So like everyone else I ended up watching the new series on Netflix called “Dahmer” — the in-depth look at his life before and after his capture. It really focused on the community he preyed upon and their general feelings about how the Milwaukee Police Department ignored their cries for help. Even the different descriptions were honed in on getting people to see it through the right lens. The captions state: “This dark drama series examines the gruesome crimes Jeffrey Dahmer committed and the systematic failures that enabled him to kill 17 [people].” “Across more than a decade 17 teen boys and young men were murdered by convicted killer Jeffrey Dahmer. How did he evade arrest for so long?” How these descriptions were lost on so many viewers is beyond me — I guess they didn’t read them.

From the judge giving him no jail time after he drugged and molested a 13 year old boy (that the cops brought back to his place after he had managed to escape), to his mother asking a mother of one of his victims to “speak on Jeffrey’s behalf” — this movie is plagued with white privilege and what we (black people) call “caucasity”. The caucasian audacity to ask for help from the mother of one of your son’s murder victim’s for a lesser sentence — disgusting, and all too real. But what’s also disgusting are all of these silly little memes about Dahmer, and even a whole ass tattoo “to start a serial killer sleeve” (a fuckin what?). There’s people dressing up as the guy, posing in photos, there’s merch of him as well — I think we should talk about people who are unhealthily obsessed with serial killers (we’ll get to that at the end). These Dahmer memes are stupid and I think you’ve missed the point.

Again, let’s look at the descriptions which actually answered it’s own question of “How did he evade arrest for so long?” Answer: “The systematic failure that enabled him to kill 17 [people].” And what were the failures? Who was the system in each situation? Well, let’s break them all down.

Episode One:

FAIL — When the cops ran into Jeffrey’s latest pick-up/almost victim named Tracy Edwards, they brought him back to Jeffrey’s apartment to see what he was talking about. But for the longest time it seemed like they didn’t believe Tracy — they were more interested in the handcuff story Jeffrey was making up. It was only when they came in to get the handcuff key and found some photos of dismembered bodies that the cops took Jeff into custody. And yes, it’s still a “FAIL” — if they hadn’t found those photographs, do you think Tracy would have been taken seriously?

Episode Two:

HUGE FAIL — When the police arrive after being called by Dahmer’s neighbors to check out a young kid (14) who’s stumbling around, clearly drugged, and naked on the streets, they immediately start by saying “Okay ma’am there’s no need for the attitude”, and “try being respectful”. It clearly took them a considerable amount of time to arrive (hence the neighbor’s frustration) and for something so strange they should have arrived sooner. Jeffrey walks up on the scene which ultimately leads to one of the officers asking, “you know this kid?” He responds by saying that he’s “his boyfriend“. No red flag yet? Okay. One of the neighbors says, “He came out of his apartment. He was talking crazy. He’s butt-naked and doesn’t know what’s going on.” The cops ask for Dahmer’s name — he gives it. They ask if he knows the little boy. One of the neighbor’s exclaims that the boy is bleeding. Jeff says, “He’s drunk. He fell over.” So… nothing? Underage drunk naked kid is bleeding — no flags? The cops berate the black witnesses, and escort the underage, bloody, “drunk” (drugged) little boy back to the murderer’s apartment who is later then killed by Jeff. They don’t even secure any identification to ID him to check Dahmer’s “he’s my 19 year old boyfriend” story. This was one of the biggest fails of the case and the DISGRACED police officers *ahem* John Balcerzak and Joseph T. Gabrish were suspended with pay (fail #Idontevenknowanymore) and reinstated. Gross.

Episode Three:

FAIL — After dismembering a hitchhiker named Steve and bagging him up, Dahmer gets more wasted and decides to put those bags in his car and head out to the city dump. Of course, he’s stopped by police after swerving around in and out of lanes. They pull him over, ask for his license, and asks if he know why he was pulled over. Jeff says “no”. The cop then states “because you were swerving across the road. And I can smell from here that you’ve been drinking.” Jeff admits to having “a couple beers” after being asked and the cops replies “you had more than a couple of beers”. The second officer asks “what’s in the garbage bags?” to which Jeff lies and says that “they’re clippings from the yard” in a less than convincing manner. They’re clippings alright — but not from the yard. Jeffrey then talks about his family going through a divorce and how he can’t sleep so he does yardwork. If either one of them had opened the bag that would have been his first and LAST victim. But getting drunk drivers off of the street doesn’t seem to be taught at the police academy so they let him go with a “harsh warning”.

