Justin Phillips has to be the worst opinion writer in the Bay Area. He was hired by the Hearsts, for some unknown reason, to gaslight on racial issues, which is ironic, since he himself is a racist.
Why do I say that, considering that Phillips himself is Black? Well, first of all, Black people can be racists too. There’s an argument out there among woke types that racial minorities can’t be racist, but that’s ridiculous. Of course they can. Ever since I’ve lived in Oakland I’ve heard Black people call me and other Caucasians f*****g Whites or crackers or honkies or some equivalent slur. They’re not even embarrassed, the way White people would be to say the N-word.
But back to Justin. His gravest, most intellectually dishonest error is to justify and excuse Black crime. He never, ever blames criminal acts, no matter how heinous, on the perpetrators themselves. No, it’s always something else that made them do it. Racism, white supremacy, capitalism, you name it; yesterday it was even “evangelical tendencies.” In other words, anything but the truth, which is that criminals commit their crimes because they want to. It’s called personal responsibility, but Justin wouldn’t know about that if it bit him on the butt.
It’s pretty easy to see Justin’s willful ignorance. It’s not like “capitalism” held up a gun to some young thug and made him hit a little old lady over the head and steal her purse. Capitalism is an economic system. “Systems” are not people. Nor does alleged “white supremacy” command a criminal to mug, steal or murder. Make no mistake: bullies who mug, steal and murder do so deliberately, with malice aforethought, because they enjoy committing crimes. It’s fun to outwit “the man” and to get even with your perceived enemies. Until we have a super-majority in the Bay Area that understands the truth about crime and is prepared to do what is needed to solve it, we’ll continue to have these problems.
With no small thanks to Justin Phillips. In his column yesterday, he was even more outrageous than usual. He was writing about In-N-Out Burger’s decision to close their store on Oakport Street due to the egregious volume of crime there. But instead of laying the blame on the thugs who mug customers and employees, break into cars and occasionally kill, Justin has his own eccentric list of “underlying issues that perpetrate crime in our community.” (At least he seems to have dropped the pathetic phrase “root causes.”) So what are these “underlying issues” according to Justin? Poverty. A lack of economic mobility. A lack of attention from Oakland’s top brass. Homelessness. And, of course, Justin’s favorite boogeyman, racism. Never mind that hundreds of millions of immigrants over the centuries came to America penniless (including my ancestors) and managed to climb the economic ladder without preying on their neighbors. God forbid that Justin should blame horrible parenting, often without father figures, that allows children to grow up into feral monsters. God forbid Justin should hold racists like Carroll Fife and Cat Brooks responsible for siding with criminals who, they allege, are “our babies.” God forbid Justin should call for greater police presence in these devastated communities, which decent people and businesses are fleeing, turning Oakland into a dystopian wasteland where people like Nikki Bas and Barbara Lee have the nerve to demand higher office. God forbid Justin should recognize morality as the central imperative of all human beings.
No, Justin has to do his job, which is to stir up racial divisiveness and drive wedges between different racial groups, and to allege that, if you’re upset by crime, you’re just engaging in (hold it, these are his words) “performative hand-wringing.” Hey, Justin Phillips, I hope you get mugged, the way I was last week. You’re an asshole. I hope the Chronicle wises up and fires you. I don’t know how much longer the paper can exist, because nobody reads it anymore because of people like Justin Phillips. The Chronicle used to be a good newspaper but when it went woke, it became a bleating rag. Just as people are fleeing Oakland, readers and advertisers are fleeing the Chronicle. The epitaph on the paper’s tombstone should read HERE LIES THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, KILLED BY WOKE.
Steve Heimoff