Make No Mistake

Make no mistake, the table has never been set for all Americans.
This should not be a new and sudden revelation as you look at the way Native Americans were initially treated and continue to be treated and how minorities and ‘certain’ people are treated in this nation.
We have never been perfect, which is fine, but it’s that so much of our bloody past never was dealt with, nor our bloody spirit addressed which has caused the world we see today.
We are led by a hateful, selfish man who wants nothing save an altar built to his greatness.
We have fringe groups who want violence and domination through terror and threat, waving whatever flag they think shows their strength and perceived patriotism.
We have casual cruelty and hate when white people have to deal with the changing status quo.
And we have our protectors taking justice into their own hands with very little reprisal.
Is it any wonder this powder keg explodes from time to time?
When the blood is so fresh?
The pain so new?
When we won’t deal with our sins, past and current, and instead scream I DIDN’T DO IT!
Screaming ALL LIVES MATTER when someone wants to point out an obvious and deadly disparity in how the races are treated by law enforcement.
I will never face what people have color do with discrimination, pay disparity, housing injustice, and on and on and on.
The virus that wracks our nation has done nothing but make everything even more clear –
People of color are getting the virus more often and then blamed by whites for forcing them into a shared isolation because clearly, white people are not carriers at all.
Seeing whites storm city centers and capitols heavily armed to protest unfair treatment like children upset that they can’t have dessert.
You have the owner class take, take, taking from the working class and hitting the poor under-served harder than ever.
And now the powder keg lit hundreds of years ago and stoked for the last four years is ready to explode.
We can’t watch time and again as we whites get a pass for the same things people of color are murdered for doing.
We can’t let the light be shone on the acts of explosive violence when we don’t know the who, or the why of it as we turn our attention away from murders and abuse.
We can’t allow whites who have been told to be afraid, have been told to lock their doors and not drive through certain areas at night, to now try to segregate every place they feel people of color should not be.
We can’t allow our own personal shortcomings and ignorance and bias and privilege make us turn away from the horror in this nation.
I dunno what I can do to change things but I sure as hell won’t remain silent.
This is wrong and it’s our fault it’s still happening.
It’s my fault.
And it has to change.