As you could've guessed this post will be about the recent situations in which the police have been gunning down unarmed men, and though the main focus was on Michael Brown, it also happened outside of my hometown of Ohio (man was gunned down in a Walmart for having a BB gun).
What is my personal opinion on the matter? Well more and more, I am starting to become indifferent. I will explain, briefly. As stated in one of past posts, "MJ's 50 Year Theory", the injustice that we face as African-Americans in the United States has never gone away since slavery, but has only altered. Most times, when it alters we begin to get comfortable again, and the false majority gladly eases back in more extreme than they were to begin with. This is messed up right? So why would I start becoming indifferent instead of enraged? Well, simply put, because of my observations on the masses. I'll explain.
And just to note, this in no way is to say that as a race we have no hope, but it is written to make you think and quite possibly feel some type of way about these thoughts. If you don't you may be part of the problem that I am addressing.
So my indifference comes from the masses. The short term memory that our community has and the lack of sacrifice that people are willing to endure to make a substantial change. It seems to be like a terrible sitcom, like one of those weak ass Tyler Perry shows that only would be shown on TBS -btw F Tyler Perry, digress.
But do you understand what I want to say? I feel as though since I was in high school its been one racial tragedy after another. Each becoming worse and worse and what happens? It sparks a riot of some sort. People hit the streets for a day or two, let out some aggression, a couple of people get arrested, wounded, etc. then go home and wait for the next tragedy. And what does the oppressor do? They see how far we'll let them go.
Example, Trayvon Martin, right? They said he "attacked" Zimmerman even though he had DIRECT orders from the local police to stop fuckin stalkin the kid. BANG, now he's dead, another African-American male shot down by someone racial profiling. And what did our community do? We wore T-Shirts, we had a couple rallies, we said "FUCK THE MAN", then went right back to partying and turnin up. So the fire dwindled to a couple flames. All the while, there were like 4 other cases of young black men getting shot, especially the one where the nigga got shot at a gas station in the face by a white man because he wouldn't turn his music down! SMFH. I'll move on.
So these things keep happening, right? And now this new situation happened. They shot an unarmed man, who had his hands up, and idek what their reasoning is this time foreal, that's how you can tell that they really don't care anymore lol. And what's happening? Oh, you know, the riots start, dumbasses start looting, and in a couple of weeks or months people will go back to their lives, the whole while they destroyed their own neighborhoods, and go back to accepting their fate as not shit in the public eye. And so on and so forth. With only a couple sparks still lit from the wildfire.
Now, to explain my indifference, if you haven't caught on. We're all being blind. We're living in the same damn system that our elders were when they started the civil rights movement. True, it was worse back then with lynching being a whole public spectacle, but I'd be curious just to see the black men and jail now vs. then and the comparison of recorded lynchings with recorded black men shot by "intimidated" men and police. For some reason, my logic tells me they wouldn't be too far off of each other. Shit, if it wasn't for the media they'd still probably be public spectacles in some places. I digress. Back to my point.
My indifference comes in seeing that this pattern is not ending, and will not end until people wise up. It seems like the sparks that are left try to catch on with other people, but by that time there's nothing left to burn until you have something new. We waste all of our anger on events instead of the system, which makes our aim short term instead of on the bigger picture. Put that along with the fact that the government is actually scaring people to death by these public showings, and we damn near have the hunger games on our hands.
Now, my main point. This is what differentiates riots and reforms. Riots are short term because they are near sighted. They aren't looking for the bigger picture because all that they see is in front of them. They're not trying to change the system, they're just products of being reactive to the system. And although they gather the masses for the week, month, or couple of months, they do not have nor are willing to bear the pain of a reform.
See, a reform is much different. These are led by the visionaries that open people's eyes to the bigger picture. These visionaries are often killed by "anonymous" people in order to scare the masses back into their "riot only" space though. The thing is, though, a new visionary always rises. Reforms are held to challenge the system and change the injustices, whether through peace or through action. And in reforms, the people have to be willing to bare the pain of the world in order for generations that come after them to live in a better place, or to keep the torch burning.
I mean damn, during the civil rights movement they were spraying niggas with fire hoses from 3 feet away. I got hit with one of those from 20 feet away and it left a bruise! They sicked the dogs, they beat, bloodied, and killed people. It happens like that in reform. Because one day someone realizes, "Well damn, if it's happening already anyways we might as well make it happen for a reason."
The difference for our generation, there's a lot more than just black people who are hurting. It's not just black and white anymore. Hispanics, actually many types of immigrants, blacks, whites, it doesn't matter anymore. People are starving, people are hurting, people are dying. The media paints it as a race war in order to separate the people into categories so we don't stand as one, and they smart as hell because it always works. But what people don't know is that they people controlling the media are controlling the police pensions, controlling the stock markets, controlling the market goods, shit even control the politicians. I talk about the false majority because they're the enemy. That's the meaning of a reform, to unite the people against them, and make them change the way things are handled. I digress.
So my indifference comes from this never ending cycle of our society being reactive instead of proactive. And if you don't understand what I am saying, ask yourself this question. If we know we live in a society where this is even a possibility, where unarmed men can be gunned down with little to know consequences, then why are we just sitting here? And what will it take for it to stop happening?
If you can't answer these questions with a logical answer, even after thinking about it time and time again, you tend to either get frustrated or indifferent. You know where I am.
Just my thoughts.
Marcus J.
