The world is full of kind Progressives. They are beautiful and the world needs many more. I am not one of them. I have completely had it with watching my party be abused every cycle by egomaniacs and sociopaths. I will be a bitch. And I will not apologize. I'm a true patriot who cannot sit back quietly as my country plummets into a dark chasm full of hate and intolerance. And I will not abide those who mean to take her there. Otherwise, I'm a lovely human being.
Please Take A Single Moment to Sign This Petition and Share With Others.
If we are meant to have thoughtful discourse across the country when people of color are murdered by 'autority,' we have to get rid of the vitriol given by the 'experts' offered a voice in our media.
If you have never heard of Harry Houck, you are fortunate. A quick google search will show why there is so much outrage over his comments. He has condemned every victim murdered by the police. His continued voice in such desperate and necessary narrative for America will only lessen our potential for progress. Please sign and send a message that his hate is not welcome on CNN (maybe the Fox cable channel with the word 'news' in its title).
Back in the day, growing up in Northeast Ohio, my brother had the same pellet gun that Tamir Rice had. One day, when we were 12, he was playing with my cousins in the parking lot between our family home and family business. They were creating a cops and robbers scene so perfect that, even if Scorsese had filmed it, no one would have believed. It ended with my brother running into the garage and hitting the button for the garage door to come down. As he rounded back to the front of the garage and the door was almost to the ground, he rolled on his back and fired at my cousin. Before the door hit the cement there was a scream from the parking lot. He'd shot my cousin. In the nuts.
My family were well off. My father and grandfather held prominent positions in our small town and were well respected. Even though the neighbor called the police, no charges were filed and no one was held accountable. No one pointed fingers at my parents and blamed them for having raised a child who would play with a toy gun. This was simply a case of boys being boys. My cousin wasn't badly injured and he has his own children now (I feel certain that more than one person has to be asking that question).
While remaining in NE Ohio, fast forward 30 years: We are now an open-carry state where the law requires neither a license nor a registration for firearms. Ohio does, however, have a duty to inform law which requires gun owners to inform law enforcement that they are carrying a weapon immediately upon confrontation. That law, of course, would mean that the person in question would have to be actually carrying a weapon and they would have an opportunity to speak a single word before the officers decided to open fire on them.
We have all seen the video. We saw where a kid was playing with a toy gun and pretending it was real. We have been told that the officers thought he looked older than 12. That is meant to offer absolution to the officer who shot Tamir Rice because his being older would make him a threat. Why? They didn't even talk to him. Not only did they not take the time to determine if he was actually carrying a weapon or how old he was (where if he were the grown man they said he seemed, he may have been legally open carrying a gun), but there was never a determination that he had broken any laws. Ohio allows people to open carry their weapons. He was not in conflict with anyone. He was literally standing there doing NOTHING. And to some, apparently, that is quite enough:
This bullshit comment showed up on my Facebook page today in reaction to the shirt I designed for Black Lives Matter showing dozens of names of people of color murdered. I've heard it all before. This is the shit some white people tell themselves to remain in their little happy world where everything is right and their white supremacy is the standard. I realize that a lot of people don't understand that this is what their subconscious is doing, but I can't allow them that freedom, either. You don't get to rewrite histories or biographies to make yourself feel better. How many people are presently feeling good about themselves saying, "Yeah. Well they were killed because they were criminals or ran their mouth"? How can you not then allow a revelation that neither of those things warrant being murdered?
In America, if you commit a crime you are arrested, given a court hearing and a judge or jury determines your guilt. If found guilty, you are then sentenced. Few crimes warrant death. Asshole.
Running your mouth? Really? Anyone who knows me will tell you that all of my life I have 'run my mouth' giving no consideration to the power or position of its recipient. Fortunately, however, I was white while I was doing it.
She concludes her nonsensical list of reasons to murder people with Tamir Rice and his fake gun. She doesn't expand on her thought process (I generously attribute one to her, which is probably unnecessary) but it seems to tell me that children with fake guns should be murdered without question or due process. Thank goodness my brother had that white skin or who knows what might have happened to him. Cunt.
