I want you, if you are not black, to consider a life like this. Every single time you walk past a cop, you do so fully assured in the knowledge that if he wanted to, he could kill you, and he could do it in broad daylight, and he could do it by suffocating you for several minutes while people walked by on the street and his partners watched, and that even if someone recorded all of this (and managed not to be assaulted while doing so) the video that includes your lifeless corpse could spread worldwide and your face could be on thousands of tee shirts and still nothing might happen to that cop. He doesn’t have to do it. He probably won’t. Individually, he probably has no desire to. But he could, and so could everyone who wears his badge, and the knowledge that they could is a small background terror in your life. I want you to imagine that this is true for everyone you’re related to, for your mother and your father and your brother and your sister, and that it was like this for all of your ancestors back to the first ones who were stolen from their home and shipped to be somebody’s chattel and that those owners are the people whose names you bear. I want you to imagine that every single day you live with the knowledge that your skin tone and features are quite likely the result of one of your female ancestors being raped by someone that owned her. I want you to imagine that you live every single day of your life under this kind of terror, and that when 200 years of pressure explodes you see white people who love you, white people who vote blue no matter who, white people who have never spoken ill of black people, expecting you to answer for some stolen televisions and broken windows. It is awful in a way you will never understand and that I would not wish for you to understand. It is a deeply and psychically devastating way to live. I’m not interested in talking about a vandalized building when my psyche is vandalized every single day and so were those of my parents, and their parents, and their parents, and theirs again.
You know what doesn’t sit right and will NEVER sit right…
How George Floyd, a good innocent black man went to the store to buy things who then was murdered by a police officer for suspected forgery.
Then the next day Peter Manfredonia, a white armed serial killer who was on the run across 4 states, was caught and arrested peacefully.
And how black and black ally protesters in Minneapolis protesting for the arrest of the officers who killed George Floyd, were attacked by the police. They were peaceful.
But a few weeks ago, white people stormed governments buildings in Michigan protesting the quarantine because they wanted a haircut and the police did nothing to them. They were armed.
The problem is clear as water. WHITE PRIVILEGE AND RACISM. It exists and is real. Deny it? You’re the problem. Don’t say or do anything about it? You’re the problem. Abuse your white privilege? You’re the problem. Don’t see a problem with all this? YOURE THE PROBLEM.
CRY WITH THE BLACK COMMUNITY. MOURN WITH THEM. STAND ALONG SIDE WITH THEM. FIGHT FOR THEM. BECAUSE BLACK LIVES ARE IMPORTANT AND THEY ABSOLUTELY FUCKING MATTER.
If you are someone who likes to watch a lot of cop shows, I want you to ask yourself a few questions.
Why do all TV cops, even the good ones, hate Internal Affairs? Isn’t the job of Internal Affairs to root out the “bad cops”? Isn’t their job to make sure police follow the rules? Why is that presented as inherently evil or antagonistic?
Why do all TV cops, even the good ones, hate defense attorneys? Isn’t the defense attorney’s job to protect the rights of all citizens? Isn’t it their job to make sure police follow the law? Isn’t it their job to make sure everyone is treated fairly under the system? Why is that presented as inherently evil or antagonistic?
Why do all TV cops, even the good ones, get upset when citizens invoke their constitutional rights? Don’t those rights exist to ensure all citizens are treated fairly? Don’t they exist to ensure innocent people are not wrongfully incriminated? Why are citizens who invoke their rights presented as dishonest, untrustworthy, or antagonistic?
To be clear, I’ve watched Brooklyn 99 and enjoyed it. I was watching Elementary the other day. But even when I watch shows I like, I make a mental note every time a cop lies, breaks the law, subverts someone’s basic rights, or just generally acts like an asshole to the people the are meant to serve and protect.
How often are they called out on their behavior? How often are they punished for it? How often is it reinforced as correct by the narrative?
When I tell people to be critical of the media they consume that is what I mean. Not simply calling it terrible and moving on, but actually engaging thoughtfully, asking questions, and forming conclusions about what that media is trying to say to you. Then decide whether you want to keep listening, or if it will be better for you in the long run to move on.
The problem with forcibly seizing the assets of, say, Jeff Bezos is that his net worth of $161 billion does not mean he has that in cash. That’s the worth of everything he owns, including stock in his own company.
And the problem with seizing THAT is that it isn’t real. It’s based on confidence and what people might conceivably pay for it. And if you just seize it, that confidence tanks. And then that wealth evaporates.
The problem with capitalism isn’t that there’s a bunch of old dudes sitting on hoards of cash. It’s that they’ve collectively created a system by which they have ludicrous social and economic power based on the PROMISE of hoards of cash. That don’t exist. They have created a social stratum in which debt is money.
That’s why the exhortation is to SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION, not GO GRAB ALL THE MONEY. Because the money isn’t real, and the need to go out and get it is blinding people to the fact that it doesn’t need to exist.
For weeks it was darkness. I had stopped counting the horrors I endured, and then the monster lifted the hood. The lights spilled in and I saw my friend. My heart saw him, as if for the first time, and I knew I could not live without him.
the illusion was always that we just had to do it. just “do” the homework. the meal prep. the college application. just write the email, send the homework, follow up with that interview, clean your room. these are easy things, one-click things, two-hours-max things. we had so many people in our lives shout it at us. “why didn’t you just do it!”
often my answer was a soft i don’t know. an i-got-tired when actually it was more like - i couldn’t. i just couldn’t. it feels like everything is covered in snow. don’t you know that i’m mad at myself too? i want this stuff just as much as you do. i want to live in a clean house with good food and have an okay job and know i’m not disappointing the people i’m coming home to. i don’t like missing opportunities and having to scramble in a panic about last-minute things.
i’m a fully grown adult. she is posing for a pic on insta. if you want a life like this, go out and get it. it’s 2pm and i haven’t eaten breakfast. i am staring at the space where i should be working.
one of the frustrating things about being aro is that like. you can’t prove a negative. so when someone is all “but you might find romance someday!!” it’s like. yeah, okay, maybe. i can’t see the future. but listen. if my past behavior is any indicator, i shouldn’t be anywhere near romance. it is Not Fun, and i Don’t Like It.
“but you might kill someone someday!!” yeah,okay, maybe
lmao you ARE a serial killer, really, you just haven’t met the Right Person yet
update: saying this joke to an alloro person when they’re trying to tell you about your identity makes them Defensive and Upset
Ooooh but since they’re paralleling Yaz and the Doctor’s relationship to Claire and Byron’s I want a moment where the spell breaks for Yaz. When it really sinks in for her just how little she understands and how much different the Doctor is from her idealized vision. I want the pedestal to fall. Hard. I mean, we’ve already started to see the cracks, but I need full blown angst.
