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I keep seeing a lot of hand-wringing about the efficacy these protests 
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="✈️" title="Airplane" aria-label="Emoji: Airplane"> riots:
“How will this solve any thing?” “They’re ruining innocent lives!”
“That won’t bring George Floyd back.”
Senseless violence. You just don’t get it. So let me paint a picture for you.
“How will this solve any thing?” “They’re ruining innocent lives!”
“That won’t bring George Floyd back.”
Senseless violence. You just don’t get it. So let me paint a picture for you.
This is not about the murder of George Floyd. Or the murder of Breonna Taylor. Or the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. Of Mike Brown. Of Eric Garner. Of Sandra Bland. Or any of the racist unjust MURDERS of Black people that have inundated your timeline for the past seven (7) years.
Because the murder is not the injustice. This reckoning? It is not because of those murders. Not even close. That’s just the tip of the iceberg
Imagine that you wake up and see those names everyday. Another hashtag, another GoFundMe, another phone-bank, another petition. Another eulogy to read, another soul to grieve. And I do mean grieve. Deep, torturous, earth-shattering grief. Heavy on your body, heavy on your mind.
Because when you see those names you don’t just see the victims. No, you see your brother, your baby cousins, your big cousins, your mother, your nieces and nephews. You see yourself dammit. Those bodies on the TV. They look just like you. Over and over again. Just like you.
You can’t really afford to take time off work or school or any of your obligations to make time for your new fulltime 40 hours a week job of grieving each new psychological wound. The grind never stops. So you drag your heavy body, heavy mind through this world and keep going.
You keep going in the face of non-indictments, acquittals, attacks on the character of victims (your character), protests, counter-protests, Kaepernick, Charlottesville, a president who performs abject racism to the applause of millions of people around the world. You keep going.
You keep going. Slogging through the discourse each death opens anew. Your loved ones caution you to carry yourself as though you are not heavy. Get a haircut. Trim your beard. Wear nicer clothes if you’re going to that part of town. Smile. The onus is on you to not be next.
Suddenly the world shifts. Everything is shut down. You are forbidden to see your friends, your family. You are not allowed to commune. We are social distancing now. And the increased police presence in your neighborhood? It’s for the greater good.
You are no longer an unskilled worker, you’re an essential worker now! You work an extremely taxing job for a low hourly wage in close proximity with customers who demonstrate that they value their comfort over your life. Your employer has exceeded its quarterly sales goals.
You work this job at great risk of exposing yourself to this virus because you do not have the luxury of working from home. Your grades start falling because you switched to online classes in the middle of term and your school doesn’t have the proper tools to help you succeed.
At this point that heaviness that you feel? It’s compounded. What once felt like maybe a soaking wet canadian tuxedo is now two anvils at your feet.
You become acutely aware of your position in life. The backbone of economy. The backbone of the democratic party. One of the most vulnerable members of society. The foundation of modern pop culture. And yet, a lamb out to slaughter.
The whole world is telling you, almost compulsively, that they care. “We see you. We respect you. We’re here for you.” #BlackLivesMatter https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> in bios since 2014. But the status quo isn’t changing. Individual inaction and collective ineptitude ensures that these are empty platitudes.
But it doesn’t feel like ineptitude anymore. It feels like a flawlessly executed vision. You being to realize that justice will never come by arguing your humanity with people who refuse to see it, by donating to the Democratic Unity Fund, clawing your way up the corporate ladder
by marching and demanding and peacefully protesting, by giving racists second and third chances because the gaslighting, the targeting, the ignoring, the “questions for the culture”, everything that contributes to that heaviness you feel every day? None of it is an accident.
You realize that the powers that be can see this problem crystal clear. And you realize that the people who hear your screams the loudest really just wish you would shut up and get back to work. Phase 3 of opening the economy.
This is not an issue of ignorance. The is not an issue of perspective or lack of vision. This is a genocide. This calculated. This callousness is purposeful. It is a means to an end. And that ending is your death. You are next.
And it’s only a matter of time. If poverty doesn’t get you, the virus will. If the virus doesn’t, racist disparities in healthcare will. If that, doesn’t the police will. If the police, don’t the prison industrial complex will. And if you manage to escape this final destination?
Your progeny is next. They will stop at nothing. It will NEVER end. But #BlackLivesMatter https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt="">. They don’t see color. Even among the most “well-meaning” the myth of a post-racial utopia rears its ugly head. The disconnect between you and the world you live in grows greater and greater
So when you see yet another name floating across your screen. And another. And then another. Black snuff films shared breathlessly among the “Dindu Nuffins” and the “you ain’t black” and the “please donate to the Democratic Unity Fund” yaddayaddayadda
something within you snaps. You have reached your limit. You are an abuse victim. You have been abused your entire life. Your cries for help have fallen on deaf ears.
Now doesn’t that make you wanna burn this motherfucker down? The whole world in ruins, a world that has never and WILL never bend to serve you. Don’t that look like salvation now?
