"I know there's not much that I could say that would make things any better right now. But I just want you to see in my eyes how sorry I am for the comments that I made." So confessed a crawling New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees as part of his very public self-flagellation after he dared to say he didn't like to see the American flag disrespected.
But look out, Drew, the hot summer sport of virtue-signaling to the howling mob is more competitive than an NFL playoff game. A police chief in Massachusetts fully prostrated himself before Black Lives Matter radicals in a show of complete submission to leftist racial lunacy. Not to be outdone, uniformed officers in North Carolina knelt and washed the feet of black activists to atone for their sins. Reason may be the path to equality, but humiliation is the road to power. And that is what the braying bullies in the streets want most of all.
A faceless mob feeds on any sign of weakness, much like a pack of predatory animals hones in on the feeblest members of the herd when making dinner plans. Brees' furious backpedaling thus accelerates in direct synchronicity with the abject refusal of cultural Marxist agitators ever to be satisfied about anything. The result is something akin to a Nigerian online phishing scam, where the sucker is constantly encouraged to up the investment to ensure the windfall that will never arrive.
Never Enough Is the Game
"WE ARE THE PROBLEM," Brees' wife Brittany stated in a servile social media post on June 5. "I write this with tears in my eyes and I hope you all hear our hearts." In her Instagram message, Mrs. Brees seems to acknowledge that fear is driving the couple's appeasement efforts. "Only until the last few days, until we experienced the death threats we experienced the hate … how could anyone who knows us or has had interactions with us think that Drew or I have a racist bone in our body?"
"But that's the whole point," Brittany Brees continued. She then admitted that white people believing they are not racist is itself a moral shortcoming. "Somehow as white Americans we feel like that checks the box of doing the right thing ... We're not actively LOOKING for racial prejudice." This unfocused narrative places her and her husband in the impossible position of never being able to measure up to the moral judgments of those before whom they kneel.
There are no exact parameters, just a sketchy recognition of the constant, undefined need to do "more." In the end, all that is left is a permanent posture of penance. It is an empty, meaningless gesture that has no basis in human behavior. Begging forgiveness for alleged acts of ancestors or neighbors or some collective entity or mindset rather than what you have done is a cheap high that can be fashionable only in an overly Oprah-fied society. Those who indulge in it lessen themselves both in the eyes of those they fruitlessly try to gratify and with their fellow citizens, who are appalled at the shallow, narcissistic weakness on display.
A Public Disgrace
Such behavior is all the worse when made by public officials sacrificing the dignity of their positions and the public trust to this bizarre modern Western form of egotism. Chief of Police Michael Shaw of Webster, MA, made a mockery of his responsibility to the people of his town by lying face down on the ground before Black Lives Matter protesters on June 6. In an equally superficial display of self-absorbed personal theater at the community's expense, white police officers in Cary, NC, washed the feet of black protesters that same day. The officers involved relinquished absolutely nothing from their own lives. There was no individual substance behind the deed. They merely demeaned the office bequeathed to them by the people of Cary to bask in a transitory adulation for themselves to attain personal emotional satisfaction.
Beyond empowering the mob, these hollow performances also engender a continuing insincerity when it comes to solving the very real social problems we have in this country. In an overly emotional leftist worldview where what you say and how you say it matters more than what you do, inauthenticity and manipulation thrive. Almost on cue, Democrat congressional leaders showcased themselves taking a knee on Capitol Hill as the cameras rolled on June 8, duly draped in African kente cloth. When mental bullying, cheap moral framing, and frivolous sentiment take the place of logic and intelligent exchange of ideas, the door opens wide for the professional hucksters.
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