Glad to be alive, and PBS kills a film.

Today is Sunday so I guess it's a good day to reflect on how lucky I am to still be alive here in America.

Sadly, as a black man in these divided states of America, it's pretty much a guarantee that your life will be shorter than everyone else's.

You catch it from all sides; from your own peeps to those who are supposed to be protecting you. I am still shocked to hear that a black man is killed every 28 hours by the po po or a vigilante. (I see you George Zimmerman.) It makes me want to strap on a bullet proof vest under my Tom Ford.

Here in Philly there were several shootings over the weekend, and I can guarantee you that most of those shootings were perpetrated by black men against other black men.

This, of course, is not a problem for most people, because they wouldn't be caught anywhere near where most of these shooting occurred. But unfortunately for the people who live in those neighborhoods getting out is not an option that they can afford right now, so sadly they live with the reality of those shootings every day.

"A significant portion of those killed, 68 people or 22%, suffered from mental health issues and/or were self-medicated. The study says that "[m]any of them might be alive today if community members trained and committed to humane crisis intervention and mental health treatment had been called, rather than the police."

Yes, but it's hard to focus on "crisis intervention" when you are afraid of walking out your door and getting shot.

Finally, I am disappointed with PBS for choosing money over principles. They canceled the showing of the documentary "Citizen Koch" because it didn't paint the wingnut billionaires in a flattering light.

The Koch brothers have been using their money to influence what goes on over at PBS and apparently the suits over there took notice when the Koch brothers threatened to cut off their money pipeline if they showed this particular film.

This is what having money can do for you in America. You can buy politicians and the public airwaves to influence political thought.

You have to feel for the poor guy who produced the film.

"When did you guys find out that Jane Mayer was writing about your film getting spiked by PBS? I'm not certain exactly when we found out. Jane's somebody whose work we know. We had taken note of when she had done an exposé of the political activities of the Kochs in 2010, and we'd been in touch on and off for the last few years. When she asked us the status of where we were with this project and with PBS and we told her, she immediately said she was interested in this angle because she had been aware of the various ways in which they had wielded influence with the network and had participated in some of the science programming that had aired on PBS. She was really interested in following up on this.

Speaking out publicly about what the experience wasn't a decision that Tia and I reached easily. But we felt that our film was exactly about this topic—the power that ideologically-driven wealthy Americans wield over the public debate. They determine what gets talked about and what's important, around elections for example. They're really interested in setting the parameters of the conservation.
So given our experience with losing the PBS audience for political reasons, we felt it was appropriate to be transparent, to answer questions, to share this experience." [Source] 

PBS might have some explaining to do.


*Pic courtesy of noshoesnosocks.blogspot.com