Exhaustion.
That’s what this week has left me with. Exhaustion of mind, of body, of heart. I can’t with the states and the people in it right now. Jumping the shark is barely adequate for this madness. After a lot of observation, I’m going to leave these gems that I think need just one more repeat because, as usual, you aren’t listening. I’m going to be raw.
That’s a preface, not an apology.
- #Blacklivesmatter isn’t a declaration of war. Extreme personalities aren’t the face of a people or a movement. I don’t get any joy out of seeing police get brutalized or buried. No one wants anyone’s lives taken. If anything, it would be rather nice if everyone would just stop doing that. In fact, that would be super.
- “But they should/shouldn’t have…” I’m just going to go out on a limb and say you’re a rape apologist. If she wasn’t wearing that or in a certain place or “giving off the wrong hints” or any of those things, she wouldn’t have gotten raped. The same logic is being used to justify a gross abuse of power.
- All cops aren’t bad. OK. Cool. Noted. I’ll even throw in the #bluelivesmatter hashtag with this one because their deaths don’t bring us closer to justice, however….
- All cops should be accountable. No exceptions. Cops aren’t above the law, but are paid representatives thereof. They are subject to the laws they enforce. They do not get a pardon when they’ve been entrusted with lives. None at all. You have too much power to be able to run amok without having a REALLY thorough mental and emotional health check along with a pristine record of having no issues with domestic abuse, drinking, drug use of any kind, no criminal record, and at least 3x as much de-escalation training as training in firearms… at minimum. Oh and stop acting like I am somehow ungrateful or unpatriotic because I want accountability. I’m not ungrateful to my parents if I don’t want to be abused and say so. Accountability is important. “No taxation without representation” ring a bell?
- A movement can be criticized, but that critique should come from the inside and the nearby. There’s a lot that BLM does right and there’s a lot it does wrong, but I’m over people who have no desire to actually fix the problem criticizing people that are trying to do so. Either implement a better idea or shut up.
- Black on black crime. Shut up. The criminal statistics on a national level or even local don’t support this race of superpredators and thugs you want to pretend we are. Also, amounts and proportions are different things. 100 black people can die and 1000 white people can die, but if there are 1,000 black people total and 1,000,000 white people, those numbers tell a different story. Coming to me with raw data and interpreting that as some place that you get to comfortably ignore racism? Just don’t.
- #Alllivesmatter. Happy to talk about that when I don’t have people from other states and cities and continents along with my mom who just turned 60 asking me to post now and then or call them when I’m leaving town because they don’t want me dead.
- “Fix the black community first.” I’m sorry, but I didn’t know the police were allowed to murder people that weren’t perfect. Glad we cleared up that your community has to be perfect and blameless before you have a right to live…. unless you’re white or “white enough”.
- “I’m just saying…” Shut up. Just stop speaking.
- Picking sides. For the umpteenth time: I want justice for everyone equally and that is all. I’m not playing your stupid game of “you either like black people or police” because that’s bullshit as in “you either hate BLM or you like white people”. I’m tired of people acting like I only have the mental or emotional capacity of a sun-baked brick. Stop insulting black intelligence. Stop insulting mine. By the way…
- “I thought you were better than this” aka “Stop believing the media”. Let the media say what they will, but in case you missed it people are fucking dead and it was wrongful and it was caught on raw film. I’m over people acting like if Fox News shut down right now that racism would magically end. The police – good and bad – are doing what they do whether it is seen, heard, reported… or not. Just. Like. Everyone. Else. Stop insulting my intelligence (again!) by behaving like I don’t see what I see and know what I know. No one needed the news to know what was going down when the first body fell let alone the 2000+ that followed. Bye, Felecia.
I’m not even waiting until Thursday to publish this. You can have this week’s post early and marinate.