So I’m driving one very bland day with nothing whatsoever striking to catch my attention, listening to a CD Spawn selected that I have really been enjoying and letting my mind wander.
I’m not sure why my head seems to want to direct my thoughts to heavy shit when my emotional stability isn’t very much under my control, but with one of the most bigoted, sexist, racist, fuckheads that has ever walked the planet now swathed in the title of “Mr. President”, I cannot help but wonder what the hell is happening to our society, especially when I’m bombarded with the amount of stupid shit he does every day.
The job of reporter in the US is no longer about getting to the “truth” and backing it up with sound researched information, it is now bought and paid for by a corporate agenda. And that applies to all of them now, even NY Times has fallen to the bullshit.
In order for the average US citizen to find truth, you have to look to comedy or foreign news. Yes, I said comedy. Because it is the last frontier where if you wanted to suck up to the GOP or a corporate sponsorship, you’d get booed off the stage before you could finish a set. We know when we’re being fed shit in comedy, not so much when they call it “news.”
Crime is at an all time low, and is still dropping drastically, but no one ever hears about it. The wage gap still exists, but there are plenty of pseudoscience trying to convince you it isn’t. I see the invoices, every temp company we go through has at LEAST a 2-3 buck an hour disparagement between the guy and the girl hired to do the same fucking thing. Even one of my more intelligent and fair minded coworkers sincerely believes it doesn’t exist.
However, I found my thoughts not landing on these things, so much as race.
When people talk about the way the legal system is skewed to keep minorities in jail, they mean things like this… In this country, cocaine is mostly a white consumed drug (who besides lawyers or those who can keep one on retainer can afford it anyway?) Crack, being cocaine’s inbred diluted cousin, is a mostly minority consumed drug because it is cheaper and markets to a lower income bracket. The max time a person can spend in jail for crack is almost twice what a person with cocaine would have to serve and they don’t have to carry much to get the book thrown at them.
I live in the South. Born here. Raised here. Went to a school that was about 60% black and completely freaked out when I moved to the midwest for several years and saw almost none. It’s a real culture shock when you’re used to seeing more colors and shades in your crayola box of life and become suddenly surrounded with many shades of nothing put pink instead.
The black culture, despite or perhaps TO spite the horrific origin, have enhanced the culture in our area of the map in ways not seen anywhere else. I cannot imagine life without the blues, Creole, small pockets of held out languages, hoodoo, superstitions, or voodoo. The fierce defiance in spite of a calm facade is, to me, the mark of black culture. The passion for religion, music, family and vast support for one another. The pride in spite of years of putting up with epic bullshit.
There’s just nothing like it.
Then I think about now when we have people who feel that since they got their white piece of shit in office, are now welcome, if not encourage, to come out and say whatever hate speech they want and they are somehow among kin. The next step being taking action? doing whatever they want without the risk of consequence, at most? For those that visit that link, fuck you CNN for just naming the victim and not billboarding the mf’ers names who actually DID the crime! Shawn Berry, Lawrence Russell Brewer, and John King, fucking die.
Those are the faces of a Trump supporter.
I think of Sandra Bland and how they ruled it “suicide” and alluded to “mental health,” as being part of her problem…if I was thrown in jail over a fucking traffic violation, you can call it “mental health” all you want, but I’d be ready to stab a bitch. I sure as shit would be making notes of badge numbers and calling any loudmouth I could to make as much noise about it as I could. On the slim chance she did really take her own life, which I don’t believe, can you blame her? After being treated like that? She’s probably put up with it her whole life.
I think of the cops that are mandatory now on school premises. Then I’m stunned when I’m trying to find the link to the ONE instance I know of, to find out abuse by cop towards CHILDREN is getting massively fucking common. The only difference between the American schools and the prison system is the latter gets a better lunch and a real recess.
This isn’t an isolated incident and it happens in a million subtle ways every single day. I go into a store where a group of minority kids are lingering near the door, chatting and laughing and just being, well kids. As i approach, they talk suddenly ceases. I can see the fear in their faces that I’m going to somehow cinch up my bags, or cross the street, or say something offensive. They brace for it. How fucked up is that? I don’t blame them in the slightest, I know why, it just kills me to still see it now.
Missing children organizations are less likely to give ideal exposure to minority children, the excuse being that too many children being posted would dilute the sense of urgency among the community. Then fix the system so it notifies those in the area, you dumbasses, keep it relevant to the people in the region they disappeared in, then move out as needed I was nowhere near the Jon-Benet Ramsey story, did I really need her face thrust in mine every day? There’s a couple thousand miles of impossibility going on there.
When they talk about the wage gap as being about 80%, they are referring to the people in office jobs like I am, but what they don’t go over is that that when you add the minority element or just compare those in service industries, that gap can be as bad as 50%. It’s no wonder that so many minority mothers have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
I even thought about how the Women’s March had a great message and sure, it’s a great cause and its kind of sad when half the population of a country kind of hates its new leader. But it didn’t represent women at all well, and here’s the problem…The women who had to go to job 2 or 3, the ones most bitterly affected by the disparagement, cannot afford to show up for fear of losing their livelihood. So there is a huge chunk of women who just couldn’t come, and they are the most needed.
The ones most heavily affected by racial and sexist bullshit don’t even have the time and energy to complain. Few are in positions where they can take vacation time or make up the time later because the system is rigged to keep them oppressed. They could be fired for not going above and beyond the expectations of their minimum wage overlords. I’m looking at you, Wal-Mart.
Then my mind wandered to the young mixed race couple who had twins not so long ago, one pale and blonde, the other more of a mocha with eyes like onyx. Both identical otherwise, both adorable. If gives me a lot of hope to read, years later, they don’t deal with racial prejudice. Then I remember. Thankfully, they aren’t American.
Otherwise, one of them was going to be privy to “the talk.”
The talk where a minority parent has to sit down and explain to their minority child to never get visibly hostile, especially in the face of “authority” because doing so might get you killed. No matter how badly you’re being treated or baited into becoming violent, don’t do it, because cops, teachers, principals, the law, and anyone of non-color could very well be out to get you, to make you a monster. To use you as an example to keep oppression and racism alive and well
.And the thought of that cherub face having to be told that the world has a deep-seeded and irrationally violent fear of her for no other reason than by the color of her skin just hit me so hard I started sobbing to the point where I nearly had to pull over to get it all out.
I spent most of the day trying not to think about it because my eyes were sore and I know Spawn was wondering if I was getting sick and I really really didn’t want to have to go into it for fear I’d be rendered unable to speak. Nothing upsets a kid more than a parent being upset, I’ve found. Even if the reason for it should upset the hell out of everyone.
At a time when we WERE showing so much promise, so much evolution to our own thinking by FINALLY electing not based on color, but intelligence, stoicism, wisdom… and then going this… the complete opposite of the ideal of unity, equality, fairness, kindness…. I cannot help but wonder how bad this period of backsliding has to get before we’ve just had enough.
Like this:
Like Loading...
idioglossia: the blog 