I sympathize and understand. I, too, am frustrated and angered as America moves closer and closer to a dictatorship and police state. My outrage is equal to yours as I watch the injustices and cruelties accumulate and no one in power seems to have any inclination to do anything about it.
But burning and looting your own neighborhood and those of your neighbors is not the answer, and it gives the “Powers that Be” exactly what they want. They want you to destroy your own lives. It saves them the effort. They want you to give them an excuse, any excuse, that will justify further force against you. You will do their job for them.
I understand the need to do something now, but burning down your own neighborhoods doesn’t lead to any long-term solutions. It doesn’t even lead to short-term solutions, because, once the adrenalin wears off, nothing has changed, except that you are sitting on a pile of rubble and your friends and neighbors are homeless.
I have lived through this before. I have lived through the Watts Uprising in August 1965, through the Rodney King riots in March 1991, through the Oscar Grant protests in 2009 and the Stephon Clark protests in 2018. In every case, it was the communities that paid the price. Some, Like Watts and Compton have never completely recovered. Sometimes the officers involved did jail time; Oscar Grant’s killer served the grand total of eleven months in prison. Less than a year for a life. In no case, did the “Power Structure” pay. In every case they were rewarded with more powers and more money.
Your neighbors did not cause this situation. They are suffering through these atrocities the same as you are. Destroying their homes and businesses will not rectify this injustice. And I am not speaking of just #BlackLivesMatter. I am speaking of #AllLivesMatter. On the surface, this might appear to be a racial injustice. But it is an “everyone” injustice. It is a human injustice. And there is only one way to stop it. We have to stop seeing color. It is that simple. It has to start being “US” which coincidentally is the abbreviation for our country. And it is our country. It belongs to all of us, and we need to make it what we want it to be.
To do that, we have to work together. And we have to speak the language of the “Powers that Be”, the 1%. Their language is Power and Money.
You decrease their power through the power of the vote. Yes, it does not have an immediate effect. But you MUST vote. The corruption starts at the top and the only way we can get rid of it is to vote. We are six months away from national elections. I am not going to tell you how to vote, that is between you and your conscience, but VOTE! There are movements underway to undermine the power of the vote by outlawing “vote by email”. This will remove the right of voting from millions who do not have transportation, who are disabled, who are otherwise unable to get to a poling place. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN. This is designed to be a government of the people. Let us decide who we want to put into power. Do not give power to those corrupt politicians who promote divisiveness and bigotry.
The other language they speak is money. Speak with your checkbooks. Find out which companies are backing corrupt officials. Do not shop at those businesses. And let them know why you are not shopping there anymore. Shop in your neighborhoods at local owned businesses. Buy products made by Black, Hispanic or Asian manufacturers. Support those who support you.
Shadowlands 