Apparently, unless a police officer screams the words, "I'm killing you for your blackness," while shooting, there will never be a way to make some people understand. I honestly don't want to share the planet with people who are this shallow, selfish and willfully ignorant. If you have thought things similar to the comment pictured above or nodded your head when someone else was saying these things, I compel you to take this test. If you get to the end of it and do not see the problem with your thinking, you are hopelessly devoid of humanity. But that means my words are of no consequence to you. So I offer you the most abject shame and hope you have little time left in this word with no influence over the next generation.
Honestly, we are settling for this society. Until every rational voice demands coherence out of those who embrace hate and ignorance while completely dismissing lives lost to people of color, we will remain right here. Until our 'leadership' believes that the majority of Americans see the truths behind these killings, they will not do anything. They don't have to. A very precious few of them do anything unless it helps them get reelected. Please stand up. Please shout for justice. Please don't wait for the next innocent child to end up dead for engaging in his childhood. PLEASE.
Here is a brand new trick for your mind and your eyes:
This test is even crazier than the one with the dress. You have to follow the rules though. Whenever you are instructed to close your eyes and keep them closed you have to do it. Okay?
The idea of this color test is to see if you can see things differently when you close your eyes and then reopen them.
There has been a lot of outrage in America for the past several years about the deaths of unarmed people of color. Many have been angry that nothing is being done about it. Many others have been outraged that people are upset in the first place. Those defending the killers insist that each of those who were killed deserved it for one reason or another and find ways to excuse each event as it comes up.
I think that the problem in America, however, lies with the people in the middle. Those who have no opinion either way are the ones who perpetuate the problem. When you see these stories on the news and think "Gosh. That's awful," and don't give it another thought until you go to work and hear someone say that Tamir Rice shouldn't have been allowed to be in the park with a toy gun from a person who will rationalize that if his mother hadn't let him go to the park he would still be alive today, you are the problem. If in this moment you do not demand a coherent thought out of the person defending a killer, you allow them to believe that their hate is justified, or at least tolerated.
Unfortunately, we are always going to have racists. We will always have bigots. And homophobes. And assholes. And cranks. They will always exist and we will always have to deal with them. They can, however, go with the rest of us into an evolved society where their hatred is diminished. My answer (which is very naive, I know. I am adorable and I can't help it), is for all Americans who have heard the news about these killings and then gone on in their day having never given them another thought to spend just 5 minutes taking this test.
Jordan Davis
Imagine your white little brother standing in front of that flag instead of Jordan Davis. Now imagine he is 17 years old and in a car at a gas station with his friends back in the day while listening to Metallica too loudly. They were being rowdy like 17 year old boys are supposed to be. Now imagine some black guy pulled up and told his girlfriend in the seat next to him that he hated that awful shit white music and yelled at the kids. The boys yelled back at him. So that black man shot at your little brother. 10 times. He's dead now.
Close your eyes. Keep them closed. Can you see that?
Walter Scott
Imagine your white uncle standing in front of that flag instead of Walter Scott. Now imagine he gets pulled over for a broken tail light the day before Easter. He is the one in the family who has a good heart but seems to screw up a lot. The whole family is coming in tomorrow and he knows he has a warrant against him because he is behind on his child support. He decides to take off and make a run for it so he doesn't spend Easter in jail. That would certainly ruin Grandma's day, wouldn't it? The black police officer takes off after him and shoots him in the back. Repeatedly. Until he is dead. And then tries to create a scenario where it was your uncles fault.
Close your eyes. Keep them closed. Can you see that?
Eric Garner
Imagine your white father holding and feeding your baby in this picture instead of Eric Garner. Now imagine that he is standing on the side of a building and police officers ask him if he is selling cigarettes. They ask your dad this every time he is standing outside. He is getting really sick of it. Your dad asks the police why they don't just leave him alone. One officer, completely unprovoked, put your father in a choke hold and took him down while he was literally begging for his life. As he is beginning to struggle he tells the officer that he can't breathe. The officer does not refrain. Your father is choked to death. On camera. Surrounded by many police officers. Who said he was trying to sell a cigarette. The black police officer who murdered your father gives a gleeful wave to the camera while his body is being taken away. Handcuffed.
