Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who listen, the enunciation of Truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. —– Citizen V, V For Vendetta
In my first piece, I warned that some of the things that I’m going to say as I put My Truth out there are probably going to alienate some of you. They may even piss some of you off. Again, The Discomfort in the room is where the opportunity for TRUE growth LIVES. You’re going to be outraged because MY Experiences don’t allow me to Think, Feel, BELIEVE in the same ideals as you do.
MY Experiences, MY Perception, MY Reality.
I bit my tongue A LOT when there was all of the outrage over Colin Kaepernick taking the knee. He told EVERYBODY that it was over the very thing that is being protested near my home as I speak: an alarming number of incidents of police brutality, mostly against Black men.
People turned it into Kaepernick disrespecting the Flag and disrespecting the National Anthem. I know for a fact that I saw the interviews of Green Beret Nate Boyer, the retired member of THE US MILITARY that noticed that Kaepernick initially started his PEACEFUL protest by sitting during the anthem… And SUGGESTED that he kneel instead as an acceptable alternative ENDORSED BY HIM. I can’t be the only one that listened to those interviews; that paid attention to what Mr. Boyer had to say about the issue. Still, the narrative, no matter how often Kaepernick stressed WHY HE WAS ACTUALLY KNEELING, was STAND UP AND SHUT UP! YOU DON’T GET PAID TO POINT OUT INJUSTICES, YOU GET PAID TO PLAY FOOTBALL!! People didn’t bother to listen to what he had to say… In fact, it was clear that they didn’t care what he had to say. People found every reason to ignore his WHY because the WHY didn’t matter… DOESN’T matter to THEM.
Traitor. Ungrateful. Disrespectful. Unpatriotic. Rude. UN-AMERICAN. These and many more things were said about him whenever his name came up in conversation. To this day, when his name is invoked, some laugh at the fact that no NFL team has bothered to consider adding him to their roster.
Your PASSIONATE disapproval of him using his platform to point out a VERY real, VERY relevant problem with America spoke VOLUMES. Your deflection of his STATED purpose DID NOT GO UNNOTICED.
People called for his firing. They called for the firing of ALL football players… Hell, ALL ATHLETES, NO MATTER THE SPORT, that took the knee. For some of you closer to me, I heard your words spoken right in front of me. So did MY son. So did MY daughter. I saw your words posted on social media… Because we’re connected, so things that you post generally show up in my feed… Unless YOU choose to hide them from me; or I choose not to read your posts because you’ve shown me where you stand – you’ve shown me where I stand… Where MY CHILDREN stand in your eyes.
When President Obama was elected, my Joy, my Pride in his accomplishment QUICKLY gave way to fear. Why, you ask? Because Racism in America is ALIVE AND WELL. I was worried that he wouldn’t complete his first term because someone would assassinate him.
The fact that Mitch McConnell, before the man ever took the oath of office, proclaimed to THE WORLD that his number one job was to make sure that Obama would be a one-term president also SPOKE VOLUMES. The celebration of Mr. McConnell’s failed promise did not fall on deaf ears or blind eyes.
People are STILL fixing their mouths to say that Racism is Dead. Worse still, they’re trying to say that it is actually Black people… And other ethnic so-called minorities… That are perpetuating racism.
Must be nice to hold on to such a high level of denial.
Every time one of these incidents happen, people are quick to say any of the following:
(S)he shouldn’t have resisted arrest.
Well, (s)he was probably a drug addict/had a record/is a thug.
(S)he shouldn’t have been doing what they were doing where they were doing it.
Every time protests for these events happen, rest assured that:
Blue Lives Matter
White Lives Matter
ALL Lives Matter
WILL be uttered.
They don’t want us to be pissed off. They don’t want us to speak out. They don’t want us to FEEL the anger, the outrage, the hopelessness that these situations cause. Those utterances are all designed to deflect from the problem at hand. They’re designed to ignore the pleas, to ignore the concerns, to discount something that they’d prefer to turn a blind eye to.
Here’s a not-so-secret secret: ignoring the fact that something exists DOES NOT STOP ITS EXISTENCE. Figuratively sticking your fingers in your ears while scrunching your eyes shut as tight as you can get them and constantly saying I CAN’T HEAR YOU, I CAN’T HEAR YOU, I CAN’T HEAR YOU!! might make YOU comfortable; rest assured, to the people that it’s happening to, to the people that it COULD happen to, there is NO comfort, there is NO justice, there is NO peace.
I’m calling it like I see it: it’s two-faced. It’s smiling in my face while you’re calling me every dirty name in the book behind my back. It’s shaking my hand and telling me that we’re good when there could be virtually nothing further from the truth. You don’t see me as worthy of being considered a Human Being.
I ALWAYS HAD… I CURRENTLY HAVE… AND I ALWAYS WILL HAVE a SERIOUS problem with that.
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