It doesn't matter
You can talk about looters, anarchists, ANTIFA terrorists, Russian propaganda manipulation, white supremacy insurgents, peaceful protests, society, broken systems, rich versus poor, community detachment between the law and those that are meant to be protected. You can talk about calculated aggressive movements from both the police and the people turning up to represent justice. Locals impacted directly and those from neighbouring towns that want to get involved (one way or another).
Fragment it further with good cop bad cop. Good protester, bad protester and provocateur protester. Add to it, the National Guard and others enjoying the authority a little too much, inciting trouble, licking their lips. Rubber bullets, tear gas and batons. Talk about the media, their responsibility towards journalism and not viewing figures.
We can keep on talking. We can aim to create new positive pro-action. Yet somehow we keep losing the fight to correct the mistakes and build a future without discrimination and racism. We default to old habits. We keep the poor disillusioned. After-all, ‘we’ need numbers on monthly arrest reports and prison systems churning out fifteen year sentences for possession. God bless ‘america, God bless the $ and God bless the glorified tax collectors armed with guns and tasers.
The only thing we should be talking about is the murder that took place and how normalised it's become. How shameful it is. How it will happen again. And again. And again.
George Floyd was needlessly murdered.
Don’t listen to me.
Listen to black America. Listen to its streets. It’s people. Listen to them regardless of colour and because of colour.
Listen to the people that have fought this and continue to fight it.
In a nation where slavery never really went away, where a systemic undercurrent exists and we either pretend it doesn’t or just don’t bother because, well, what can we do if we’re not in the melting pot ourselves? That’s the problem right? We can’t influence it so, we just sit back on our sofa and watch this satirical Hollywood blockbuster movie, aptly named ‘Reality TV’. Don’t forget your popcorn and cola.
We can’t influence it. right?
Wrong.
The grey area is attempting to dirty the waters with mud, so that we don’t see the dark red blood flow.
If there was no grey area in all of this, we’d easily humiliate those that are bigoted and racist. But apparently, they’re ‘good people’.
Here comes the mud.
Understate it. Don’t call it for what it is. Shift to the right a little. Shift to the left. But always remain in the grey middle. Be ambiguous. Suggest there’s got to be a reason why the police officer did what he did. The knee to the throat. Or beat a woman up. Or shot an unarmed kid. Or why ten officers have to hold down one man until he’s dead. Or perhaps state it’s unacceptable, lose the ambiguity completely but momentarily. ‘It was murder and he will be charged’. But then side step again. Treat it like it’s an unfortunate incident. An accident. A mistake. That the people should not react and behave in the way they have.
Condemn or condone?
Muddy those waters, so in the end you don’t really say anything either way. Let the others that call it out as racism or the ones that deflect it upon troublemakers looking to start a civil war - let them go head to head with the biblical concepts of good and bad.
This is another political tactic. Another diversion. Another ploy to keep the police and others in business, to keep the proles in their place.
If you’re in the middle on racism, you’re part of the problem. You’re allowing it to happen.
When you have people openly criticise the consequences and stay clear of openly condemning the murder - you know the monster festers deep. What the f*ck are the rest of us scared of when the likelihood of us getting murdered like that is zero? Why is there discomfort in seeing this type of criminality and saying out loud ‘…this is unacceptable, this cannot keep happening, what the f*ck is wrong with us?’
…rather than cracking jokes about Nike trainers being looted.
Tribalism? Primal fear? If it’s happening to someone else and not you, lucky you for lucking out.
But let's keep on defending the difficult job the police and the governments have and then keep deflecting away from the state funded murders their officers so casually commit. Come on people, lets have more looting memes ‘cause black people just want a brand new 4k tv’.
That’s what you’re suggesting when you don’t talk about George Floyd and only point at the rioting and suggest ‘any excuse for a bit of thieving’.
Let’s focus on the consequences of the fire as though it has no relationship with the spark that ignited it.
Let’s keep talking about everything around us - the hyperbole, the rhetoric, the coverage, the out of context quotes, the comparisons, the 100k+ retweets - and not about the modern day lynching that is performed with arrogance and freedom by those that treat other humans like an inconvenience. Let’s remain centric on contradictions and selective chaos. Confuse the debate, flirt carefully with the suggestion that perhaps these people - the black, the poor, the criminals - deserve the treatment they get.
Whilst the entitled ones that exist as a vast percentage of the population that were ‘sick to death’ with the liberals and their political correctness agendas, amplified by the the media, left-wing politicians and students weaponising themselves by screaming ‘Nazi’ to anyone that dared to debate; Trump and Boris capitalised on this. So whilst the same people die on that hill because of word politics, people are actually dying under the bent knee of the other extreme.
