‘This apparent indifference would once have exasperated me. I think now that it is the mark of a great [flawed] faith [in people, society & Government]; a great, unconscious pride. None of these men could possibly think the Church was in danger, for whatever reason. And of course my confidence is no less than theirs, but probably of another kind. Their sense of security horrifies me.’

‘The Church is not an ideal to be realised, she exists, and [we] are part of her.’

(George Bernanos, 1936. Diary of a Country Priest, p.27)

In July, 2017, Australian, Justine Damond (nee Ruszczyk) was gunned down by Minnesotan police officer, Mohamed Noor. Damond was fatally shot in the stomach after calling 911 in response to a woman screaming in an alley near her home. After a second call to 911, police responded. As Justine approached the vehicle, Noor shot her, later claiming he was defending against what he had determined was an ambush.

Noor was found guilty and sentenced in 2019. Over the course of that year instead of the media lamenting the murder of Justine, or calling for the reform of Minnesotan law enforcement culture, practices and training, the mainstream media saturated its reporting with a pseudo-defense of Noor, claiming racism played a crucial role in his conviction.

The New York Times headlined with ‘A Black police officer, a White Woman, a Rare Murder Conviction. Is it hypocrisy, or justice?’. The ACLU called it ‘What Officer Noor’s Conviction Says About Racism in America’. Even the Canberra Times chimed in saying ‘Damond shooting points to U.S. police racism’. The Washington Post was less belligerent, more diplomatic, but couldn’t hide its own sway towards the “it’s because of racism” bent being applied to the officer convicted of Justine’s murder.

This phenomenon wasn’t unique to 2019. Days after Justine’s murder, VOX contributor, German Lopez wrapped the cold boney fingers of racism all over the Damond case. Lopez’s “exposé” set its sights squarely on what he alleged was a disparity of protest between the death of a white woman, and the deaths of black men in the hands of police.

The article took this “observation” and proceeded to use selective quotes from “right-wing” media as proof of bias, and white systemic racism. Lopez equated “blonde, white Justine” with innocence, and “Noor’s blackness” with crime in an attempt to paint the right-wing media as racist. By doing so he furthered the stigma a crime with African American ethnicity, something those deemed to be right-wing media never did.

Lopez constructed a racist narrative in the name of fighting racism. By publishing it VOX plugged themselves into a direct attempt to profit from a tragedy. This wasn’t “brave”. It was reckless because it embeds racism within the American community through a false narrative by allegedly uncovering hidden ‘systemic bias’’ against African Americans within right-wing media. The majority of racist narratives they will find are the ones planted there by Leftists.

To paraphrase a Booker T. Washington quote shared by David Webb in his address to Oxford Union in 2015,

‘There’s a class of people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of African Americans, before the public. Some of these people do not want African Americans to lose his grievances because they do not want to lose their jobs. There’s a certain class of race problems solvers, who don’t won’t the patient to get well.’

Lopez’s apparent obsession with racism illustrates how the leftist media wallows in its own systemic bias. Then psychologically projects that onto their opponents. To borrow Melanie Phillip’s assessment of Al Gore’s apocalyptic climate change propaganda film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’: there’s a tendency to ‘state a threat where none exists, or exaggerate threats where they may exist.’ [i]

The media coverage about Justine’s death infers that mainstream media willfully look for confirmation of their narrative. Call it confirmation bias, call it manipulative propaganda. Regardless of the name given to the process, it seems that if the largely leftist controlled mainstream media can’t find that confirmation, they’ll construe words, and events, even hijack the emotion of a tragedy and milk it for political leverage. In Lopez’s case, a well intentioned fight against racism becomes racism, by giving tragic events a racial twist.

Those on the Right aren’t exempt from promoting half-truths that confirm a certain narrative either. However, the difference between both political isles is that the Right are often more tactful about it, and they don’t get away with it was much as those on the Left. Most, at the very least, refrain from using the suffering of others as a means to promote their own virtue or piety. For the Right it’s generally about addressing the argument, not attacking the people.

