Post Gives away ÒSucker-PunchÓ Game

 

In spite of everything they could do for her, their candidate has lost, so you might think that at this late date The Washington Post would give a rest to the story that came out of Fayetteville, North Carolina, last March. That is the one that did a lot to sell the American public on the notion that Donald Trump and his supporters were racists, but The Post would not leave ill enough alone.  On the last day of 2016, apparently with the belief that fanning the flames of racial discord and vilifying white Southerners has no season, it let loose with what one would hope would be its last attempt to milk rancor out of the so-called Òsucker-punchÓ incident entitled: ÒHe was assaulted and called un-American at a Trump rally.  Can he forgive the man who did it?Ó

 

In this little bit of overreach, though, the newspaper has inadvertently revealed how staged and orchestrated the Fayetteville incident really was.  The heart of the new revelation is this passage in which the writer, Terrence McCoy, talks about the ÒvictimÓ Rakeem JonesÕs career path in the wake of his receiving that professional-wrestling-style phony punch:

 

Working the counter, he makes $7.35 an hour. On deliveries, it goes down to $4.25 an hour, but thereÕs always the chance for a big tip, and he hustled the pizzas to a faded Mitsubishi sedan with a cracked windshield. HeÕd bought it earlier in 2016 for $1,600 — most of his savings — when McGrawÕs attack at the Trump rally left him feeling unsafe riding the city bus. What if McGraw was serious about killing him? Considering the way the election had gone, what if a white-supremacist group decided to try something? Where he comes from, a rough neighborhood in northwest Fayetteville, threats are sometimes carried out. A few of his friends were murdered when he was younger, and two years before, someone shot up his auntÕs trailer, killing his 3-year-old cousin sleeping inside. So in the days after the rally, he quit his job after the companyÕs name was published, stopped taking the bus, bought a car and found a new job in a different part of town delivering pizzas.

 

Now I suppose that if youÕre gullible enough, say, to contribute money to be propagandized by NPR you swallow this story whole, but to me it doesnÕt even pass the laugh test.  YouÕd think we were back during Reconstruction, in the days of the night-riding Ku Klux Klan.  Was all that violence that had struck so close to the young Jones the work of white people motivated by racism?  Get serious.  People who still read The Washington Post and hang on every word of the MSM might buy it, but certainly Rakeem Jones and anyone else even remotely in touch with reality would wonder what the guy must be smoking to write such nonsense. 

 

Rakeem JonesÕs Payment

 

What McCoy has actually done here in his devious way is describe a rather sharp upturn in JonesÕs fortunes in the wake of his performance at the Trump rally. McCoy would have us believe that Jones was forced to quit his good old job and take a miserable, low-paying new one out of fear that fanatic, fire-breathing white people might come after him at his old place of work. McCoy is very careful not to tell us what the old job was.  For that we have to go back to The PostÕs original breathless coverage of the episode, in which they describe Jones as a Ò26-year-old inventory associate.Ó  That is to say, he was a stock clerk, which would have put him about as low on the retail pay scale as you can get.  He apparently did not even own a car, relying, instead, on the bus to get to work, which likely would have been near his residence in a poor part of town. 

 

Now, McCoy tells us that after his performance at the Trump rally, Jones Òbought a car and found a new job in a different part of town delivering pizzas.Ó  Beginning the paragraph by telling us that it pays below the mandated minimum wage at $4.25 an hour with just Òthe chance for a big tip,Ó McCoy manages to make this new job sound less desirable than JonesÕs old one, which it is quite likely not, from an earnings standpoint.  I know from experience.  My oldest son delivered pizzas for Pizza Hut the summer after he graduated from high school and he made more at it than, I would think, the average liberal arts adjunct professor or small market TV reporter or even anchor makes.  Where you are delivering makes all the difference between whether it is dangerous and low-paying (because the tips are low) or a very desirable job, indeed, about the best one a person with no education or skills can get in todayÕs economy.  But you have to have a car. 

 

So where is this other part of town in which Jones is plying his new trade?  The following passage is both informative and dizzying with its spin:

He pulled into a gated complex, got out with the pizzas and saw a large red truck with plates that said: ÒKill Õem all. Let God sort Õem out.Ó

ÒItÕs Fayetteville,Ó he said. ÒThatÕs the mentality.Ó

Gated complex?  HeÕs trucking pizzas in the absolutely richest part of the city.  If heÕs the least bit good at it he has to be doing very well, indeed.  ThatÕs where the big tips are.  You almost have to think that someone got leaned on to give Jones that job, because there are a lot of people who would want it.  But what about that truck and its bumper sticker? 

