Sage Lewis

Why I Think It’s Important We Support The Brian Thompson Assassin

—

by

Sage
in ,

First, let me say that I don’t come to a state of radical love and acceptance naturally. I am not some aberration of humanity. I am not a natural-born saint.

My blood thirst is as alive and well as the rest of humanity. I love vengeance and cold, hard, righteous justice as much as the rest of the masses. I am a Jesus-turn-the-other-cheek guy through learned practice. I was born as an eye-for-an-eye guy.

That’s the first thing I came here to say. If you are one of the MANY people who are finding Brian Thompson’s assassination to be delicious karma, you don’t need to feel guilty. That’s at the heart of what it means to be a human. Our evolutionary brothers and sisters are chimpanzees. They will tear off your eyelids (along with the rest of your face) simply because you looked at them wrong. It’s ok. I think we could be doing a lot worse, all things considered.

Brian Thompson was assassinated Wednesday, December 4, 2024. Jazmir Tucker, 15, was assassinated Thursday, November 28, 2024 (Thanksgiving Day). You probably don’t remember Jazmir’s name, but you probably heard about him. If you are one of my liberal friends, you probably glanced at an article talking about him in one of your national news outlets:

Jazmir is just another Black boy shot down in cold blood by the police in my home city, Akron, Ohio.

When I heard about Jazmir’s murder, I wanted him so bad to be found waving his gun around, shooting at the police. I so desperately wanted the police to be justified in killing him. But no. His gun was zipped up in his pocket.

“But Sage! 15-year-olds should not be carrying guns.”

You don’t know the streets of Akron. If you are on the inner-city streets of Akron and you aren’t carrying a gun, you are stupid. Akron is a mean city.

Akron drug dealers, Stuart told the newspaper, were “causing real problems for the state [West Virginia], but we’re not going to tolerate the situation any longer.”

Mike Stuart was the U.S. attorney overseeing the southern district of West Virginia in 2019. Akronites were coming down to West Virginia to sell drugs. It’s like having the “Cowboys” who were involved in the O.K. Corral shootout come to your town. No one wants it.

Urban Akronites are tough and we take a lot of pride in it. Our city has made us into serious, stone-cold players who are not to be trifled with.

Akronite Da’Quan Isaac was recently sentenced to 18 years to life in prison for killing 21-year-old Ahmad Alibrahim. Ahmad was a convenience store worker who wouldn’t take Da’Quan’s money because he said it was dirty or had blood on it (“poor condition” is what the news said). All Da’Quan wanted was a Black and Mild cigar. Da’Quan couldn’t take the disrespect one more minute. He went to his car, got his shotgun and shot Ahmad in the face. My homeless friends (both White and Black) pretty much agreed that Ahmad got what Ahmad deserved.

That’s the kind of city Akron is. That makes sense to us. And if you are “outraged” by that sentiment, all that means is you don’t have any idea what it’s like living poor on the streets of inner city of Akron, Ohio.

I marched countless miles of Akron streets during Black Lives Matter. I stood next to the mayor as he took a knee. I was filled with hope that things would be different. Akron voted in a police oversight board.

AND NOTHING FUCKING CHANGES.

Oh, that’s not true. Akron is now thinking about getting insurance for these shootings as we are faced to pay $5.6 million for two lawsuits connected to the Jayland Walker shooting death by police. Jayland was shot 46 times by our police. He was unarmed (though he did have a gun in his car).

Our hope and change is now just going to be that we will have insurance to pay off the Black families whose boys get gunned down in the streets by APD. Jayland Walker’s murderers are still anonymous police officers working in the Akron Police Department.

And nothing will happen to Jazmir’s murderer either (who is also anonymous – we need to protect him, after all). But if we hurry up, with any kind of luck, we’ll be able to maybe get a pre-existing condition covered for our new police murder insurance policy so we won’t have to pay out as much money this time to Jazmir’s family.

Which brings me back to Brian Thompson.

Hopefully, you’ve seen this graph:

Over 1/3 of claims made to UnitedHealthcare are denied. And there’s this: One lawsuit filed last year against UnitedHealth claims that 90% of the AI algorithm’s recommendation are reversed on appeal.

UnitedHealthcare is a terrible, evil institution. I hope you have had the opportunity to hear some of the utterly tragic and heartbreaking stories of insurance denials that lead to prolonged suffering and death all while Brian Thompson was driving the UnitedHealthcare ship.