Episode Four:

FAIL — Jeffrey finds a passion for drugging young men in a bathhouse and doing hell knows what with them. One night he goes too far and the bathhouse owner has to call the paramedics because the guy looks dead. While walking down the dark corridors the owner leads the EMTs to the room saying “this guy comes in here. It’s the second time he’s done it. He slips them a mickey and he just leaves them here. The last time we got the guy up but this kid’s unresponsive”. The EMTs start going to work on the guy giving him chest compressions which then makes him vomit the drugs — no investigation? Again Dahmer comes in with a new potential victim and the owner starts yelling at Dahmer and his companion to “get the fuck outta here! You should run away from this guy right now. He brings guys in here, and he drugs them.” The owner then lets Jeff know that he’s been blacklisted from all the bathhouses in the area because he told them about what Jeffrey does to young men, but not the cops? So for his next victim, instead of a bathhouse Dahmer gets a hotel room, accidentally drugs himself in the process of trying to drug his victim, and ends up killing him anyways. He could have been spared if police had been called in for some sort of investigation or statement. Instead Jeff is making out with his saran-wrapped severed head at the end of the episode.

Episode Five:

FAIL — Jeff finds a young black man by the name of Ronald Flowers having trouble with his car engine turning over (starting the car), so he offers him assistance by saying that they can go to his grandmother’s place and come back with a car to jump start it. Ronald actually wants to stay with his car initially but Jeff convinces him to go along with him since it was a “bad area”. They arrive, and Ronald makes it perfectly clear that he’s not interested in anything sexual to which Jeff replies “we’ll see”. Ron let’s out a hearty “fuck you” and tries to leave but is already drugged from Jeff’s powder in his coffee. The grandmother then comes down and sees Jeff straddling Ronald and decides that she’s going to stay down there and watch over him (after being shocked that there’s a black man in her house). She feels the need to watch over him all night, but no need to mention this to anyone but his “already-don’t-give-a-shit” father? After saving him from a horrible fate, both Jeff and his grandmother put a still-drugged Ron on a bus (in the wrong direction), and leave it at that. Later, Ronald is found in a corn filed having overdosed, but he tells the nurse about Jeff and how he doesn’t even do drugs. The nurse then calls the police and Ron is talking with an officer at the station. This is where it gets even more fail-tastic.

Ronald Flowers — now completely aware and awake — is telling the cop “this guy is drugging people. I went down to the bathhouses. They say they know this guy, Jeff. He’s blond. He isn’t allowed in anymore on account of he’s drugging people.” The officer plainly replies, “okay, like I said, we’ll look into it.” Flowers, rightfully agitated, says “I’m not asking you to look into it, I’m asking you to go and stop this guy”. He gets no real reply from the officer, and Ron pleads with him to go to his house so he can find the drugs he’s using on everyone and gives the address. A visit is paid to the residence, the cop sits and listens to Jeff and his grandmother’s story about how Ron was drunk and how he was trying to help the guy — and nothing else comes of it. The cop calls Ron back into the station to give him the “disappointing” news of how Jeffrey got away with drugging him, and says that “there’s two sides to every story”. Ron is visibly upset uttering out a hallow “Jesus” before returning to the conversation and learning that Jeffrey had been arrested before. At this point the racism is on full blast when the cop says “you should know, getting arrested doesn’t suddenly make you guilty of everything.” Ron then reveals that he had never even been arrested before and the cop just implies that he must “know” regardless of never having been arrested. As a fellow black person who has also never been arrested — no, I don’t know you’re talking about. And to “take the word of a white guy who’s got a criminal record over the word of a black man who doesn’t have a criminal record” is racism — plain and simple.