Nowhere in McCoyÕs long article does he tell us that Fayetteville is very nearly the ultimate military town. In fact, one wouldnÕt be far off base to call it as much a federal city as Washington, DC.  Fort Bragg, the home of the 82nd Airborne Division and the Special Forces, is there.  ItÕs where I did my ROTC summer camp and where the Army Reserve artillery unit I was in later came close to inflicting heavy casualties on a National Guard outfit with a badly errant practice round (but thatÕs a story for another time).  It is also the largest military base in the world, Òwith more than 50,000 active duty personnel,Ó according to Wikipedia.  That bumper sticker slogan is a purely American military saying that I heard for the first time while on active duty in the Vietnam War era.  So, yes, it might reflect a certain mentality around Fayetteville, though not one youÕre likely to see on display in the typical gated community. 

 

Rakeem Jones, the Philosopher

From a military saying, though, McCoy spins it into an occasion for the linguistically challenged Jones to wax philosophical about the current state of race relations, as we continue the Post quote:

There was a time when he thought differently, not just about Fayetteville but about America as well. He knew there were racists in his country and community, but he also trusted that its people were tolerant of diversity and wouldnÕt vilify someone who went to a Trump rally and yelled out some words of protest. But since that night, he has thought about race constantly. He has thought about it when he has delivered pizzas to houses with Trump yard signs. He has thought about how he must look walking up to the door with his dreadlocks and tattoos, at times wondering whether heÕd be welcomed if he werenÕt holding a pizza.

Surely you must realize, dear reader, that this is The Washington Post and its shill, Terrence McCoy, speaking; it is not Rakeem Jones.  Listening to Jones being interviewed by the oleaginous Lawrence OÕDonnell one may readily conclude that words like ÒmentalityÓ and ÒvilifyÓ are not in JonesÕs vocabulary, nor is it all likely that he is continuing to smart over any presumed ÒracistÓ treatment that he received at the Trump rally.  Rather, what I see in the conciliatory behavior at the fake puncher John McGrawÕs sentencing, on the part of both Jones and McGraw, is more a sense of guilt by both of them for any racial antagonism they might have stirred up in return for their easy money.

 

Money?  Did I say money?  Well, look at it.  Ask yourself which scenario is more plausible, in light of what we learned from the Project Veritas videos.  McCoy of The Post—which is virtually wearing its agenda on its sleeve—wants us to believe that this stock clerk had managed to accumulate more than $1,600 in savings, the lionÕs share of which he used to purchase his used car after the incident at the Trump rally.  We learn from Project Veritas, though, that, at least in one case, $1,500 was what a person was paid to be disruptive at a Trump rally in the hope that violence would be provoked.  Is it not far more likely that the money for the car, necessary for the desirable pizza-delivery job, was payment for JonesÕs performance at the Trump rally?

 

Ronnie C. Rouse

Now letÕs skip ahead in the article for some more unintentionally revealing insights:   

The sentence McGraw received was one year probation, and after the judge was done and the case was over, McGraw had one more thing to say to Jones. ÒWeÕve got to stick together,Ó he quietly told Jones. ÒWe canÕt let them come between us.Ó Then he walked toward a side exit and put on his cowboy hat, and Jones went in another direction, toward a friend who had been with him the night of the rally.

ÒIt was a slap in the face, man,Ó the friend, Ronnie Rouse, told Jones. ÒWhat messed me up here was the guy didnÕt apologize.Ó

ÒYeah,Ó Jones said and nodded his head. ÒYeah.Ó

ÒIf it was me? Ninety days, five-year probation, $1,000 fine. ItÕs crazy,Ó Rouse said, and a few minutes later, standing outside with Jones, he looked back at the courthouse. ÒHe really believes in how he acted. HeÕs just a stubborn old man.Ó

ÒItÕs real life,Ó Jones said. ÒWhat you see is what you get.Ó

ThereÕs that extremely unlikely Òfriend,Ó Ronnie Rouse again, whipping up racial resentment just like he did in that interview with OÕDonnell, but McCoy has him using street slang and Jones sounding like the thoughtful philosopher.  Here is my transcription of the real Rouse responding to OÕDonnellÕs question, ÒDid you see anything like this coming?Ó

ÉWeÕre a very diverse, cultured city, and we watched a lot of these other events—this campaign thatÕs happening—in other cities in the Bible Belt in the South that are more racially charged areas historically, and we knew it wasnÕt going to happen in Fayetteville, and we went to spectate and it happened to us in front of law enforcement and, it just, I felt like we took three steps back.  It was the first time I was ever embarrassed to tell people I was from Fayetteville.

