Irresponsible City of Seattle workers staging faux walkout

Taken from Monday’s edition of KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz Show.

Some Seattle city employees walked out of their jobs for a half hour on Tuesday to demonstrate their support for police reform.

The Seattle Times reports a number of groups are involved in the walkout, including the City Light Black Employees Association, the Citywide Black Caucus, the City of Seattle Native American Employees, and the Seattle Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Questioning Employee Association.

The implication is that these groups are pushing reform for issues that affect their membership. I’ve heard the claims coming from black groups in the city in recent months, none of which have actual facts to back them up, but at least I understand their claims and they’re very clear as to how it personally affects them.

But I look at this and I think, what about these other groups? Is there some Seattle Police Department push against people who question their sexuality? Are they being targeted by the cops? Is there some reform the SPD can actually take to help bisexuals? It seems kind of odd for them to be a part of this.

Marta Idowu, with the City of Seattle Native American Employees, tells the Times, “We’re city employees, but we’re also people who care about what’s happening in our communities. We want to help the city go in the right direction.”

But the truth is this is not an actual walkout. To call it a walkout is just about strategic positioning. They’re doing this on their lunch break at 1 p.m. and they’re asking people to join them.

These city workers don’t care enough to actually walk out of work because deep down they’re not willing to lose their job over a narrative they know they can’t back up with facts.

The demonstration at City Hall would include, according to the Times, a moment of silence and participants will hold up signs spelling out black lives matter because black lives in Seattle or Washington state, I guess, don’t matter.

People keep shouting out that black lives matter as if there’s an indication that anyone disagrees with that. The only ones who believe that black lives don’t actually matter are a handful of activists, the majority of them, by the way, are white.

Idowu told The Times, “We want to show solidarity, to have really good accountability for what the police are doing.”

“We have total respect for the police. We can’t live without them. We’re not against them. We’re just showing that we care.”

But I don’t buy that. I don’t think they have respect for the police because if they had respect for the police, they’d have respect for facts. They don’t have a respect for facts. The folks who are supporting these protests that are happening in this city and all across the nation don’t respect facts.

These city employees are supporting a phony narrative that is being pushed by ideological anti-cop activists trying to set up a narrative that on the streets of Seattle that cops are just mowing down black people. That in the streets of this country we have police who are hunting down black people. We know that that is not happening. We know we can look at the actual statistics and there is no epidemic, yet they keep pushing the claim that that is what’s happening. They keep pushing that claim and these irresponsible city employees get behind that message while pretending to respect the police.

These city workers don’t respect the police. If you respect the police, here is my challenge for you: set the record straight. Correct the activists when they lie and mislead. When they scream “[expletive] the police,” tell them that is not the kind of remarks you want to be associated with. Start your own movement, a movement that does show some for respect for the cops.

Taken from Monday’s edition of KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz Show.

JS