No Midwest Mollification Today
It is interesting to me the words people choose. "Riot" and "lawlessness" are powerful words full of connotation. Sometimes I think how I see this country is very different than how the state or the fourth estate sees it. It is easy to feel alienated when listening to the TV.
Where many see "riot" and "lawlessness" I see restraint. With all due respect to the Reverend Dr. King and the decent men and women who practice non-violence, if those cops murdered my daughter while handcuffed and face down in the street by crushing her windpipe, I would not stop at burning a building. I would not care about equality; I would would not stop until they stopped me.
And for four hundred years in this country white people have been the beneficiaries of black people's tolerance and the removal of the Indians. I see restraint because my daughter is safe in her bed, but I want revenge for the daughters who are not safe. I want to burn down The American Police Hall of Fame & Museum. In my lifetime I have seen the rise of rich people paying for private police and live behind gates. I have seen the militarization of local peace officers. WHO ARE THEY GOING TO WAR WITH?
It is also interesting to me that people talk about "civil disorder" when the people are burning shit in the street. Civil disorder is murder in broad daylight. Civil disorder is red-lining, and Jim Crow laws, and a hundred other policies designed to keep black and brown people poor, or at least to keep white people in power and wealthy. The government workers and genteel Americans look at their TVs and are upset because things are out of control. Imagine feeling that feeling every goddam day of your life. Because that is how poor people feel. That is how black and brown people feel. The poor whites who are not bamboozled by the racist tropes feel this. I would add that's how Indians feel but the wealthy lawbreakers (who ironically preach law and order) have so perfectly eviscerated the resistant heart that no one even thinks there are Indians left in this goddam country.
So, don't tell me about peaceful protests. Motherfucker, this whole country was founded on a treasonous document. And we put that treasonous motherfucker on our nickle and on the side of a mountain on someone else's land. Meanwhile, Emmet Till's murderers spent their whole lives as free men. Meanwhile, the police and prison systems have been codified with racist intentions. That white boy who raped a girl was from a gated community and never once was there a raid on THAT community to stop the marauding white teenager problem. Fuck you and fuck your lack of perspective. You motherfuckers did not pay attention in school because if you had you would never say something stupid like, "Protests are fine so long as they are peaceful protests." Peaceful protests!
We fucked with King George’s money. You fuck with a man’s money, and it is on. The Boston Tea Party ring a bell? Destruction of state property. The battle at Valley Forge. The Siege at Yorktown. The Battle at Bunker Hill. You call these peaceful protests? Open your eyes and see the truth that is right in front of them. It’s hiding in plain sight. Throughout history it is without exception, and we’re talking about thousands of years, it is the oppressor calling for peaceful protests (if dissenting voices are tolerated at all) all while employing overwhelming force to maintain its dominance.
Local cops all look like Rambo rolling up on Main Street.
Look, I don't want the world to burn. But if fire purifies this noxious tree grown from poisonous seeds, then I say, “Fire is an agent of change for the better.”