If McCoy of The Post was putting words in JonesÕs mouth that really came from the far more articulate, but race-baiting Rouse, it was probably not the first time.  This is from that first report of the incident:

Jones said he and four friends — a ÒdiverseÓ group that included a white woman, a Muslim, and a gay man — had gone to the rally as a Òsocial experiment.Ó He said the woman with them started shouting once TrumpÕs speech began.

ÒShe shouted, but at the same time, they were shouting too,Ó Jones, a 26-year-old inventory associate, said. ÒEveryone was shouting, too. É No one in our group attempted to get physical.Ó

 

In this video, though, we hear Rouse using the term Òsocial experimentÓ for what they were up to.  ItÕs how he talks; itÕs not how Jones talks, not any more than how he would use words like Òdiversity,Ó Òmentality,Ó or Òvilify.Ó   Rouse is also thoroughly disingenuous in that brief interview, saying that they were Òjust going to go and watch,Ó but in the words that The Post attributed to Jones, they were admittedly being purposely disruptive.  That is to say, they went to the rally with the intent of causing trouble, and they did.  You can see it very clearly in the video as they stand up and shout obscenities as Trump begins to speak.

 

Some Òsocial experiment!Ó How would the people in the audience know anything about the religious affiliation or the sexual orientation of the little group of disrupters?  And why would this lowly stock clerk want to do anything like that? What could possibly motivate him and the others?  Who put this odd collection of people together, anyway?

 

The Ringmaster

 

The fact that Ronnie Rouse has only a brief cameo role in McCoyÕs long article and is treated as no more than a fellow meek, passive ÒvictimÓ with Jones in OÕDonnellÕs appalling diatribe/interview should be telling.  I have found that as a general rule itÕs what the press ignores thatÕs most important.  This is the same press, after all, that blacked out the news of the meager prison sentence given to AmericaÕs top alien smuggler, Stan Eury, just up the road from Fayetteville.

 

Listen to music producer/rapper Ronnie C. [Rouse] expound on his world view, first in rap style and then in prose, here and you will see clearly that there is nothing meek or passive about this man, and that like the former boxer and friend of Sammy Davis, Jr., Air Force veteran and Old West fight re-enactor John McGraw, throwing his fake punch, Rouse is just putting on an act in that OÕDonnell interview.  The most telling line in his rap might well be ÒI got my tricks up my sleeve.Ó  

 

Even more telling is RouseÕs rap ÒThe Paper,Ó with its recurring refrain, ÒSo IÕm just chasing the paper.Ó I really donÕt think that he means it ironically or he is talking about someone else here while using the first person.  This is purely autobiographical.  The Urban Dictionary defines Òpaper chaseÓ as Òhustling to get fast cashÓ and Òchasing paperÓ as ÒA person who only goes after money.Ó 

 

Do we really need to look much further for the ringmaster of that little circus act performed in Fayetteville last March?  Jones and McGraw are two people who badly needed money, while Rouse could hardly show more openly how badly he craves it. 

 

Alternatively you can believe that Jones and Rouse are just two black men who happen to be friends.  You wouldnÕt know it from the mainstream coverage but Rouse is a minor celebrity and a major wannabe on the rap music scene, and he has a very big presence on the Internet.  He has 271 connections on Linked-In where he calls himself a Òmusic architect,Ó and lists 10 music and entertainment related skills.  He also lists French and Portuguese under ÒLanguages.Ó You can watch his work here and see that as a music architect and video producer heÕs not half bad, either.  IÕm sure he could more than do justice to my composition, ÒSo What if he wanted to perform it on a video.

 

From the full wiki we learn that he is an Army brat through and through, with both his parents non-commissioned officers, now retired.  He lived in Germany for three years during an important formative time in his life, starting at age five.  ÒDuring that time,Ó we are told, ÒRonnie became engrossed in books and computers, as well as the hip-hop movementÉ. It was a life changing time for Ronnie, because he was able to involve himself with families of diverse cultures and races in the military environment.Ó The family returned to a very rough Fayetteville neighborhood where he lived until he was 16, when they moved to the much nicer and safer College Lakes neighborhood. 