For evidence of this chase down any number of examples where Conservative voices have been blocked, banned or suspended on Social Media sites for even the smallest “infringements” of their EULAs.

One quintessential example of this is the treatment of Tommy Robinson, and Free Hong Kong supporter, Avi Yemini, in contrast with the free ride given to foul mouthed feminist, Clementine Ford by the Leftist mainstream media, and Social Media platforms.

For both sides, what tends to get lost in the noise is clarity.

In Justine’s case the urgency for law enforcement reform is drowned out by a narrative of racism that is superimposed over the top. As her family recently stated, ‘the fact that another person has died at the hands of the Minneapolis police using excessive force shows that they have not made adequate changes to their practices and training as we had been told they would after Justine’s murder.’

There is no real justice for Justine or George, if their murders are used as a springboard to further entrench the false narrative of white systemic racism. Yes, racism exists. It’s an undeniable reality, which among others, proves the accuracy of the biblical indictment about the condition of the HUMAN heart, the biblical injunction against sin, that all have sinned, and God’s decisive gift of liberation from it in Jesus Christ.

Instead of focusing on the issue, which was the abuse of power by law enforcement; instead of pushing for reform of the culture, practice, and training, the Leftist mainstream media chose to tilt at windmills, chasing the “white supremacy crisis” narrative they’ve been pushing since Hilary Clinton lost the 2016 election.

That narrative is now costing lives. I think it’s fair to say that if Justine’s death hadn’t been hijacked to confirm the bias of those on the Left, who now sadly, are so thoroughly dominated by the inflexible and intolerant Leftist ideology, George Floyd may still be alive today.

As we say George Floyd’s name, may we say Justine Damond’s also.

References:

[i] Phillips, M. 2010. The World Turned Upside Down, Encounter Books

First published on Caldron Pool, 4th June, 2020.

Photo by Marc Schulte on Unsplash

© Rod Lampard, 2020

The LNP’s battle against the Coronavirus is also a battle for the hearts and minds of Australians. If the Prime Minister fails in winning the latter, his ability to fight and win the former will be significantly compromised. It’s evident to most that Scott Morrison is doing everything a good leader can to win this war, but as goes the law of unintended consequences, Morrison is on the cusp of losing the battle for Australia’s hearts and minds, because of the absence of reassuring battle cries.

There’s no doubt that Sunday’s late press conference revealed a Prime Minister working hard on our behalf. He worked on a Sunday, negotiated with some hard-line Labor premiers, took questions from journalists and fronted the nation. The obvious wear and tear of his schedule was more than enough reason to reject myopic claims that Morrison “bullied” the ABC’s Andrew Probyn, when Probyn attempted to dominate (and therefore bully other reporters of) the press galley. By forcing Probyn to social distance himself, so that other reporters could have a chance to do jobs. Morrison answered a bully, he wasn’t being one. It was late. Morrison was short. Probyn copped a time out, it’s time to move on.

War-time crises require war-time speeches, as much as it requires determined, and resolute, war time leaders. If the Prime Minister wants Australians to unite behind him in this war, he’ll have to do a whole lot better in communicating to Australians about why they should fight, why they need to fight, and how his plan is more than up to the fight, than he has.

Scott Morrison has the logistics right and an effective battle plan, but he needs to improve his monologues. Standard public relations speeches, based on information and procedural text-types won’t work; neither will polished, over written approval ratings twaddle. We can get all that from Government websites. What we need is more of ‘fight on the beaches’, and less of ‘stop going to the beaches’. If Morrison doesn’t do this, as was witnessed late Sunday night, he’ll come across as fighting against, rather than for Australians, and as a result he will lose the proverbial war at home.

Scott Morrison’s big mistake on Sunday, was failing to mention how the war cabinet would be going about to protect freedom. If we are indeed fighting a war, imported from Communist China, the Prime Minister’s approach in this latest news conference won’t inspire people to unite and fight against it with him. I get that the Prime Minister was probably tired. Anyone who’s been in board room meetings can sympathize, they can be mentally, morally and emotionally taxing. This is just for the meetings that succeed. Multiply this by 10 for meetings that don’t.