I’m not sad he was shot. In fact, depending on how this plays out, this assassin could become one of my new all-time greatest heroes. (Keep in mind that my number one hero is John Brown who was a terrorist by all accepted definitions.)

I’ve recently been wondering how many Health Insurance CEOs would have to be murdered when I finally said to myself, “Alright, guys. This is getting a little out of hand.”

All of them? I really don’t know.

If you think violence doesn’t solve any problems, you are simply chanting the party line of the machine. I encourage you to read a little about these revolutionary changes caused by violence:

It’s often better when the system massacres innocent people. That seems to produce the most profound and swift changes. But it is not the only way to make violence work for change.

I hate violence. I’m one of those people who question very deeply what to do when mice and cockroaches get into my living space. “Why is my living space more important than theirs?” I’m that guy.

But I also am an activist. The moral relativistic question I ask myself is: If we could bring the UnitedHealthCare denial rate down to the industry average (about 16%) by killing their CEO would I do it? It’s EXACTLY like the Trolley Problem.

A trolley is barreling towards five people. A person is standing at a track switch (or sometimes the trolley driver can do it). If the person flips the switch, the trolley will change tracks and only kill one person. If you do nothing, the trolley will kill five people.

Do you know how many lives will be saved if this assassination brings down UntedHealthCare’s denial rate even a little?

If it saves 5 people’s lives would it be worth it? How about 1000? How about 100,000?

Do you know that the number one cause of bankruptcy in America is health-care related expenses?

I doubt this assassination will lead us to Medicare for all. (But it is not out of the realm of possibility. It could be the spark that lights the match. That’s what many people believe John Brown did with his raid on Harper’s Fairy. What if, without John Brown, chattel slavery lasted another 100 years? Would that be a better outcome than John murdering those 5 slavers in the Pottawatomie Massacre?”)

But if Brian Thompson’s assassination leads to a 10% decline in insurance denials at UnitedHealthcare, I’d be hard-pressed to say it wasn’t worth it.

Are you really ready to commit to the absolutist position that no one should be murdered for no reason, ever? Hitler? No?

How many people do you think Brian Thompson murdered by denying coverage of procedures someone’s doctor prescribed?

But honestly, I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t assassinate him or anyone else. That’s not my thing. You may find a piece written by me in the future where I outline all the reasons why we must love, understand, and forgive Brian Thompson and all those corporate leaders who drive quarterly stock prices up by increasing the denial of healthcare coverage of American citizens.

I’m the radical love and acceptance guy. It’s actually impossible to get the system to stop murdering innocent people like homeless people and Black boys. I’m trying to end murder. Not create it.

But that doesn’t mean someone else’s activism is wrong. Maybe mine is wrong. I don’t know. (And I can’t know. It’s impossible to know what the outcome of any actions will ever be.)

If you don’t know why people murder each other in Akron, or why such a diverse group of people are salivating at the murder of Brian Thompson, or even why Akron police sometimes gun down Black boys when they shouldn’t, I would encourage you to take a little time as you explore your Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice to image what it’s like being these people. If you can’t do that, you still have empathy work to do.

You don’t have to say it’s right. But you do have to understand it… if we are ever going to move forward as a community.

BUT MOST OF ALL…

I am so filled with love and hope watching so many people from so many walks of life coming together around this assassination. It’s beauty out of death. It’s the little green shoots that pop up after a forest fire. It’s rebirth. It’s a grotesque beauty that feels like all we can hope for at this point in our journey as a global community.

Do I wish people from all walks of life could unite around the murder of Black boys? OF COURSE I do. But it’s politically divided. Conservatives will say his death was justified, and Liberals will say, “fuck the police.” It’s pathetically programmatic. We know exactly how Jazmir’s assassination will play out. It will divide Conservatives and Liberals, cops will be ruled justified for the murder, there will be some payout and nothing will change.

It turns out that murdering 7-year-olds in schools and murdering Black boys in our cities does nothing to inspire change.

But Brian Thompson is different. I didn’t see that coming. This reminds me of that week we were all united after 911 back in 2001. I’ve never seen anything like that since.

The death of Brian Thompson appears to be the sacrifice we desperately needed. I sincerely hope we can figure out how to come together in new ways that don’t involve assassinations and terrorism. But honestly, at this point, I’ll take what I can get.

I love you.

Sage