 

He will be 34 years old this September, which would make him approximately seven years older than Rakeem Jones.  Jones, by contrast, we gather, hasnÕt yet come close to making it out of the cityÕs bad part of town.  Noting their considerable age and experience differences and listening to each of them talk, it is inconceivable to me that they would have enough in common to be friends. 

 

Rouse has 824 followers on Twitter, but very few people seem to be watching his videos on YouTube these days.  Rapper and music producer Sean Combs seems to be the sort of person he aspires to be, but that doesnÕt seem to be working out too well of late, so perhaps he saw this Fayetteville gig as a chance to take the Van Jones route to fame and fortune, as a race merchant.  And, what do you know; there he is since the event contributing articles to the Huffington Post. He began his first effort, ÒWhat I Know about America after Being Thrown out of a Trump RallyÓ rather inauspiciously:

As I woke up this morning, the reality and depth of the situation started to finally set in.

Seventy-plus interviews later, my childhood friend and I are on national news because we decided to attend a presidential campaign event. My childhood friend and I are on national news because we were exercising our civic rights as Americans.

Well, that pretty well seals it, doesnÕt it?  Rouse wants us to believe that he and Jones are buddies because they are childhood friends, with a seven-year age difference.  Do we really need any more evidence that the event in Fayetteville, which got saturation news coverage and went a long way toward painting Trump and his supporters as anti-black racists, was a paid operation? He even says it twice like heÕs trying to convince himself, ÒMy childhood friend.Ó Yeah, thatÕs the ticket.

 

More Stagecraft on Display

 

That is not to say that there is not more evidence that the whole thing was staged.  Look at this early report from The Washington Post:

A Donald Trump supporter has been charged with assault after multiple videos showed him sucker-punching a protester at a campaign rally in Fayetteville, N.C. (emphasis added)

The videos, which appeared on social media early Thursday and are shot from different perspectives, show an African American with long hair wearing a white T-shirt leaving TrumpÕs Wednesday-night rally as the audience boos. He is being led out by men in uniforms that read ÒSheriffÕs Office.Ó The man extends a middle finger to the audience on his way out. (emphasis added)

WhatÕs with the all those videos that just popped up on social media?  One canÕt help but think that a number of other people were paid to make sure that the little melodrama was captured for maximum exposure.  If a Trump supporter or two happened to raise his phone to film the disrupters being led out, it doesnÕt figure that he would rush out and put it on the Internet, because it makes Trump supporters look bad.  Someone even made a video of McGraw playing the role of Trump partisan before the event began, haranguing protestors carrying signs. 

 

One Born Every Minute

 

As you might expect, not everyone reading McCoyÕs production for The Post would have approached it as critically as I.  Take, for instance, one Susan Phillips, who wrote the following just 13 days ago:

IÕve been very moved, as others have, by the Washington Post story about Mr. Jones and his grace and superhuman ability for forgiveness. Few of us could do that given the circumstances. He is a true hero and I hope a symbol of the healing and outreach that must occur in these times of divisiveness, hate, and fear that Trump has fomented.

And, bless her bleeding heart, she put her money where her mouth was (assuming this is not just some phony pump primer) and sent $250 intended for the ÒRelocation of Rakeem Jones.Ó Yes, just six days after the event in Fayetteville, Rouse opened a Go Fund Me campaign Òon behalf of Rakeem Jones,Ó which gives $25,000 as its goal for the stated purpose of moving Jones to a different place from where he is currently. 

 

Perhaps I just donÕt know how to use the site, but I canÕt find anywhere any answers to simple questions like Why? Where? or How?  Maybe the Susan Phillipses of the world think itÕs all self-explanatory.  TheyÕre going to take him out of that horrid, intolerant South and relocate him to some safer promised land in the North like, say, Baltimore or Chicago.  Perhaps weÕre supposed to take it like McCoyÕs explanation for why Jones was forced to change jobs, because the bad old white people had found out where he worked.  Maybe theyÕve found out where he lives, too, so he has to change his address. 

 

If Rouse had come right out and said that Jones needed to move to be closer to his new, more desirable, place of work, I could believe it, although I still wouldnÕt have much trouble resisting the urge to send money to the custodian of the fund.  RouseÕs rap line, ÒSo IÕm just chasing the paper,Ó made too big an impression on me, IÕm afraid.

 

David Martin

January 19, 2017

 

 

 

 

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