Gender politics or freedom of speech are important and having people refuse to debate topics and shut you down, ‘cancelling you’, is a dangerous precedence to accept. Being offended is equally mindless as it swerves the constructs we need to understand. We have to display empathy and reasoning and we need to be constantly evolving. Not shouting each other down, name calling and dismissive of anything that makes you question the filter you see the world through. Because someone thinks a little different to you doesn’t mean that person is wrong and you’re right.
We’re meant to debate difficult topics. Doing so and recognising the discussions and dissertations is a way of working through it. So sure, were sick of it, of being told what to think and being policed and silenced. Rebel against the noise, I get it.
And how about now? What about today? After we engineered this mass world experiment that has pushed us into a full blown parody? What now?
It isn’t about freedom of speech, it’s whether some have the freedom to breathe.
Most of us - including myself - will never be able to understand these levels of discrimination and harassment and racism. Whether you’re upset by professors discussing the ills of religion or offended that you’ve been misgendered…YOU AIN’T F*CKING DYING IN THE STREET.
We're fighting racists and we're fighting people that are apparently not racist and conveniently never see the racism in the first place and we’re also fighting the ones that use racism as a tool to manipulate and elevate the hate wars further.
Fake news? Sure, if you want to skip past the actual news and create a bubble of nonsensical distractions. Constant dividing of your people into sections and sub sections? The blame game? Pointing your finger here, there and everywhere? Never pointing it at the reflection of yourself in the mirror? Go ahead, that’s an easy dance to step to.
It’s easy compared to taking responsibility and owning it. God forbid doing that. There is no ego glory to be found if you can’t wave that finger of discontent at someone else.
We are being led by self-congratulative maggots and we’re being mislead by the parasites infested within them. In office and on sofas.
These leaders of the free world, they look the other way, they’re always looking the other way. We need to rely on a rapper to make a powerful speech that resonates, asking for everyone to stand down and think. Meanwhile the white wash from the White House continues to add fuel to the fire. They ignore the calls that racism is inherently structured into society. Imagine if black men with semi-automatic guns turned up to protest quietly on the steps of government. Just imagine that for a moment and then let me know if civil rights has found its singularity yet.
Here in the UK, our problems in comparison, tend to be more relatable to Monty Python or a brilliantly cringeworthy skit from The Office. We have someone managed to bury our shame deep. Sometimes, the truth presents itself (Windrush). But it remains protected by shame.
You can hate a party and politician because of Austerity, then like them because they go against that aforementioned liberal grain and then love them even if Austerity might return. Then continue to love them because the political party left have melted into a mess and well, they promised ‘no more immigrants’ like Scarlet Witch decimating the mutants in House of M (look it up). You’ve got to stay on brand otherwise you lose face. And losing face > losing your life.
As for Donald Trump, you would hope someone with sensibilities working with him in the Oval Office would advice him a good look is to be perhaps a little presidential with his output during a time of national crisis? (On another day we can discuss how the non-digital era of say JFK saved their nation from the more debonair stylings of grabbing pussy).
It’s an impossible task for a single figure head to rule an entire nation. We all know it’s a fallacy, that the POTUS is dependent on his committees and advisers and is heavily influenced by the experts at his disposal. I’ve always believed the trick is in the illusion. That the person bestowed with the responsibility does his utmost to present the image of a person that represents all of the nation. That’s difficult, more so when you consider that impossible task tag. So you have to put on a front, a siege mentality, but one that encompasses the nation in its entirety.
Some Presidents want to bring change and once in office realise they can’t. Obama suffered, when you consider his campaigning and support for whistle-blowers. We get it, politicians have to lie or change opinion or allow their arms to be twisted by those committees and experts. But they still have to retain a balance and this involves a little bit of method acting. You can’t possibly represent every single American, so you do your best to be someone that Americans would not mind having you as the figure head. Someone that brings confidence and resolution. Or you can literally give zero f*cks and become a representation of the divide. You can become a caricature that has no self-awareness.
You know where you stand with Trump. It’s why they voted for him. ‘Says it how it is’.
I had a relative that did that too at the dinner table.. She knew everything about everything and seemed to designate herself the expert of all discussion points. The only difference was she had a bigger vocabulary than Donald. Maybe that’s why he’s so comically dangerous. If he was more articulate and didn’t improvise and thought about things objectively, he could play the game and fool us all. Instead, he opts to showcase his lack of finesse and intelligence. A bull in a China shop.
