Black Lives Matter

I was going to write a post about being entirely disgusted to find myself cited by the infamous Ann Coulter in her 2009 book Guilty: the blah blah I hate liberals they are ruining the world book to make me money crap fest.

She wrote and released this book when I was in the worst of the throws of my Lupus diagnosis. You know, having strokes, losing organs, being hospitalized and having multiple surgeries. So she’ll have to excuse me that it didn’t come to my attention until now that I’m in her piece of trash.

Apparently she’s trying to make the case liberals were freaking out over a Barack Obama presidency and if he’d be killed. She thought we were blaming the right-wing nut jobs for targeting him (to be clear, I blame some of them for stirring the pot) and she attempts, rather poorly, to point out that it’s been nothing but liberals shooting up the country and killing people.

Let me make something very clear here…it’s been white males engaging in mass shootings for various reasons that everyone likes to call ‘mental illness.’ I will agree if you want to shoot up or have shot up anyone or anywhere you have mental issues. Something we need to tackle. But to be perfectly clear to Ms. Coulter and everyone else…Black males have a target on their back and it’s simply for being who they are. Black CHILDREN have targets on their backs for walking, driving, talking, BREATHING while BLACK. And when they sell cigarettes illegally or they allegedly steal a pack of cigars they are vilified that they deserved what they got. I had no idea these allegations brought about the death penalty without charges or a judge or a jury.

But, here is where the facts comes in. And I want you to USE these facts: Black males are 21 more times likely than their white counter parts to be KILLED by police. Just for being darker than a ‘mentally ill’ white boy.

They don’t get the benefit of the doubt of being ‘mentally ill.’ No. They are killed. Murdered. Snuffed out. Because, apparently, Black males can’t be mentally ill or be taken into custody with a baton, a taser, pepper spray, with back up help…no. No. Instead they are perceived as dangerous and a threat and shot and killed or choked until they could no longer breathe. Or simply walking around with a toy.

So my column, of which Coulter pilfered and called me insane for writing, stands even more true today than it did in 2007. Our President, just by his Blackness, has brought out the racists in this country and he has lead phenomenally under circumstances that are beyond insane.

12-year old African-American boys aren’t even given more than TWO SECONDS to react when they play with their toy guns in a park before being gunned down by cops. That is how much we are taught to believe everyone with skin darker than ours is a threat that must be eliminated and given zero benefit of the doubt. EVEN THE CHILDREN.

I will tell you right now, my son could play with every nerf gun, fake AK-47, and real looking toy gun with the orange tip scraped off on EARTH in our nearby park and no one would bat an eyelash. But you give that to a Black child and the cops don’t even HESITATE to shoot him on sight. They didn’t even HESITATE. Two seconds. TWO SECONDS.

The lack of indictment in the cases of Eric Garner and Michael Brown are further proof of my original assessment…that it would take a sacrifice of the First Family to stand strong in the WHITE House as the scum from under the rocks of America came and continue to come crawling out to finally proclaim in broad daylight they have issues with race. They have issues with an ‘other’ leading our country. They can’t even manage to leave the First daughters out of their sheer hatred and contempt for our President and call them classless and bar sluts. When these girls have been nothing but the epitome of amazing, good, classy tweens and teens.

Yes, our country has become divided – they can’t even handle the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. They have to protest .. but…but … #ALLLivesMatter.

No shit. But you don’t hijack a hashtag where people are bearing their souls and jump in with this ‘ALL’ bull crap. We know ALL lives matter but this IS NOT ABOUT YOU. This is, specifically, about Black Lives. As I saw on twitter…would you hijack a cancer hashtag and say ‘but..but.. LUPUS matters too!’ No, you wouldn’t.

So sit down and shut up and finally LISTEN to these amazing members of our community who are SCREAMING for you to hear them. SCREAMING for you to walk a mile.

Once you have taken your time to sit and listen, then you need to take the time to stand up to the subtle and not so subtle racism you’ve been around your entire life. And you know exactly what I am talking about, so don’t even act like you don’t.

That uncle of yours that calls our President a ‘coon’ or a ‘porch monkey’ or the n-word if he’s just a total dickhead. That cousin who discusses how great cops are (which, many many are) and how they have to deal with these ‘savages‘ and ‘animals‘ – when their white ‘savages’ and ‘animals’ seem to get away with the same behavior when their favorite sports team wins a championship. Really? REALLY? You are telling me your sports team is more important and this behavior is ok so long as you win a game? But NOT when people DIE?

CALL THEM OUT. The time is now.

Do you hear me? Silence = agreement. People are DYING. Children are DYING. The time for you to sit on your hands and say nothing of the ‘sake of the family’ or to keep the ‘peace at church’ or ‘I don’t want to upset my grandpa’ is OVER.

The civil rights era has begun, again. Not that it ever really ended. I think we just swept it under the rug for awhile, despite our friends of color telling us otherwise.

Stand up. Be counted. Do NOT be afraid and do NOT allow ANYONE to get away with the usual crap that goes on over the holidays.

Give them facts. Give them stats. Let them know we will NOT tolerate this another second. Another minute. NOT another day and NOT another life.

We’ve watched schools be shot up, neighborhoods be war zones, and those in authority waltzing in like they own the place and forcing people of color to keep their heads down and say ‘no sir’ and ‘yes sir.’ Might as well be ‘no masser’ and ‘yes masser’ – because that is what it amounts to.
Go ahead and let your Mom blame you for ruining Christmas dinner. It’s that or let another Black person die.

Your choice.