Extinguish Desire and Extinguish Suffering
As Black America expected, the only indictment behind the murder of Breonna Taylor by a state-sanctioned white death squad was for one cop blindly shooting inside OTHER people’s apartments.
A grand jury indicted Brett Hankison, a former Louisville police detective, on three counts of “wanton endangerment in the first degree” in the Breonna Taylor case. The grand jury’s decision means no one was criminally charged with killing Taylor, a 26-year-old Black emergency room technician and aspiring nurse.
The demonstrators, some clearly overwrought, called for all three officers, who are white, to be held to account for Ms. Taylor’s death in March. The officers had fired a total of 32 shots after they stormed her apartment with a warrant.
Demonstrations began immediately after news spread about Hankison’s charges. An attorney for Taylor’s family, Ben Crump, said the charges should have been “wanton murder.”
This tweet sums up what many Black Americans are feeling this morning.
#BreonnaTaylor was murdered by the state. It was rationalized by #DanielCameron and it will be justified by Trump who is a terrorist sympathizer. pic.twitter.com/avubsRmlit
— Jason Johnson (@DrJasonJohnson) September 23, 2020
Working through my incandescent rage, attempting to make sense out of nonsense, I stumbled upon an epiphany of sorts. I’m officially done trying to appeal to our shared humanity, since my kind and I aren’t even considered human.
Im not referring to The Dred Scott case. I’m referring to Breonna Taylor’s. Clearly Ms. Taylor’s life had no value. If those officers had shot a dog, they’d at least be fined instead of vindicated.
Her boyfriend who fired his licensed weapon, was defending his home from unidentifiable intruders, which every gun owner claims to anyone who will listen his second amendment right.
Unless of course you’re black.
A very astute friend pointed out the hypocrisy of this position in this tweet –
Kinda stunning how many people seem to believe that owning a gun is fundamentally necessary for protecting your home, but if you're Black and you use it to defend your home you deserve to be shot and if your girlfriend dies that's her fault.
— Allan Mott: I Am That Masked Man (@HouseofGlib) September 24, 2020
I’m not here to tell you #blacklivesmatter or #sayhername nor to demand #justiceforbreonnataylor because quite frankly, I suspect it will only fall on deaf ears. I’ve written about this for years to no avail.
As the results of a new poll points out. –
by 55%-39%, white men in new Quinnipiac national poll favor Trump over Biden
by 53%-43%, white men also say Trump is dishonest
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) September 23, 2020
Only a slim majority 2% of White Women polled went for Biden. There are no accidents only precedents. All the Souvenir T-shirts & thousands of gallons of yellow paint stenciling out “BLACK LIVES MATTER” on boulevards nationwide, no matter how many millions in blood money Kentucky pays out to the family, not even the Justice denied her baby girl will console the heart of a grieving mother like Breonna’s for a murdered child.
The Buddha teaches us to follow the “Eight Fold Path”. The Buddha taught that the way to extinguish desire, which causes suffering, is to liberate oneself from attachment.
This is the third Noble Truth – the possibility of liberation. The Buddha was a living example that this is possible in a human lifetime.
As I liberate myself from my desire for you to change White America, I’m confident that your privilege, entitlement, and selfishness will prevail on November 3rd.
BIRD BOX NATION
I’m going to begin by asking White America to quit the poor Kabuki theater. It’s no longer entertaining. Black folks are over it. White folks pearl-clutching pretending to be blindsided about shit Black folks see coming a mile away. It must be exhausting pretending to be this perpetually naive.
Besides. It’s totally unnecessary. Our collective, expectations weren’t very high. Giving up on my personal expectations of White America and fully embracing the “Noble Truth”, my expectations are now non-existent.
“Blindsided” by reaching 200,000 Covid 19 deaths, while disregarding basic hygiene & best practices any child knows about washing your hands, social distancing, isolating sick people, testing everyone, and wearing masks to prevent infection.