He should be the poster boy for what it means to be an American. His presidency should be a selfless, vanity free governance. The biggest sacrifice should come from within. Instead, it’s about narcissistic flexing. It’s delusions of grandeur. No essence of speaking for all men, women and children. It’s a badly played game and it’s littered with the rantings of someone side-footing dementia thanks to big pharma drugs pulsating through his obese stature. It’s a box office disaster movie. Put away the popcorn. But the ratings are still good, right? Tremendous.
Why am I making this about Trump? Because he is the poster boy. He’s the face and voice of the dismissive era we have birthed. And error of name calling and hypocrisy. Trump is the wall of convenience you have built to give you reason not to bother. To stay content in your comfort zone.
I joked, a few weeks back. I joked that the pandemic and the politics will go away soon. That this lockdown will become a memory of inconvenience. Not because of COVID cases dropping substantially in numbers, but because of the next big thing 2020 spits out. The next story that will dominate prime time. The only deserving thing that needs spitting is the lava from a super volcano that decides to wake up and hit the planets reset button.
Honestly, I had to get this out of my system before I take a break. There are discussions to be held, most of the points I’ve stated above included. But there’s a time and place for it - and it isn’t now (yes, that’s a little contradictory on my part). But this place, this blog, has always been a personal conduit to scribble my stream of consciousness. And often, when time has passed, I can return and read it through again and perhaps work towards different conclusions and thoughts. Lots of words in here. The only relevant ones right now are these four:
George Floyd was murdered.
This is neither a joke or the next big news narrative. It’s reality. It’s something we have to anchor ourselves into until it’s fixed. We need to talk about this exclusively. Keep on talking about it. George Floyd was needlessly murdered and some of you think that’s alright.
Update:
Food for thought for the people that claim they're not racist but never claim they're anti-racist and seem to push all their resources towards downplaying the trouble and criticising the reaction and not the original crime.
Cities have their taxpayer money go towards funding the police for guns, pepper spray, teargas, tanks etc but not enough money placed into funding schools, healthcare, affordable housing and so on. This is accepted as the norm, so much so, that it's barely questioned and when it is - it's ignored.
Context: LA County plans to 54% of $300M to fund police departments. Rather than perhaps fund aforementioned education between government and communities.
Another trend witnessed is the police doing very little with the looting aspect (not suggesting they haven't attempted stop it - but look into how they are strategically allowing it to happen in the first place). Meanwhile, they line up to march together and against the people, aiming to antagonise and stop anything peaceful from taking place. Think about this. They want the people to protest peacefully and yet they're not allowing them to do so, thus pushing them to revolt in a more destructive way to vent their anger. Having a gun pointed at you is not the way to crowd control.
It's different of course if people gather to then forcefully seek a fight. But has that actually happened (ignoring the provocateur element)? I’ve stated this already; the people that matter more have said it many times and they’re the only ones we should all be listening to:
"It's horrible that an innocent black man was killed but destroying property has to stop"
Wrong. It should be:
"It's horrible that property is being destroyed but killing innocent black men has to stop"
It’s subtle but it’s devastating because it’s a defensive mechanism by those that wish to side step it all and and pretend there is no systemic racism.
There are so many layers to this.
Capitalism is a necessity, but the constant rewarding and protecting of those at the top is a crime. It’s cold and calculated and it is intrinsically designed into the building blocks of society. The rich have always got richer. The politicians have always bent the knee to the corporations. The people have always been dispensable.
Racism, the civil rights movement…even in the 70s and 80s and especially today…it has never been defeated. Our history is littered with colonialism, genocide, slavery. The last 200 years has seen us accelerate scientifically and technologically. Yet we continue to regress and fragment and default to basic corrupt and broken tribalism.
I think the pandemic, the time we’ve all spent indoors, we thought it would reset us, ground us. A time of universal reflection. But the killing has amplified the reality that nothing has changed. Nothing has ever changed. Nothing will ever change. Unless we force it, on the streets, in the polling booths, in our minds and most importantly with each other.
I'll finish with a quote from the comments section, by a community member (BAE’s Barnet).
“You want to talk about looting in America? Talk about the fact that the richest people got bailed out by taxpayer money while the rest of America got scraps. It’s all connected. The real looting is done by hedge funds, private equity and vulture capitalists in 5000 dollar suits.
America is a banana republic third world country papered over by the gloss of Hollywood, Wall Street and Silicon Valley. It was built on the white supremacist pillars of slavery and genocide.
Flint, Michigan, a mostly black city in the richest country doesn’t have clean drinking water.
Racism is so deeply embedded in the American experience that it’s impossible to even scratch the surface here. Chickens are coming home to roost. America has been building to this point for decades.
You need to understand that context to even begin to get your head around this.