Beyond Parody

Beyond Parody - Sometimes, a piece comes out that practically parodies itself.

And as fun as that can be, the real joy is encountering media product that unconsciously parodies itself, while semi-consciously parodying itself.

Such is today's Doug Grow column in the Strib, regarding the impending, and apparently resounding, selection of Bill McManus as the new Minneapolis police chief.

For those of you from out of town, Minneapolis' police department used to operate under the Darrell Gates philosophy; a force too small for the job on purpose, to create a force motivated by a sense of embattlement. While most cops have a certain "us versus them" mentality ("them" being anyone not in uniform), the MPD, like the LAPD, made it part of their operating philosophy.

The department has also spent nearly twenty years operating under chiefs from the East - from the hilarious but loathsome Tony Bouza to the current chief Robert Olson, both from New York. Both brought their authoritarian, East Coast roots with them.

McManus, from Dayton, Ohio, spent over two decades on the DC police force. His profile in the Pioneer Press notes that "McManus cites a 12 percent drop in violent crime and an 8 percent drop in property crime during the first 18 months he was chief in Dayton", but that in August, the Dayton Fraternal Order of Police, which represents rank-and-file officers, issued a no-confidence statement against McManus. The union criticized a number of the chief's policies, including restrictions on police chases and the use of deadly force. The union also said McManus unfairly fired an officer accused of mistreating a suspect during an arrest" - which, given the problems Minneapolis has had with both types of incident, may be a qualification.

Also for those of you from elsewhere - Minneapolis, especially its chattering classes, are far enough to the left to make Berkeley blanche. And among the lead chatterers is Star/Tribune columnist Doug Grow.

Which brings us back around to self-parody. Grow comments on the booming support for McManus, especially among Minneapolis' minorities:

McManus will become the next chief because politicians do nothing so well as judge public opinion. And every time council members stick their heads out of their offices, they're hearing the same thing: We want McManus.

For me, and I presume many other old, white liberals, the almost universal support for McManus comes as another stunning life lesson about the foolishness of stereotyping, presumptions and assumptions.

I assumed that people of color in Minneapolis would support only a person of color, presumably black, to be the next chief.

Inserting a snarky comment at this point would be depressingly superfluous.

Get used to it, in this column.

Well, no matter how you look at him, McManus is white. Yet, people of color have lined up in impressive style in support of him. It's the white liberals who've done the most gulping about McManus.

"Gulping".

I'd pick a word more like "patronizing pandering to the minority community", but why split hairs?

This being Minneapolis, Grow is far from alone:

Council Member Dean Zimmermann, a white ultra progressive, spoke directly to the race issue at a Wednesday morning breakfast meeting with small business owners and the chief nominee.

" I went into this thing telling myself I'm not going to vote for another white guy," Zimmermann said. "But I'm going to have to eat a little crow."

Here, we get into recursive layers of self-parody.

One wonders if Grow even noticed the irony of someone, an "ultra progressive" no less, approaching such an issue with such a patronizing, pandering attitude. The subtext - that it's part of Minneapolis liberal groupthink - is both obvious and depressingly telling.

And it goes on:

Throughout the course of the day, others echoed Zimmermann's comments.

For example, Sen. Jane Ranum, a DFLer and white member of the mayor's advisory committee in the search process for a new chief, spoke at a hearing with the council's Public Safety Committee.

"If someone had told me we'd end up with a white male out of this process I would have said, 'I don't think so,' " Ranum admitted.

Ranum - fairly pleasant woman who's made a name for herself as someone who makes Ellen Anderson seem fairly moderate and reasoned, adds yet another layer to the onion; she, a Minneapolis resident, had made up her mind (reading between the lines) based on gender and race.

Grow next hijacks Mayor Rybak's voice - apparently, they all do think alike, or at least so Doug Grow seems to think:

Deep down, Rybak himself surely didn't believe that his search would lead him to a white guy from Dayton, Ohio, via Washington, D.C. After all, few people preach diversity so earnestly as Rybak.

Council Member Natalie Johnson Lee, who is black, said Rybak has shown courage by picking McManus.

"The white guy was the hard choice," Johnson Lee said. "But I told the mayor he shouldn't make the politically correct decision, he should make the right decision, and I think he did that."

"The council showed courage by picking the Jew". "Can you believe, a bunch of white liberals selecting a Hispanic for a job like this?" "Hard to believe a woman could get this kind of consideration, given that it's such a tough job, dealing with men and all."

Here in Saint Paul, our outgoing police chief, Bill Finney, has spent the last nine years doing a marvelous job. His force is as good an urban police force as any in the country. Crime in Saint Paul is, always, vastly lower than that in Minneapolis, per capita, and that is largely because of our police force (which is possibly, indirectly due to our less-stupid, less-comically-liberal city government).

Grow misses that - but notes the key (to him) factor:

In fact, Finney, who is black, laughed at me when I suggested I was surprised that people of color were supportive of the white guy.

"What's important to people of color is that the Police Department deliver the same services to them that the majority community receives," Finney said. " . . . I never thought that Minneapolis would be able to find anyone with his credentials. He's got everything. He just happens to be white. For him not to have been selected simply because he's white would have been a gross injustice."

So - what does Bill Finney (moderately-liberal cop) know that Doug Grow (fatuous old white liberal) doesn't?

If you're an old white liberal, ask an inner city minority for the answer. It's about getting the job done. Bill Finney could, and did, do it - and his skin color is irrelevant. Bill McManus shows signs of being able to do the same - and his skin should get the same consideration.

Can Doug Grow do that?

That'd require learning from, as Grow puts it, "another stunning life lesson about the foolishness of stereotyping, presumptions and assumptions".

Any bets?

Posted by Mitch at January 8, 2004 07:03 AM