All across the USA, people have been pointing judgemental fingers at McKinney, Texas: pointing at the town’s racism, pointing at the town’s homophobia, and pointing at the town’s police misconduct. All such fingers implying a certain superiority on the locale of those doing the pointing.

And those assumptions of superiority are, of course, misguided at best and lies at worst. Let’s take a few of McKinney’s recent “sins” and see how our states, cities, and neighborhoods stand up in comparison, shall we? Oh yes, yes we shall:

Homophobia: Kids who wore t-shirts supporting a bullied friend were harassed, publicly shamed, and otherwise penalized for having the words “Gay OK” on their shirts. The bullies were not, and have not, been punished. Think your town’s schools administrators are better? Probably not.

Racism: White people caused the recent dustup at that pool party, and let’s not pretend otherwise, OK? The white 911 caller was a racist (and has a criminal record), and the white woman who started the pool party fight is an obviously racist POS. Neither of them got so much as a glance from the idiot cop who pummeled an innocent black teen.
Think your town is better? Maybe it is, but probably not.

And let’s not even get STARTED on police misconduct, OK? Just check out the nationwide stats on skin-color-based differences in how law enforcement treats our citizens. No place is immune.

Yes, McKenney has racists, bigots, and crazy cops. So too does Ferguson. And, Staten Island. And, Cleveland. And so too does America as a whole: a wonderful, but deeply f***ed-up country. Until we realize that racism, homophobia, bigotry and other forms of hatred infest our nation from coast to coast and top to bottom, we’ll never get this place cleaned up.

Instead of pointing fingers at others, let’s put our digits to work. fixing our own problems.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky