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Seattle Hires Pimp as New Police Consultant
This article appears on FoxNews.com, not on Babylon Bee, so I’m presuming this is not satire. Apparently Seattle has hired Mr. Andre Taylor as “Street Czar” to assist them with transitioning from defunding the police to “alternatives to policing.” Mr. Taylor was better known as “Gorgeous Dre” when he worked as a pimp. Perhaps he treated his prostitutes better than other pimps normally do. Perhaps not. He was convicted, sentenced to five years, and served a little more than one. He is known more recently for assisting the mostly peaceful residents of CHOP in Seattle with their negotiations with the city:
“Andrè spoke with organizers about how to turn activism and organizing into action at the state, local and federal level, and urged individuals to leave Capitol Hill.”
However, Taylor also encouraged CHOP protesters to ask the city for money before agreeing to leave the occupied zone.
“You gotta get something,” he told protesters in a recorded conversation, according to the Seattle Times. “Let me make that happen for you, and then I can bring that back to you. I don’t know, we’ll ask for $2 million. They might give us $1 million, but let’s ask for it. Because the reason why we’re holding that space is not only for George Floyd but for the millions of George Floyds.”
The reasoning he displays in that last paragraph is probably why the city of Seattle feels that he can help them with their current problems. Or perhaps not. It really is a wonderful paragraph. You should read it again.
One would think that Seattle leftists, who are so concerned with how women are treated in today’s society, would be reluctant to hire a pimp to develop a new police force. One would think that forcing women to sell their bodies would not be a résumé-enhancer while applying for government jobs. But one would be mistaken.
As you might imagine, some critics find Mr. Taylor’s generous compensation package to be concerning, considering the circumstances. But he defends his arrangement with the city thusly:
“Me, as a Black man has the right to be paid for my genius or for whatever my organization can provide. Black people as a whole have not been in a place to be compensated for their genius or their work for a very, very long time.”
The reporter who asked him the question might have reminded him that Seattle’s police chief was a black woman, and she was extremely well compensated for her time. But the reporter did not do so. Must have slipped her mind.
She might also have asked what he thought the black female former police chief thought of pimps who made money by forcing women to sell their bodies. But she did not. Must have slipped her mind.
The black female former police chief must find it ironic that she was forced to resign so the city could hire an ex-con pimp to develop better ways to do her job. I would love to hear her opinion on that, after a couple of glasses of wine.
Still, it’s gratifying to finally see some good news coming from the west coast. The frustrated residents of Seattle can rest easy now. Their “policing problem” is in good hands. They must be relieved.
Unless they’re racists.
Published in General
This story feels like it’s straight out of Mau-Mauing The Flak Catchers.
Is it a coincidence that everything really started going to heck after Tom Wolfe died?
Allegedly.
Reminds me of a talk given by a retired NYC police captain. He said that in the late 1960s and 70s policies were put in place to make sure that public pronouncements about arrests were not biased and conclusory so it was the “alleged shooter” not the “shooter.” He said he knew the policy was not well understood or implemented when he saw a news item where the detective on a homicide case referred to the “alleged deceased.”
What they did was drive them all up 99 to the area from 105th up to the Snohomish County line. Those of us who frequent any businesses in that area of Aurora (which is 99) see prostitutes all the time. I saw one yesterday when I went to an Amazon Locker on Aurora and 145th.
There’s got to be a way to parody even this left coast self-parody. It’s time to call in a pro. @jameslileks, your special skills are needed.
I think the title of this post was changed, perhaps when it went to the Main Feed. The earlier title said something about “new talent,” which I thought was a better title because of its ambiguity, as it made then reading the text funnier.
Yes, you’re right. It was changed by an editor when they promoted it. I liked the original title better, too. Of course.
Eh, whatever…
I’ve groused about that a couple of times. (I think it’s pretty much required of anyone who fancies himself even a modest writer to complain about the editor’s revisions.) My impression is that we don’t much go in for teaser headlines here at Ricochet. We want the paying public to know just what they’re getting when they click that Read More link.
Speaking of grousing, I’d still love to see Ricochet add a view counter to posts on the Main Feed. I’ve heard the various technical objections when I’ve brought this up before, but they’re really just excuses. And I’m probably not alone in wanting a bit more transparency into the reach of Main Feed posts.
I’ll have to bring that up again, next time Peter and I are having beers out on the deck….
Exactly. A clever title is an important part of the post. It’s not an abstract, summarizing what you’re about to read. It’s bait, to encourage you to explore further.
I’ve asked for the same thing. They could make the counter visible only to Ricochet members, if they wanted. But that would add a lot, for me. I’d like to know which articles attract an audience, and which ones don’t.
Perhaps you have more pull with Peter than I do.
Yes, @peterrobinson and I are very close, because we were both born in the same state (New York), which makes us part of a pretty small group of people, when you think about it. Kind of like two guys from Utica Nebraska, for example.
I guess that makes us all buddies, then! I was born in Plattsburgh.
Tell me that isn’t true. Seriously?
Yep. My Dad was in the Air Force during Vietnam. I was born on Plattsburgh’s Air Force Base in 1968.
The base is long gone, of course. My youngest three children attended the school that, had you remained in Plattsburgh a few more years, you’d have attended as an Air Force kid. (It’s now a small Catholic K-12 school.)
Part of the base was turned into a plant that now makes passenger rail cars, and very badly at that — between the problems with the ones made for BART in the San Francisco area and for the MTA down in NYC, Canadian-based Bombardier had to sell out to France’s Alstom, and the site may shut down again, because the production quality was so bad they were told not to even think about bidding on the next set of railcars for New York.