“Blindsided” by the inevitable passing of RBG, lioness that she was, but any system that is totally dependent upon an elderly cancer survivor to retain basic civil and reproductive rights of the majority of its citizenry (55% of Americans are female) is ludicrous.
“Blindsided” by the ascendency of a mediocre no, sub-par, white, male oligarch in a country that exists only as an economic enterprise built by chattel slavery and native genocide for white, male oligarchs to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.
“Blindsided” by the revelation of a courageous black nurse who is now a target for speaking against forced sterilization of Latinx women in ICE custody. Trump’s cages must be full of brown children.
“Blindsided” by #latinosfortrump. Fact is 53% of Latinx folks identify “White”. Many share conservative values. Like Norwegians, Italians & Irish before them, they want the “brass ring” of American whiteness.
Whiteness is worth a lot in America. Don’t believe me? Chris Rock said it best,
“No white person would EVER trade places with me in America, and I’m RICH!”
Let’s all just cut the crap. Y’all aren’t as good actors as Sandra Bullock, and we ALL know the truth. Won’t honesty be easier than this constant phony outrage?
“Extreme Freedoming”
I’m DONE pretending moves like changing the name of “Uncle Ben’s Rice” to “Ben’s Original“ makes up for 450 + years of White Supremacy on this continent. It’s all good. Do you. I don’t hate the player nor the game, like Mos Def said “I’m the shot clock way above the game.”
I’m not here to ask White America to love or even like black people. We get it. White America has historically always had a love/hate relationship with Black America.
You’ve always coveted our “rhythm” but never wanted any part of our “blues”. Just ask your black “friend”.
According to an excellent essay “Are all your friends white?” by
September 4, 2019 in The Tulane Hullabaloo
The average white American has 91 white friends, 1 Black friend, 1 Latino friend, 1 Asian friend, 1 mixed race friend, 1 other race friend, and 3 friends of unknown race.
“The Public Religion Research Institute’s data that a full 75% of whites have “entirely white social networks without any minority presence. A Reuters poll came out showing that 40% of white Americans have zero nonwhite friends, and only 20% of white Americans have five or more nonwhite friends.
Considering the fact that close to 60% of white Americans can uphold white ignorance and, thereby, uphold white supremacy has startling implications about the state and future of racism in America.”
Ultimately. White America is selfish and only cares about White America, well to a certain extent. White Americans only care about being inconvenienced. Don’t think so?
How many Black or Brown people have you witness going viral for refusing to wear a mask in public during this global pandemic? Go look for them.
I’ll wait…
There are White Americans doing flash mob unmaskings at Target. A white Florida bar owner refuses service to anyone wearing a mask. So clearly, this is all about “freedom” right?
In the interest of your own self-interest. And “Extreme Freedoming”, which apparently is one of the two motivations for the vast majority of you. The other being – “White woman in danger”.
I ask you to vote like White women are in danger. Because, in a very real sense, they are, and not from us Black people, ANTIFA, or displaced Latinx Caravans invading the suburbia of Trump’s imagination.
The Imperial President
Trump declines to commit to a peaceful transition of power after election Rep. Adam Schiff, one of the managers in the president’s impeachment, said in response: “This is how democracy dies.”
We’re going to have to see what happens. You know, I’ve been complaining about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster. — President Trump
Trump has repeatedly expressed doubt about the current election infrastructure, even though numerous studies have found voter fraud to be exceedingly rare in the U.S.
The president has waged a campaign against the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots expected this year amid the coronavirus pandemic, alleging that vote-by-mail is less secure than other forms of voting.
He pushed a baseless theory that foreign actors are plotting to send in fake ballots, though his own intelligence community has found no evidence of such a plot.
As yourself this question White America.
Why hasn’t a single @SenateGOP or @HouseGOP member repudiated the president’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power?