For all the Prime Minister has been doing, and doing very well, last night saw an unintentional emptying of more air from the already deflating national morale. The absence of any reassurance to Australians that the government will be doing everything it can, in order to protect freedoms under threat by the necessities he has already outlined, and those he said may yet need to be implemented, wasn’t a shot in the arm to the Australian public. For many, it was a right hook to the head.

To be fair, Morrison’s job isn’t easy. As has been made evident by the actions of Victorian Labor Premier, Daniel Andrews, who appears to have pulled a Benedict Arnold, agreeing to keep schools open, only today, to contradict himself and close them, in a direct rejection of the Prime Minister’s plan, including rejecting the advice from Australia’s Chief Medical officer, Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy who has said that ‘the consensus view of all of the chief health officers is schools should stay open because the risk to schoolchildren from the virus was very low.’

Making the Prime Minister’s battle for Australia’s hearts and minds more difficult, are all the social media show ponies lecturing us and the Government on why keeping schools open is wrong. Some rants, I know for a fact, come from folks who don’t really care about the issues, or the kids. This is another quick opportunity to attack the P.M.

Let’s be honest, if a Labor Prime Minister had done the same as Morrison in regard to schools, the wolves howling at Morrison, would all singing his or her praises. Few on the left blinked an eyelid when Kevin07 splashed cash from tax-payers coffers on empty halls and fancy balls. It seems that as long as the situation provides an opportunity to drool for, and spill LNP blood, who cares about national unity in a time of crisis?

For the rest of us, the Prime Minister’s school plan was solid. First, it’s an optional extra for parents. Kids need stability in a time of crisis. Routine helps. Keeping the schools open – as an optional extra – when the current health advice (around the world) says it’s reasonable to do so, provides this necessary framework. Closing schools will mean that a child’s routine is disrupted, resulting in an instability in the child’s life that will need to be countered-balanced.

Arguing otherwise, without sufficient reasons to do so, only fosters more fear, more anxiety, more hysteria and harms, rather than helps Australians. Show dissent. Question the new normal, but don’t be obnoxious in doing so.

I say this as an advocate for homeschooling. Something I think Australians can do, and do well. Even without government support. Even with direct hostility from political activist groups on the left, and with having to always look down the barrel of public misconceptions about socialization. Although I support the idea of homeschooling where you can, when you can, if you can, the fact is not all parents are able to homeschool and provide the necessary stability to do so.

The idea scares the hell out of some parents. Many of whom have succumbed to arguments from anti-homeschooling teachers, who regard parents as being intellectually incapable of educating their kids at home. Never mind the fact that many of those allegedly “intellectually incapable” parents were, or may have been, schooled by those very same teachers.

The Prime Minister has a mandate from the Australian people to fight on their behalf. This includes bringing Premier’s, who may be a little too friendly with the Communist Chinese Regime, into line with the Constitution. Not letting this crisis become a means for slimy political manoeuvring.

While the war against the Coronavirus is of the highest importance, Scott Morrison must also recognize that the fight for national morale, for the hearts and minds of the Australian people, is as equally important.

Now that the Prime Minister needs Australians to step up, he must adjust his approach. He can’t just tell hundreds of thousands of Australians that they’re going to be out of work for six months, but here’s some compensation.

War-time crises require war-time speeches.

Morrison needs to rally Australians to the cause, recalling some of the adages that inspired the Anzacs to push back against the dark shroud of totalitarianism that embraced the 20^th Century.

I am confident in the Prime Minister’s ability. I am confident in Australia’s ability to unite, and fight; overcome and adapt. We’ve kept calm and carried on before, we can do so again.

First published on Caldron Pool, 24th March, 2020.

Photo by Jonathan Cooper on Unsplash

© Rod Lampard, 2020