A Brief Moment of Truth from Me to Whomever Will Listen...
I'll say this about all that and, as Whoopi say, save your comments of dissent. Now's not the time for denials of truth:
In order to cure a disease, and, indeed, this country's rife with disease, one must first address and assess its cause. This disease is profound fear; it certainly isn't love. Said fear breeds profound cowardice and, historically, those in places of manufactured "power" don't deal well with their cowardice, profound or otherwise. To clarify, and this is to explain, not to excuse: the Texas shootings were, no doubt, ultimately in direct response to the attempted genocide of people of color and the poor as a whole. I've known good cops to exist personally, and I don't refer to them here. I refer to murderous cowards in uniform, supposed public servants, who kill without cause or reprimand. Shame on them and their superiors! Shame on the system that enables this, which is by no means an accident. I understand why what happened in Texas happened, AND, at once, murder isn't corrected with more murder.
I entreat you to familiarize yourselves with the Willie Lynch letter, "The Making of a Slave," if you haven't already. The gist is self-explanatory. What was notable for me was his point about pitting faction against faction, and individuals in said factions against each other, the point being that insurrection hardly exists amongst the divided; divide and conquer. That being said, no one enjoys inhabiting a state of slavery, as if that bears repeating, and people eventually get tired: exhaustion of the body, mind, spirit/will, etc. Hell, I might've been afraid if I weren't so damn tired, and I distinguish being tired from being desensitized. Anyway, we're now seeing the products of such exhaustion.
I'm happy to see that the Department of Justice is conducting civil rights investigations into the murders of Castile and Sterling. There ought to be a class-action suit, at the very least, including the other countless lives lost, and the exonerated murderers ought to be condemned. While I'm "ought"ing, the narrative ought to be more fair, as well. In general terms, when the policemen died, they were "assassinated." When people of color die, they were "shot and killed," as if all policemen are human, by which I mean humane, and all people of color are wild livestock to be slaughtered. People who don't think for themselves believe, and in fact depend on, such fallacious and dangerous narratives. And, no doubt, the media depends on them.
J. Blacknall
