Actor, director and comedy legend Dan Aykroyd is a huge police supporter, as well as being hugely responsible for subverting blues music by watering it down with his Canadian roots.
There is only so much that Ghostbusters can make up for, and being Dan Aykroyd isn’t one of them. Neither is being a sniveling loyalist to the whip of the oppressors. But I guess you can afford to do that when you have as much money as Dan Aykroyd and don’t have to seriously consider the destructive nature of policing on people who aren’t up to their Proton Pack in cash.
Aykroyd has donated thousands of dollars to the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department, including money for new cars and a $10,000 to help get guns off the streets.
“We have rural police departments that call and ask us for laptops. For flashlights. Ballpoint pens, for little things they don’t even have the money to buy,” added Aykroyd of his work with the Blueline Foundation.
Mississippi has come a long way, Aykroyd said, from the history that people around the country associate with it.
“I believe in the progress that has been made here in civil rights and equality to all men and women. Mississippi can proudly speak of these advances,” Aykroyd said. “I see the hope of Jackson, this architecturally beautiful city. You look at these buildings, some of the old buildings, and you say, ‘Hey restore them.’ You’ve got cuisine, and chefs from all over North America coming and cooking here. You’ve got 10 of the best restaurants in North America here in Jackson. So I see progress and I see hope, and we’ve all got to get behind it.”
See how class privilege has made Aykroyd hideously blind to the truth? While Mississippi police remain violent against peaceful people over victimless crimes and continue disproportionately imprisoning the lower classes, he thinks everything is fine and dandy because there are some nice restaurants for his spoiled ass. The nerve.
“I owe a lot to the state of Mississippi. I made my living in blues music, and I owe a lot to the African-American culture that made my band possible and the great songs that I still sing today,” Aykroyd said from a campaign event at Johnny T’s in downtown Jackson last week. “I go out with Jimmy Belushi, and we sing from the African-American songbook every time we go out, so I owe this state a lot.”
So he is going to pay African Americans back, who are more likely to be poor and thus negatively impacted by policing, by supporting and funding the agency that targets them and destroys their lives? Gee, what a help, Dan.
Also, The Blues Brothers had almost nothing to do with Mississippi Delta Blues music. Instead it had the full band and polish of Chicago Blues. And as if the latter wasn’t itself enough of a departure from the earlier forms roots, Aykroyd added more polish and more artifice and single-handedly helped to rewrite America’s connection to blues music in ways that forever altered its perception as upbeat dance music. Which the Delta Blues were anything BUT.
Aykroyd managed to gentrify the blues, but that isn’t really a surprise when you find out that he not only supports, but brags, about police profiling.
However Aykroyd isn’t just a police supporter, he is also a reserve officer, which means he gets to play act at authoritarianism while further fueling his own over-inflated ego. As a bonus, he also gets a nice shiny badge, which he carries with him everywhere.
Actor Dan Aykroyd was sworn in as a reserve sheriff’s deputy at the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department in Mississippi Friday.
Aykroyd, famed for his roles in the movies “Ghostbusters” and “Blues Brothers,” is a long time public servant and has spent nearly 16 years as a police officer across two different Louisiana law enforcement agencies. His letter of request to join the Hinds County reserve unit was honored and Sheriff Tyrone Lewis swore the actor in, Clarion Ledger reports.
“He’s very qualified,” Lewis said. “He can hit the ground running, and he has credential and has put in a letter of request. Today we’re going to honor that letter of request.”
“It’s an honor to join these ranks today. I understand the challenges that law enforcement face in today’s world. … It’s a great honor, and I hope I can uphold my duties professionally and with integrity and honesty, and I hope to do that.”Aykroyd took a break from filming “Get On Up” at a nearby set to attend the ceremony, and was excited to join the ranks of the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department.
Evidently, a ghost has plagued a local courthouse for some time, and Aykroyd may be just the cop to bust it. While the actor turned police officer enjoys his old movie roles, he hopes to use his influence to raise funds for the department.
“A lot of departments can’t even afford ammunition for practice; it’s that kind of tiny little challenge that you never think of,” he said. “We’re going to be aware of that and aware of maybe doing some programs and some fundraisers to supplement the resources of the department here.”
I don’t know about you, but that bit about the haunted courthouse had me in a roaring fit of laughter. Not.
However Aykroyd is indeed interested in the paranormal, which is how Ghostbusters came about. This is something he shares with many police, whose job stress can cause hallucinations and lead to unexplainable perceptions.
Also like police, Aykroyd is mostly male, almost completely white and enjoys a privileged position in which he doesn’t have to take the consequences of his actions seriously, because they probably won’t affect him.
I cannot imagine having to deal with such insufferable arrogance and willfull ignorance on a regular basis. It is no wonder Jim Belushi did all those drugs.
Dan Aykroyd: Reserve Officer, Cop Apologist & Shitty Bluesman is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights
