I had asthma as a child. I remember waking up unable to breathe; kicking and flailing and beating on the bed until my mother would come and help. She used to say that I couldn't possibly remember my hospital stays because I was too young. I remember kicking the plastic of the oxygen tent that was supposed to support my breathing.
Broadcast news often makes me think of how frightening it is to realize you're not getting the air you need. It's no joke.
If you watch the news, you'll be mad and frustrated, but not surprised, every other day. After a while, you'll become numb.
Is that what's happened?
Is everyone just numb?
Are the right conversations being had?
Is all of the available information being shared?
Are we seeing the same things?
Are we thinking critically?
Cries to repair a broken system seem to fall on deaf ears.
Someone is profiting from its disrepair.
I admire the people who have taken to the streets all over the world, but are they getting the attention of the powers that be, or are they merely pissing off their neighbors and fellow citizens by blocking streets, and interrupting commerce?
Are they adept at merely convening?
The world is always watching the country that makes it's business to police the world and shove democracy down the world's throat. America manages to demonstrate that is hasn't yet policed itself, nor embraced the democracy it peddles.
Our government's leaders openly hate and distrust one another so much that it would be frightening if it weren't so childish and pathetic.
I remember my Dad saying, "You can exercise your rights, and be just as dead". I also recall him saying often, "A Black man's life isn't worth anything in this country".
He's 89, and has stories on top of stories of his own experiences with racism and injustice that would provide an acceptable excuse for being defiant, bigoted, hateful, sarcastic, arrogant, mistrusting and mean.
When a system was not built with you in mind, is it obligated to acknowledge you at all?
When a country has been built by instilling fear and oppressing people, are all systems secretly invested in people remaining afraid and downtrodden?
There is no post-racist America. We're still in the thick of it. There is still meat on the bones of racism's skeletons. Listen to the rhetoric of presidential candidates, Look at the people who support them. They want America back. What do they really mean? Back from, or to what?
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