So there was this charity event. It was held at an Elks Lodge. The lodge is in Glendale, California. The host of the event was a retired cop. About half of the 50 to 60 guests were cops.
You can probably already tell this story isn’t going to go well.
Somebody took some video. Salon reports on what the video shows.
In the video, Gary Fishell, a former federal investigator, sings a parody of the song “Bad, bad Leroy Brown“:
“Michael Brown learned a lesson about a messin’
With a badass policeman
And he’s bad, bad Michael Brown
Then it gets worse; go there if you want to read the whole thing.
It’s the fascism again. It’s racism too, obviously, but it’s also the fascism I was talking about in regard to the New York police commissioner and the PBA. It’s rejoicing in superior force, even in cases where it’s not called for. It’s saying jump when we say jump or we’ll kill you, and isn’t that glorious of us.
It’s also disgusting.
In an interview with TMZ, Fishell’s lawyer says that Fishell now realizes the song was “off color and in poor taste.” “He’s a goofball who writes funny songs,” his lawyer continued. “He thought the room would get a kick out of it.”
Sigh. Point missed. Reality evaded.
Myers was unapologetic about his guest’s chosen form of entertainment: “How can I dictate what he says in a song? This is America. We can say what we want. This is a free America.”
Yes yes yes, and nobody’s arresting him (or shooting him), but there are plenty of things people are free to do that are nonetheless despicable. That “funny song” is despicable.
A representative from the Glendale Elks Lodge condemned the performance: “It’s deplorable and inappropriate and the Lodge will take disciplinary action against [Fishell] and possibly the people who organized the event,” a trustee said. “We don’t stand for any racist things like this.”
This country is shameful in so many ways. Like this one, via Amazing Maps on Twitter:
Prison Population per 100,000 people (2012)
