White Folks Need to Stop Talking and Start Listening

White people who condemn people of color for looting (and acting like they weren’t punching each other in the face two months ago for fucking toilet paper) can fuck right off! I am talking about white people who make blanket statements of condemnation against people of color who’ve been disproportionately affected by the pandemic (in death toll, unemployment, housing security, and were denied a $1,200 stimulus check because there’s an immigrant in their household) for acting on opportunities to feed their families that white cops (like the St. Paul police officer, Jake Peterson who broke the windows at the Auto Zone in Minneapolis) are throwing in their laps.

Let’s not pretend people of color are the only people in America that break shit. Every time the hope team wins the big game, white privileged fucks storm the streets and turn cars over just because they can.

Let’s not pretend that people of color in this country are unjustified in their anger and frustration with all the cell phone video of cops fucking them up.
Walter Scott
Laquan McDonald
Freddie Grey
Eric Garner
Donnie Sanders
Sandra Bland
Ahmaud Arbery
Treyvon Martin
Michael Brown
Breonna Taylor
Philando Castile
These are just the names I remember off the top of my head. Ten out of eleven of whom were UNARMED! Philando Castile (the only one who was armed) owned and carried a gun LAWFULLY. He was shot because he told the cop he had one. He didn’t pull it out, didn’t point it at the cop. He just admitted he had one. Let that sink in. A law-abiding gun owner was shot in his car by a trigger-happy cop and the NRA, the nation’s preeminent gun right organization hasn’t said or done shit in the face of this injustice. Why? The NRA only wants white people to own guns, so they can storm state capitol buildings over free beverage refills and haircuts. And what did the state police do in the face of an all-white armed mob? NOTHING! NOT A FUCKING THING!
So, don’t tell me people of color are overreacting or acting inappropriately to the racist bull shit they’ve been dealing with just since Trump was elected.

Let’s not pretend the cops who stood by while Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck (after beating the shit out of him inside the police car) until he died or cops running over protesters with their cars, picking women up and slamming them to the ground, shooting the members of the press in the head with rubber bullets, pepper spraying children are the victims in all of this.

They are part of a system that has created the rage and disenfranchisement that’s fueling these people.
And don’t come at me with the looting/violence isn’t the answer bull shit because this country was built on violence. The looting started here the minute white folks showed up on these shores and decided we wanted the land, so you have no moral high ground to stand on. Civil Disobedience has been a proud tradition in this country since before the American Revolution. What do you think the Boston Tea Party was all about? It was about people who had King George’s knee on their necks and decided they’d had enough. They are no better than the people of color who’ve had enough today, just because they were white.

Freddie Gray and Walter Scott

It’s wrong to run from the police. BUT, running from the police isn’t a capital crime!

Walter Scott’s only apparent “crime” was being behind in child support. Scott ran to avoid being jailed for not being able to provide for his kids and was shot in the back for it. The ONLY person responsible for how that ended was the shit stain who shot him and tried to cover up the murder. Seriously, FUCK THAT COP! I hope he does the right thing and kills himself immediately – the less that community spends on his confinement and trial, the more they can pay Walter Scott’s family in a HUGE settlement. No matter how much money the family ends up getting, it won’t be enough because it will NEVER replace their dad.

Freddie Gray proved that running from the police is NOT the irrefutable evidence of guilt. If you encounter the police and haven’t done anything – as in Gray’s case – the police should let you be on your way IF they catch you…not stuff you in the back of a police van. If you’re injured in the process, you’re entitled to medical care. ALL SIX of the cops indicted in his case need to fucking kill themselves too. If they don’t, I hope they’re ALL convicted.

I won’t pretend to understand what compelled Gray – who clearly hadn’t done anything to get arrested for – to run. Even the knife he had on him (though originally described as a switchblade) was legal to carry in Baltimore. I still believe to my core that running from the police is wrong. This belief stems from deeply ingrained lessons taught by my parents and a life-time of personal experience as a white female American. Every interaction I’ve ever had with Law Enforcement was non-confrontational. Even when I was acting an ass in public (in the absence of my mom and her wooden spoon) as soon as the cops showed up, I straightened the fuck up until they left. I won’t pretend to know what goes thru the mind of an African American male born and raised in an erroneously labeled “Post-Racial” American era. Whether you agree with me or not (and I really don’t care if you don’t) we can all agree running from the cops should NEVER be punishable by death.  Anyone who believes running from the cops should equal a death sentence is a willfully ignorant bigot who just needs to shut the fuck up and listen for a while.

I hate the term “Post-Racial” America…mostly because I ignorantly bought into that bull shit for way too long. It took the death of Trayvon Martin to open my eyes to what’s really going on in my country. Don’t get me wrong. I still LOVE my country. I swore an oath to defend it from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I still feel strongly about that. If I were still physically able, I’d still be serving what I believe to be the GREATEST NATION ON EARTH. I’m not just still willing to die for my country; I’m still willing to kill for it. That attitude doesn’t mean I don’t see our flaws. We’ve come a long way in the last 239 years. But, now I see that we have a lot farther to go. We can start by being honest about the perception and treatment of African Americans and other minorities in this country. What began in Sanford, Cleveland, Ferguson, North Charleston and Baltimore will not end until we recognize the flaws in our perceptions and in our policies – both written and unwritten – in reference to the African American community.

One of the many egregious examples of what I’m talking about is Otis Byrd. When Americans thought he was lynched in Mississippi, one of the first kernels of information widely published (because fuck us for not saying anything when we know NOTHING of substance to say) was his completely irrelevant 35 year old arrest record. What have u heard since his death was determined a suicide? Nothing…nada…zip. Where’s the in-depth commentary about the source of his angst? If someone like Robin Williams had hanged himself, the media would have crawled up his ass with a microscope to understand why he killed himself…oh, wait…

The fucking media pulled the same shit on Freddie Gray. I read his arrest record. NOTHING in it justifies what happened to him. There was not a single Capitol Crime listed…and yet, he’s dead….and people are talking about how many times he was arrested…before he was unlawfully detained and negligently (with a depraved heart) killed.

My final observation on this issue is this picture:

Send in the Moms

I’ve seen this picture and the video it was taken from circulated on social media ever since this obviously distraught mom saw her son putting himself in a potentially dangerous situation. Her maternal instinct took over and the boy got tuned up in public and dragged home. Some have claimed that sharing it is racist. Let me disabuse everyone of that notion right now.

Corporal Punishment in raising kids is not confined to the African American community. My Irish/Hungarian mom carried a wooden spoon in her purse and NEVER hesitated to use it in public when one of her kids acted an ass. So the assessment is simple. If you look at this picture and see a distraught mom making a correction on a kid headed down a potentially dangerous path, think about the series of events that put that mother and son in that position that day.

If you look at the Baltimore picture and all you see is the stereotypical “Angry Black Woman,” you’re the one with a problem. You’re a bigot. Think about what led you to that perception and work to change it.

I HAVE to believe that the bigotry, the over policing of minorities and police brutality will change. I HAVE to believe that. If I didn’t have that hope, everything I believe about my country would be a lie.