We warned you back in 2015. We told you to listen, to pay attention. We laid out his history. We beseeched you to take him at his mangled words. But you defended him.
Children were stolen and put in cages, so many to never see their parents again. We begged you to find compassion in what counts as your hearts. But you defended him. You even laughed.
He refused to divest his holdings, put them in a blind trust. You learned the word emoluments because of his open, egregious behavior. But you defended him.
He has golfed more than he has governed - provably true. But you continue to defend him.
He embraced dictators, murderous leaders of other countries, acts which on any other president you would have shit yourselves blind, yet you defended him.
Tweet after juvenile tweet went up with name calling, lies, the fomenting of more hate. And you defended him.
He mocked a disabled reporter. He abused a Gold Star family. He defamed a POW and lion of the Senate. He dodged the draft five times himself. But you defended him.
He ignored his daily briefings about coronavirus for months. He got rid of the people who would have helped. 104,135 people dead in a pandemic - the numbers only continuing to rise. Yet he literally said the words, "I take no responsibility" and you continue to defend him.
Twitter finally put up the tiniest of disclaimer under his demonstrably false tweets about voting by mail - something they, as a private company are allowed to do. He lost his mind and immediately signed an EO threatening our First Amendment rights. The White House is actively compiling "watch lists" of people who dare call out his bullshit. Yet you defend him.
He encouraged the police "don't be too nice." Said these words in 2017 with police as a full backdrop: “Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over, like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head, I said, ‘You can take the hand away, OK?’ “
And last night, he Tweeted the words "when the looting starts the shooting starts" - a blatant, active threat of violence against United States citizens. Twitter applied a filter because it glorifies violence. So he had it Tweeted from the official White House Twitter account. They applied the same filter. And you are out in hordes defending him this morning.
We sit here today - the decent, caring, honest people of this nation - gobsmacked - because of what has been wrought by him with your defense in just three and a half year's time.
Cities are burning because behaviors sanctioned by him, encouraged by him, applauded by you, have pushed us to the brink.
I will be very honest here. As a United States citizen, I am ashamed. As a white person, I am both ashamed and horrified. I know my heart. I know my actions. I know how I believe, deeply, fully, in every cell of my being. But an ally, especially a white one, can only understand up to a certain point. Because my reality is, and has always been, so very different. We white people may be ashamed and horrified, but we are not powerless. We must admit that and put that power into action.
I see the heartache. I watch as black mothers and fathers express their fear for their children. I hear the pain, the grief, the hopelessness, the anger.
But I am privileged to not know it as the very air I breathe because it has never been the air I breathe. I walk freely. I drive freely, sometimes too fast. I enter businesses without a thought. I navigate this entire world in a way so many people who are dear to my heart, my life, cannot. In ways they have never been able to simply because they are black or brown, and we live in a country where melanin makes them immediately suspect, less worthy, targeted, endangered.
And I am sorrier than I will ever be able to express to them, to every marginalized person in this nation, on this planet.
I did nothing to earn my ease. I am simply the byproduct of two white people fucking without protection. That is it. Just like every other white person. I am not some lab experiment in which some bullshit notion of supremacy was measured and applied. I am not the result of the best, brightest, most worthy humans to ever procreate. I love my parents, but again, they are just two white people who fucked.
That is it. End of story.
I watched as the story of Eric Garner unfolded. A black man choked to death on a city street over cigarettes without tax stamps.11 times he begged for his life, "I can't breathe." In the end, he died on the sidewalk, a cop's arm around his neck. I was sickened.
I can't breathe. Jesus, how often do we need to hear these as the last words of so many black people?
I watched the news of Sandra Bland. A black woman pulled over for a minor traffic violation. She was dead in a cell by the end of the weekend. You defended the cop who was found to have lied his way through his account of her arrest.
Six years ago I watched as the news of Michael Brown captured the nation. Another unarmed black man shot dead in the street. His killer, another cop who got his version to the grand jury - conveniently Michael was dead and could not defend himself - walked free. Ferguson erupted in response. You defended the cop, mocked the pain of the community.
Philando Castile was murdered by police, shot five times at close range. He was in the passenger seat of a car driven by his girlfriend with his four year old daughter in the backseat. He TOLD the officer he had a firearm. He TOLD the officer he was not reaching for it. He died nonetheless.
My mouth dropped as the story of Breonna Taylor's killing rose to the national spotlight. Shot to death in her own home, in her own bed when police busted in while her household slept. Eight bullets in her. It was a "mistake" they cannot take back. But you defend the police involved. Nowhere, as you clutch your metal phalluses, do you defend the right of her boyfriend to have defended his household with his gun in the middle of the night as unknown people busted in. Interesting. Only it's not. It's predictable. In your world, black people are not supposed to have the same guns (or rights) you have.
