It’s interesting to have the number of conflicted feelings I have right now. None of them are related to any kind of white privilege based judgement, for the record, so don’t jump to any conclusions please. For one, I’m a pragmatist at heart and have never been a

“Violence isn’t the answer” kinda dude. Sometimes, swift and brutal violence is exactly the answer. Socially, many changes have had to be forced by violent uprising. Historically speaking, the powerful tend to only listen when the peasants are at their door and, oftentimes, that

is too late.

Personally, I know a lot of good people in both Fire and LE who are what I think of as soft bigots. They just “believe” things and they do a lot of mental gymnastics to separate the “good” ones from the “bad”, but professionally, they do the right thing all the

time. They’re not hardcore neonazis or white supremacist and really don’t even consider themselves bigots. Honestly, it’s hard to judge them as I know, having been raised here, that they’re a product of their upbringing and environment more than anything else. Sometimes,

We discuss politics and social justice issues and I can even, occasionally, change their pov.

Professionally, the cops I work with are really fucking good at their job, good at descalation, good at viewing a lot of calls through that lens of identifying the root of the

issue and working with us to resolve it. We send a lot more people to the hospital as Baker Acts than we do to jail and that’s a shit ton of paperwork. And, our cops are a good mix of men and women, POC and white, and young. So, there is a reflex for me to think “not all cops”,

because anecdotally, I know I’m fortunate enough to have a lot of good ones. I do fear that the ones that have hidden their bigotry really well will expose themselves and that’s going to be a tough one to swallow.

And lastly, at one point does one move from paranoid to prepared. I realize they’re not mutually exclusive, but where’s the tipping point? When does this careen over the edge? When does protest become organized revolution? The pieces are all there. The charges have been set.

So now what? Is this it? Is the start? When does paranoia transition to preparation? I think what bothers me is that I do believe that half this country will happily try to murder the other half, they’re heavily armed, and they’re waiting for permission without repercussions.

That’s a recipe for disaster and we our country is not being governed by a leader or a party that is willing to put their bigotry and racism aside to fix this mess. Make no mistake, this is fixable, but that would take work and self-sacrifice from people who are comfortable

having power. They’d rather flirt with violence and revolution than give that up and their too goddamn stupid and selfish to realize they’ve got the igniter in their hands.