Rather than commit to a peaceful transfer of power, the president just said that if you get rid of the ballots, he can guarantee it will be peaceful because there will be no transfer and he will continue rule.
I’m no constitutional scholar. Does that sound like “Freedom” to you?
“Won’t somebody please think about the children?!”
Imagine if you will, a little white blonde girl stuck at the bottom of a well. Clutching her hypoallergenic labradoodle puppy.
White Americans would move heaven & earth to save that little toe-headed angel wouldn’t they? It would dominate news cycles and garner more hits than ten panda-cams.
Trump says he wants a conservative majority on the Supreme Court in case of an Election Day dispute.
Trump wants to install a white woman who is a religious zealot, beholden only to him, not only to ensure any challenge he intends to make toward the validity of our election is successful, but to destroy ACA and reverse Roe v. Wade.
With Senator Mitt Romney’s announcement that he supports moving forward with the confirmation of a new Supreme Court Justice, Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell have secured the Republican votes they need to begin the process of filling the seat of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Trump and McConnell now stand poised to create a conservative majority on the Court that could last decades.
I’m not making this appeal for my daughter nor my son. But for yours White America. If me and mine benefit? It’s only incidental, like our shared humanity.
The moment marks a triumph for the Federalist Society, a conservative and libertarian legal group that has worked since the nineteen-eighties to recruit ultra-conservative lawyers to serve as judges.
Republicans face a potential backlash in November, but a dramatic and historic change in American democracy and jurisprudence is underway that could vastly increase the power of the Presidency, corporations, and the wealthy, and curtail, or bring to an end, abortion rights, Obamacare, (ACA) and expansive voting rights.
The New Republic of Gilead.
Unless that little blonde well-girl is wealthy,(rich people can get all the safe abortions they want) she won’t have access to safe, affordable reproductive services, being female will once more become a preexisting condition in America.
She’ll never earn as much as her brother. Her hard-fought for voting rights & protections, like the Violence Against Women Act, (That Joe Biden got passed) will disappear, as will the legacies of both Rep. John Lewis & Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
This election. Vote like that poor little blonde-haired white girl will never get out of that well unless the Biden/Harris Ticket wins with an indisputable margin of victory.
Unless of course, you want to see your little white daughters in a Handmaiden’s habit and to see your little white sons conscripted, re-educated and pressed into service for the glory of the “Divine Nation.” Some of you definitely have drunk enough MAGAade for that.
You better hope green is your color Mildred.
SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE
But ultimately, what it all boils down to, Is about White America being happy.
And the Trump hostile takeover of American Democracy is the end of White Happiness for the near future.
If Biden doesn’t unequivocally win this election you’re in for huge inconveniences Total downer. Protests, marching, awkwardness, nodding at your black friend complaining about mattering, going on-and-on demanding justice, when all you’re thinking about what’s in your Netflix cue when you finish your double half-caf mochachino.
As a rule, I don’t trust y’all, but I do trust your greed & self interest. You do the math. If Trump sticks around? What do you and yours have to gain? What’s in it for you? Think about it.
You’ve already gotten all you can get from Trump. You’ve got tax cuts, you get to work from home, unless you’re too poor, and who cares about poor people? It’s like Trump said, “service and sacrifice for your country is for suckers” right?
It’s bad for business. The market hates uncertainty. What do you think the Dow will do during a prolonged Constitutional Crisis?
Bars & Restaurants will go belly up because Winter is Coming. Flu & Covid together? It’s already spiking all over, and where White Americans live.
All it takes is one Promise Keepers meeting or Father/Daughters dance and your kids will be back home from school. And you’re already sick of them being home.
Besides, Biden’s an old white man too, and, let’s face it, no where near as crazy, criminal or stupid as Trump.
Obama made you feel not racist for voting for him. You can feel that way again voting for Kamala! Then all this unpleasantness can be over and you can get back to what’s important.
Your pursuit of happiness!
It’s a win/win!
Namaste!
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