Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

Remember Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock?  Most people think of that as an amazing piece of music, and protest.  At the time some were offended by it- how dare he?  How dare he use that symbol of our country to point out that our country was doing some messed-up shit?  Now it seems obvious that things were messed up, and that he was making a very strong point.

Now Colin Kaepernick, along with more and more other players, is sitting or kneeling during the anthem to protest police violence.  Some people are offended, of course: the ones to whom symbols of freedom are more important than the actual freedoms.  They care more about obedience than about people, more about appearances than reality.   If you are more concerned with someone kneeling during a song than someone dying with their hands in the air, that says a lot about you.

So, there's a lot of "I'm offended because you are protesting," essentially.  And there are a lot of people who truly do not believe there is a problem, so they don't think any protest is justified.  A lot of the "serious" discussion I see online pushing back against Black Lives Matter (ignoring the raging idiotic racism, the name-calling, etc.,) boils down to "blacks don't have it so bad," "do what the cop says," and "this is not a problem- blacks are violent and so cops kill them."  Of course, two of those are blatantly racist, and the third, "comply," is often implicitly racist.  Even when people comply, they sometimes get killed, and the apologists will find ways to justify that too.

What about Philando Castile?  Complying, peaceful.  Still dead.  He had a concealed carry permit, and told the officer, and was shot when he followed orders to get his registration.  Listen, anyone with a CCW should be concerned about that one.  If you tell the cop, and he gets more nervous, and scared, and pops you when you make the slightest move, what good does that gun do you?  And what good does following the rules do you?

And then there are the "all lives matter" people.  All lives matter.  They do.  Except that they don't all matter, not to some people.  If I hear you say "all lives matter" when someone says "black lives matter," what I hear is "no, they don't.  Black lives don't matter.  Not to me."

It should bother you that American citizens are being treated this way, no matter what color they are.  If it doesn't, and you can't even bring yourself to express sympathy for them before you jump in with why they deserved it, tells me a lot about you.  The fact that you say nothing about that, that you won't admit cops can be racist, or even just make mistakes, tells me what you think.  You don't see it going on?  You don't want to.  You pretend not to.

I grew up in Ohio, and saw racism.  I've been to the South and seen it.  I know I can drive out in the country around here and see plenty of Trump signs, and Confederate flags, so don't tell me racism isn't real.

Miss Mox, my wife, is black.  Our daughter is black.  Half my extended family is black.  Hell, some days when I have a tan people wonder if I'm black.  One of Miss Mox's coworkers thought she was cheating on me.  "I thought your husband was white."  "Yeah."  "Well, then who was that black guy I saw you kissing in the parking lot at lunch?"  "Uh, that's him."  I worry about them.  I even worry about me. 

I have plenty of sympathy for police; I think most people do.  They have a hard job, an occasionally dangerous one, and probably don't get thanked nearly enough.  They did sign up for it though, so part of me just wants to say "kwitcherbitchin."  I thought about being a cop, briefly; what turned me off was seeing all the other candidates, many fresh out of the academy and eager to kick ass.  Service to the community was not at the top of their list; beating up "bad guys" was.  Not all cops are like that, but there is certainly a large minority that wants to be tough, wants to be seen as tough, wants respect whether they earn it or not.

Most cops, though, are good people, and good cops.  They have to deal with a lot of assholes.  However, that doesn't negate the existence of corrupt cops, biased cops, and just normal people making mistakes.  Racial bias can be almost invisible sometimes, at least to some.  Just because someone isn't shouting slurs doesn't mean they're not racist; just because someone consciously treats everyone the same doesn't mean they don't have subconscious biases.

More and more we see video of unarmed, unaggressive people getting killed.  It happened before, it's just more visible now.  And still there are apologists.  "He raised his hands too late."  "He had a record."  "He had a taillight out and ran."  None of that deserves the death penalty.  And certainly none deserves it without trial.  You know what they call this kind of killing when it happens in other countries?  "Extrajudicial killings."  It's what we see in corrupt countries like Brazil, and the Phillipines.  It's what we complain about when we see it there- how awful it is that cops take justice into their own hands.  Hm.

The feeling seems to be "if he has a gun, he deserves to die." Even though there are plenty of instances of violent white people being taken alive, even if they shoot at cops, even if they killed people.  But with a black guy, to some people even if he's telling you he can't breathe, he deserves to die.  Playing in the park, deserves to die.  Maybe he has a BB gun and it might be real.  You can't use the loudspeaker in the car, figure out what's going on from a distance?  No, you have to speed up to him and kill him, like Tamir Rice.  Or shoot another little kid, Tyre King, in the back.  And when the cop has a record of bad judgment, of racism, of killings?  Do you hold that against him?  The cop's life is more important than the kid's, even though they're sworn to protect?

If you say "crime is so much worse in black neighborhoods than white neighborhoods," ask yourself why we have black and white neighborhoods.  Why are they still so segregated?  If your answer is "they want to live that way," smack yourself in the face and then do some historical research.

We need to talk about this.  Some of us need to admit it is happening, first of all.  Then we can start to have an honest discussion.  Pretending problems don't exist, not talking about them, does not make them go away.  We need to figure this out.  It won't be easy.  It is going to be much harder if so many of us keep sticking our heads in the sand, and if people keep dying.