2ND FAIL — A young Laotian boy (13) stumbles out of Jeff’s grandmother’s house (drugged) with Jeff coming out after him. Luckily his grandmother hears the commotion and taps on her street-facing upstairs bedroom window to get Jeff to come back inside or to stop him from whatever he had planned next. The boy somehow makes it home and collapses onto his bed — his parents call 9-1-1 and Jeff is arrested, again (the other time he was jerking off at an amusement park). Jeff goes to trial for drugging and molesting a 13-year old boy and the judge let’s him off. I don’t think you read what I just wrote… *ahem* Jeff goes to trial for drugging and molesting a 13-year old boy and the judge let’s him off. They bring him into the courtroom with a “charge of sexual assault in the second degree” to which he pled “no contest”. He was then “sentenced to one year in the custody of the Milwaukee County House of Correction” — which was later reduced to a “work release” program because the judge said, “you remind me a lot of my grandson” who also had an alcohol issue but turned his life around. Does your grandson also drug children and molest them? What kind of comparison is this? The judge stated that he wasn’t “the kind of guy who belongs in the correction system, [he needed] a second chance” — and you can just hear the record scratch. The family of the boy was obviously distraught while Jeff and his family were relieved while the judge says “I’m willing to do you the favor of leaving out the exact nature of your… misconduct.” Wherever this judge is, I hope he’s not a judge anymore, anywhere, ever again. This isn’t a family reunion “oH yOu ReMiNd mE oF mY gRaNdSoN! yOu wAnT sOmE bUtTeRsCoTcH sOnNY?” — this is a TRIAL. Oh, and to state the obvious, he wouldn’t have “reminded him of his grandson” if he weren’t white — so again, white privilege mixed with misplaced nostalgia is taking place.

A huge part of this case is that Dahmer’s victims were mostly black and brown people of color (the black cop who was interrogating him brought this up too). The reason behind these murders and attempted murders (and attempted grave robbery) was that he wanted to control them. Dahmer stated that “everybody was always telling [him] what to do” and that the victims were “the one thing in my life that [he] could control”. So one could argue that even subconsciously systematic racism played a part in his mind and in his plans. He lived in a mostly black neighborhood, and preyed upon black and brown people who are known for never getting full (or any) coverage when missing unlike their caucasian counterparts. And one could argue that that’s what he was counting on, and that’s why he had gotten away with it for so long killing seventeen people in the process.

Episode Six:

FAIL — Tony (a new victim) has been gone for two days and is reported missing by his mother to the local police station. The scene starts off with a police officer sitting down and asking “okay, what’s your son’s name again?” (implying she already told him and he didn’t bother to remember). She tells him again, “Tony, Anthony Hughes”. He starts rattling off the usual questions and pauses, “what makes you think he’s missing?”. Tony’s mother explains that he’s staying with her and didn’t come home, and that he hasn’t contacted anyone since — which is way out of his character. The cop follows up with “any history of drug abuse or gang violence? Anything you’re leaving out?” (racism) to which the mother looks offended and says “no, like I said, he’s a good boy.” Nothing is done by police — as expected — but what they didn’t expect was for her and the Hughes family to put in work looking for him. A storm of flyers, and a passionate speech later and she garnered a good amount of attention for her son’s disappearance — attention Jeff didn’t want. It shouldn’t have been up to the family to go looking for him, that’s what the cops are supposed to do. The fact that she didn’t even want to mention that he was gay because she knew he’d be pushed down in the pile even further — the fear of (even more) stigmatization in regards to getting your black, deaf child found is just too much.

Episode Seven:

FAIL-CITY — How many times did Jeffrey Dahmer’s neighbor Glenda call the police on him? Apparently more than enough times for them to remember her specifically (and that’s not a red flag?). She was in the hallway yelling “I called y’all and I told you over and over a million times that something was going on and you know what you did? Y’all did nothing!” To which Tracy — who literally just fought for and narrowly escaped with his life — replies “Y’all motherfuckers knew?” as the cops tell him to “calm down” (fuck that). This was the same apartment Jeff used when the cops escorted a naked, drugged, underaged, bleeding boy back to, so yeah they knew. Apparently she had been calling the police for months and complaining to the landlord about the smell emanating from his apartment — neither of which did anything. “He’s a good tenant”, says the landlord as he ignores Glenda’s call for assistance for the fourth time. So ignore the screams for help, and the thuds, and the weird rotten smells — okay. “I can send a unit to stop by his place tomorrow”, says the cop who ignores all the signs that there’s a domestic violence situation going on at the very least. The episode goes on to show Glenda hearing another smash-up in Jeff’s apartment and calling the police again. She telling him that it “sounds like someone’s being killed” and this “professional” asks her to “go make sure” (bitch, isn’t that your job?). He rattles on about “sending a car” but neglects to ask for the apartment number. When Glenda catches it he gets around to saying “if you keep calling us all the time how are we gonna know it’s an emergency?”. So, another one dies in the apartment next door.