Close your eyes. Keep them closed. Can you see that?
Tamir Rice
Imagine your white son with that unbearably sweet face in this picture instead of Tamir Rice. Now imagine that he is in the park playing with a toy gun. His gun, like most made today, looks real. He is doing what children do with toy guns, pretending to shoot it. A gentleman who is not quite sure about the situation calls the police and tells them it looks like he may be a child and he is unsure if the gun is even real. The police show up and in less than 2 seconds, the officer in the passenger seat gets out of the car and shoots your son. On this day after shooting your son, he also tackles and detains your daughter when she runs to see what has happened to her little brother. He is doing this while he is neglecting to give aid to your son who is still alive. Your son dies the next day. This black police officer, you will later learn, had been released from his previous law enforcement position because he was deemed too emotional and immature regarding his use of weapons. That information doesn't really help you now, though. Does it? Your son is dead.
Close your eyes. Keep them closed. Can you see that?
It is a lot easier to live in a happy world when you allow for easy answers from the people who would really rather not allow changes in our society. I realize that. It is easier to just say that Jordan Davis should not have talked back to his elder or Walter Scott should not have run or Eric Garner should not have tried to sell cigarettes or Tamir Rice should not have been playing with a toy gun. But society will stay right here as long as you allow that to happen. From now on, every time you hear another story of an innocent unarmed person of color being murdered (and tragically, you will because we aren't demanding better of ourselves), take a quiet moment, close your eyes and imagine that the innocent unarmed person who this story about is white. And someone you love. And their killer is black. Then ask yourself why you have to rewrite the scenario for yourself. When you realize that you do not have a rational answer for that question, you will start to be a part of the solution.
Open your eyes, America. They've been closed long enough.
I don't know. Do black lives matter? I can't tell. I am sickened by how many people have to defensively scream in reply, "All Lives Matter!" Yeah? Kindly fuck yourself. I know that most of America's citizens say that they want equality. But we are all living in the same country and having the same stories relayed to us. And we are not all the handful of assholes who go around blindly demanding the innocence of the people who kill unarmed black men. But we continue to coexist with them. And we continue to allow them to be outraged when anyone attempts to have a rational discussion about where we are as a country. Yes. In fact, all lives do matter. But until we can all get on the same page about that, it really is important that we all focus a little deeper on the lives we allow our society to dismiss.
Did everyone watch the same newscasts that I did? Did everyone who, undoubtedly, knew that GoFundMe accounts were created (and funded into the hundreds of thousands) for each of the officers who killed these men also see on the news that the mother of Tamir Rice ended up homeless? Which lives matter? This is your country! This is the country where you demand that all lives matter! Really? Then act like it. Have outrage because a child was murdered and his mother, who undoubtedly fell into an awful depression, then ended up in a homeless shelter! Admit that her child was murdered! Tell yourself and tell your children and tell anyone who disagrees with you that her child was murdered. The moment you allow yourself or anyone else a hint of hesitation here means you are not qualified to judge which lives matter.
You are the problem in America if you have seen that video and, knowing that you are looking at a 12 year old child who is standing there doing nothing, having no time to even register what is going on, is shot and murdered by a police officer who had been released from his former department for his immaturity and over-emotion regarding his desire to shoot his gun, you can find a word that doesn't mean murder. And you are the problem when you have no outrage after having heard the same news story that I did about his sister then being pinned down by the police officer when she went to help her dying brother; the brother that was still not receiving CPR or any kind of aid. And until you admit that this is the most tragic story you can imagine if your eyes are closed and that child is white, you will continue to be the reason my country is such a tragedy. And you will continue to be the reason that black lives, in fact, do not matter.
I have no information to offer anyone here. I have done no research and found no answers. I offer no recipe for anyone on how to make our country better. I am just pissed off and needed to rant tonight. If you made it all the way to the end and were hoping for a revelation, I apologize.