Ahmaud Aubrey was chased by armed white men, fenced in with their vehicles, the whole thing filmed as he tried to defend himself. He was shot dead in the street. You defended the white rednecks.
And now, George Floyd, another unarmed black man is murdered in broad daylight, a video watched by millions - yet his killer still walked free all week. The three who stood by and did nothing to intervene walk free. You defend the indefensible. How about we put a knee to your precious white neck for 10 minutes? Grind your face into the asphalt. Ignore your pleas. Keep applying pressure as your last words are "I can't breathe"?
Never mind, you're white. It would never happen. Dylann Roof shot 9 people dead in a church in South Carolina and when caught by police, kid gloves. And they took him to fucking Burger King.
Armed white people shut down the Michigan legislature just weeks ago, yet not a single act of police aggression occurred against them. You defended them and we endured your lectures about their 2nd amendment rights to threaten over not being able to get hot wings.
Protests against the senseless murder of George Floyd take place and tear gas immediately flies. You defend it all.
A black reporter is arrested on live TV this morning as he reports on the protests in Minneapolis. His white co-reporter, feet away, is not. And you are out in full force defending it.
Derek Chauvin, the police officer and MAGAt who brazenly killed Floyd, is FINALLY arrested this morning. Twitter is aflame with your indignation and your defense of him.
Because you believe, in the safety of your rotten soul, that the rules for black people are rules you and cops like Chauvin will never have to fear being applied to your lives. You can break laws, violate executive orders because you demand Super Cuts be reopened. And you know nothing will happen to your lily white ass.
You defend Trump. You defend his words, his behavior, his acts, his virulent racism. You defend the wholesale murder of those you consider less than. You have defended this bloated orange blight on humankind right down the line for years now. Years that have led us to where we now stand. A country fighting two pandemics - COVID-19 and systemic racism.
We are on the edge of an abyss. And yet you somehow think you cannot fall off the edge. You are wrong.
As I said above, I cannot fully ever comprehend the complete fear the black community lives in every moment of their lives, awake or asleep. I cannot fully ever experience the searing anger inside them as they see how their lives are repeatedly taken without consequence. I cannot fully ever walk a mile in their shoes.
But what I can do is defend them. Defend their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in this nation that has never once lived up to those words.
This country was built on their backs. This country was founded on rioting. Tea Party ring a bell? So forgive me if I don't feel Target's pain. Or Autozone. Or any other business that experienced anger, frustration, and rage last night. They have insurance. They will be fine.
The black community will not be fine. And it is time for the white community - at least the decent portion that truly sees the inequities and is horrified by it all - to stand with them. Hell, not even with them. IN FRONT OF THEM. Being an ally only has teeth if you use those teeth to rabidly take hold in defense of those being hurt. Being an ally means that while you may never fully understand another's reality, you acknowledge it - its truth, its pain, its fears - and you stand up with everything at your disposal in their defense.
Including your white skin.
Women and men like this cannot be the minority in these protests anymore. We must come out in numbers too big to ignore. Willing to inhale tear gas and exhale our determination and indignation and refusal to allow the slaughter of black people to continue. We have been sickened, heartwrenched, outraged, and passive for far too long. Our privilege IS our power.
Racism is real. The murders that have gone on for centuries cannot be undone. But it can finally be dragged kicking and screaming into the village square and put down like the filthy rabid beast it is. But it is not up to the black community to do it. They did not ask for this, they did not create this dynamic. It will take white people joining with them and turning their pale cloaking device into an absolute weapon. A weapon to defend the black community. A weapon to root out racism in our police forces, military, and governing offices, no matter where that may be - the smallest of city councils or sitting behind the Resolute Desk.
You people - the racists, the white nationalists, the bigots, the MAGAts, the cowards strapped up like Rambo, the keyboard warriors who live to persecute online, the GOP, the crooked and the quiet in our police force - you are all to blame for where we find ourselves. Every. Single. One. Of. You.
You were warned from the beginning, but you gleefully defended a madman because he endorsed the horror that you are to other humans. You think we are impotent. We are not. And we outnumber you dramatically.
Your "white power" has always had an awful murderous connotation. We will profoundly rework it and use our extreme white privilege as power. White people are about to be your worst nightmare.
From my heart to your written words above. I feel everything you wrote, including not giving one fuck about the businesses being looted (if in fact it really was by black protesters). I heard a black man on CNN today, who was with some of the protesters say that it was WHITE people, who come in and do the looting - who knows?
Posted by: Katy Vega | Friday, May 29, 2020 at 01:39 PM