Episode Nine:

FAIL/FUCKERY — His abusive and oftentimes absent father decided that he had to take it upon himself to make people see that his son was “insane” so he wouldn’t go to jail — the caucasity. He tries to blame himself cause he did some weird stuff when he was a kid. He tries to blame his mother for all the pills she took when she was pregnant with him. He even went as far as to blame a comic book for his depraved son’s actions. None of it held water — he did what he did because of him, because that’s what he wanted to do. Dahmer is literally talking to his father telling him that he’s not crazy. “I’m not insane”, he says. Lionel Dahmer replies with, “well, at the time of the killings then.” “No, I wasn’t then either… it was just like a compulsion.” Lionel won’t accept it — the lawyer joins in. “Right, okay, so you had a compulsion, which means you couldn’t stop” — however the gaps between his first few murders prove otherwise. His father continues, “you said that you’d wake up and you didn’t remember what you did.” Jeff doesn’t hesitate in saying he was “black out drunk”, and that was why he “didn’t remember some stuff”. All of the excuses — none of the truth. Trying to get him into a mental hospital under false pretenses was wrong. He said it himself, “I knew what I was doing. Didn’t want to but I couldn’t help myself. I’m not insane.” Then of course his father shushes him up and says. “Jeff, no. You’re not gonna say that in court.” Why not? It’s the truth. Why are you trying to cover it up?

Here comes the fuckery. Lionel Dahmer then tries to say that there’s a legal precedence comparing his son to Ed Gein –bruh, if you have to compare your son to Ed Gein to HELP him out… listen to yourself. Holy shit that’s bad. And while he’s going on about how Ed Gein used skulls for decoration, dug people up, and had skin for seat covers, Dahmer just plainly asked if he ever fucked one of the bodies he dug up — and of course his father is disgusted (what’s wrong pops?). Then more fuckery as Dahmer’s pill-head mother asks one of the victim’s mothers to speak in favor of Jeffrey — caucasity. To think that this woman owes you anything other than an ass-whoopin for asking this, or would even help you with this is beyond laughable. Why would she help you? Your son is a freak (and not the good kind). Go home.

Looking through FAIL #1 – #…15? you can clearly see where this family gets the idea that they’re somehow special. He got a slap on the wrist twice in the fifth episode by getting away from drugging people and molesting a child. This is what his family already knew about, everything else was kind of in the dark for them. But having that little tidbit of a moment in court when the judge didn’t even give him jail time cause “he reminded him of his grandson” gave them enough nerve to act like this. The systematic failure in place giving these desperately white privileged people some semblance of hope that their son could possibly get away with this is still there (if you’re awake and have been paying attention to the world). And we’re still not done.

Episode Nine:

FAIL — I won’t even mention the fans he had accumulated while in prison or the guard who helped him buy “whale noises on tape to help him sleep”. Let’s talk about that award ceremony — which one? Both. This scene is split between two award ceremonies — one held in an extravagant venue hall, the other in a dingy room. The venue was occupied by police, and the room by people of color who were members of the Milwaukee community. In one frame a police chief says the words in a demanding tone “we take care of our own” and gave the two cops that gave the drugged, naked, bleeding kid back to Dahmer “Cop of the Year” awards. Yeah we saw who you “took care of”, and it wasn’t anyone black or brown.

