,
11 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
1) Bullshit. You're avoiding the point here. Willfully. Cynically, perhaps. What I think on Baltimore has been executed in journalism, prose and film -- all of it is readily available. If it's what you seek, it is evident. But it exists because I am seriously engaged...
2) ...with what has happened to Baltimore. In fact, as a resident, I am vested in whatever happens next. Ergo, my criticisms and arguments cannot be partisan stupidities and flippant finger-pointing at lone officials when the systemic affronts to this city and all of rust-belt...
3)...America are deeply historical and complex, arcing back to the profound misuses of race and capital and forces to shape the cities. Everything from federal redlining to the interstate highway system to Plessy-into-Brown to the drug prohibition built Baltimore in ways...
4) ...that have vastly more impact and relevance than whether Elijah Cummings investigates Donald Trump and whether Trump likes it or not. The purpose of that interaction is not to seriously address Baltimore; Trump gives no fucks and has not the intelligence for the attempt...
5)...instead the purpose is transparent: To quickly find a means to counterattack against a black critic because Trump can abide neither. If his concern was the viability of the 7th District and Cummings being responsible for such, then Trump would be obliged to....
6)...acknowledge that swaths of that district are quite affluent -- some of it African-American and affluent -- and credit that as he discredits inner-city tracts. He's also have to acknowledge that the district is actually doing better overall than other white-led districts...
7) Of course, he does no such thing. This isn't a serious attempt to discuss what ails the Maryland 7th, or even all of Baltimore. It's just a common bit of race-baiting targeting a black critic who has the job of investigating the president's robust capacity for graft. And so...
8)...I treat it as precisely that and understand that serious arguments about what happened in Baltimore and what has to happen to save Baltimore cannot be achieved in this context, with this level of mendacity on the president's part. And now comes you, a fresh shitmongerer...
9)...newly interested in diverting a legislator's rightful role in probing presidential misconduct by pissing sideways on the travails of a portion of that legislator's district. You want to discuss Baltimore, here and now. No, you fucking scrote, what you want to do is obvious.
10) Baltimore has many profound problems. They are rooted in the history and tragedy of urban policy, race and macroeconomics in America, and in the malfeasance and non-feasance of both political parties. Those of us that care about her will continue to engage in that argument...
11) ...but not in this rank and transparent misuse of the city as a callow maneuver to thwart or marginalize legitimate congressional oversight of a corrupt administration. And not with a rando shitbag such as yourself, running cover for that corruption on a social media site.
