right-leaning (but not crazy!) African American academics—Glenn Loury (Brown University) and John McWhorter (Columbia). They, too, were rattled by “compelling new evidence,” especially since they had consistently affirmed to their podcast audience that Floyd had been murdered. Case closed!
But now this.
As it turns out, Loury and McWhorter had suspicions. They did due diligence. It took a while.
They interviewed the producers of the film and found them duplicitous, concealing strong biases—partiality toward police and negativity toward cities run by progressive Democrats. They also read the investigative journalist Radley Balko’s point-by-point refutation of the right’s new favorite Black intellectual, Coleman Hughes, who had endorsed the film in The Free Press.
(Balko is the author of Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces. Hughes is the author of The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America.)
Last week I happened across Loury and McWhorter again. They were contrite. They confessed that they had been too credulous, gullible.
(Good for them. Who ever owns up to a mistake these days?)
Anyway, I’m glad to be back on the righteous side again—wiser, or at least a little less dumb.
And here’s a belated “Thank you” to my readers who thought I’d gone bonkers. And said so.
But then, that’s what the comment window is for.
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In case you missed it, I was dithering in my February 4th post: The George Floyd Hoax.