MORE FAILURE — The press. How many times has the press completely failed as a news source or non-biased media (yes, including this article on the “bias” thing — I’m fully aware of myself but I’ve gotta talk about this). They really couldn’t stop giving this wacko attention, and paid little to no mind as to what the families were going through or dealing with. “I don’t know why he gets to go on national TV to tell his side of the story”, says Glenda with her arms folded in anger. “This is not some Halloween story, this is my life…”

EVEN MORE FAILURE — Glenda is interrupted by police officers who come to arrest her daughter for breaking some guy’s camera who was playing “Dahmer” outside of her mother’s apartment with some friends. They couldn’t come for Jeffrey all of those times, but one phone call from a white guy and there’s an arrest with a gang of cops. That should have been the story. Immediate action only when someone white and privileged calls. “We take care of our own”.

Episode Ten:

THE EPIC FAIL — This is another case of Jeffrey getting “special privileges” — not to mention he’s one of few white men in a predominantly black prison (more racist crap but that’s another post). Jeffrey walks by his fellow inmate’s tauntingly saying, “Sorry fellas. Don’t get mad just cause I’m getting a little sun today” while an inmate yells “why does he get private time on the yard?”. They could be doing this because of the attempt on his life, but it doesn’t matter — they could have put in him the hole if he wanted to be alone. Getting this type of treatment put some fire under the “have-nots” and one of them decides he’s gonna say something. He brings up Dahmer’s blatant disrespect towards the other inmates with his sick dismemberment jokes and “selling [his] autographs like [he’s] some kind of celebrity”. But why not? He’s been treated like one this entire time. Believed by cops even though he has a record of “sexual misconduct”, getting let off with a “warning” while he has a body in his car, or being let go entirely because he “looked like [somebody’s] grandson” (I’m never gonna get over that). By this point, everyone is responsible for this monster — not just himself. The cops who didn’t care, the blind ass judge, the landlord who didn’t check the smell out, his crazy family making excuses for him, his idiot fans sending him letters, nudes and money, the guards who did him favors, the press who couldn’t get enough… and you wonder why he’s so arrogant?

This is how monsters are created. By people doling out chances to those that don’t deserve them. By believing someone just because they’re white (while overlooking a police record). And by letting people of color suffer because you don’t think they deserve life, or happiness because you’re mentally ill. This is how people of color get hurt, and remain getting hurt by people with self-infected privilege to this day.

THE ONLY WIN — By the end of the series during the trial over Dahmer’s brain being studied the judge brought spoke after ruling that the brain be destroyed instead of analyzed by saying, “when one considers an individual like the deceased (Dahmer), there is a temptation to try to know, and know definitively, why someone like Jeffrey Dahmer is what he is. I think there’s a real danger there. There are no easy answers when it comes to someone like him. You’ll never know why he did what he did. That’s an uncomfortable truth, to be sure, but it’s one you need to accept.”

And this is the another point: they didn’t make this series for the depraved to get tattoos of the guy, or for you to be completely obsessed over him. It was to point out the “systematic failures” that let him become who he became. You can blame the parents, or maybe it was the pills, or the weird hobby his dad got him into but the fact remains — he had help. Bad cops, inappropriate judges, a bad landlord, family that couldn’t see him for what he was… all of this could have been avoided and is a lesson people need to learn (especially if you’re anywhere near the criminal justice field). So when I see these memes, I can’t help but to think “your Dahmer meme is stupid, and I think you’ve missed the point”.

“bUt i dIDn’T mIsS tHe pOiNt! i gEt iT!”. So you’re then admitting to knowing everything that this is about (systematic racism enabling a serial killer for over ten years) and still making light of it all for a meme — that’s worse. Not knowing is bad enough, but that just means this went over your head. Knowing but not giving a fuck because you want a little chuckle on social media makes it worse. It really does. You need to wrap your brain around what this story meant to people of color, not what this random meme means to you. It’s like when #BlackLivesMatter happened and a good chunk of privileged folk that “knew me” kept talking about how they “knew what we (black people) went through” but also never did anything about it. Was that you, too? Hmm. All in all, this was a great series, and I’m literally never watching it again. But some of you need to re-watch this until you get it.

HHHHNNNNNGGGG!!!

Thanks for reading! I’ll be doing more reviews (maybe not so in depth but this one had to be done) in the future. Let me know what movie or TV series I should watch! You never know, it might actually end up on here! Catch me on social media — if you can (but don’t be on there too much)!