Just one week ago we here at Beacon of Speech were chit-chatting away about Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's extended family. Stunningly, to me, there was no real uproar about the Mayor's Great-Grandson shooting at the police or the Mayor's Grandson's laundry list of criminal endeavors.
Innocuously, I included the line "Cleveland is often cited as one of the most dangerous places in America. Places like Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Oakland, and Baltimore have consistently rotated atop America's crime charts for over the past decade."
Did someone say Baltimore?
Let's be honest here. I've never been to Baltimore. Do I like Baltimore? No. They stole the Browns. Now the people of Baltimore would say technically Steve Bisciotti stole the Browns. Or they might say that they only stole the Browns because Indianapolis stole the Colts, don't blame the people of Baltimore, blame Pete Rozell. (I'll listen to that argument.)
But the point is, if I had to describe Baltimore in one sentence based on what I know from crime statistics, John Waters, and the 1980 Baltimore Orioles, I would say "Baltimore is the East Coast Version of Cleveland."
"Rep. Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous.
HIs district is considered the Worst in the USA as proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming [sic] District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could clean up this very dangerous & filthy mess.
Why is so much money sent to the Elijah Cummings district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States. No human being would want to live there. Where is all this money going? How much is stolen? Investigate this corrupt mess immediately!"
— President Trump on Twitter
Since I am none too familiar with Baltimore, let's have some fun and pretend that Donald Trump said this instead: (Altered version in RED)
Jackson's City is considered the Worst in the USA as proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Jackson's City is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Cleveland, maybe he could clean up this very dangerous & filthy mess.
It's not impossible that Donald Trump would attack Mayor Jackson, in 2016 Jackson said that he'd ignore an order from the President and refuse to round up any illegal aliens in Cleveland. I didn't go to High School in Cleveland, but I do have to remind myself that I graduated from Cleveland State University from the glorious Downtown Cleveland campus, so I do know a little bit about the city.
Within seconds of Trump posting such a statement, cleveland.com would be loaded with stories about "Racist" Trump attacking Cleveland's Black Mayor.
ESPN would quickly come to Cleveland's defense, the All-Star Game was awesome and went off without a hitch they would emphasize. The Huffington Post would send a reporter to E 4th and she'd compliment Big City Cleveland with a European Flair.
Kelly O'Donnell on MSNBC would take to the air and cry that it's her hometown that Donald Trump was mocking. CNN would find local Media-Whore Art McKoy and give him a national platform to call out Racist America.
As the coverage overly slanted one way, The Blaze would race to Cleveland to defend the President. Not to downtown, but to the neighborhoods. They would find boarded up houses and say Trump was right. (There are a lot of boarded up houses.)
They would then go to the corner of Holten and E 83 and record the rats running across the street there. (How do I know? That's where I personally saw rats running across the street in Cleveland.) The Blaze would note that so many houses have been bulldozed in Cleveland that nature is reclaiming the city.
One America News Network would talk about the parts of Cleveland you don't go at night and FoxNews would cite the crime statistics.
Once things started to simmer down, White Media Whore Dennis Kucinich would grab a microphone before the national media vans got away and would lament Racist Republicans across the entire Midwest.
Maybe Cleveland's most famous resident, Drew Carey, would say something diplomatic like, "Cleveland's not perfect, but it's my town." But then you'd realize that Carey would be saying that from Los Angeles or Seattle. When you think of Cleveland's most famous residents, do you think of people who USED to live in Cleveland or people who live in Cleveland NOW?
Updated August 3, 2019: I just read one of the best and well-written articles of the year from writer John Blake. Nearly a week after the first brouhaha about the subject of Baltimore, he basically goes scorched Earth and puts a definitive statement into writing about what's really going on at ground level in Baltimore.
Here at Beacon of Speech, we bitch WAY too much about bad writers and fail to champion those who stand out in a good way.
So I just want to recognize great writing when I come across it and encourage you to click on Blake's article What Both the Left and the Right get Wrong about my Neighborhood in Baltimore in the above picture and you will be amazed at both the depth and the multi-faceted angles of Blake's reporting.
Then you look at Blake's archives and you realize he may be writing about Racism today, but he also may be writing about UFO hunters tomorrow. Which is also all we ask for at Beacon of Speech, depth and breadth, not just a narrative.