I've Had Enough

I don't even know how to start this today, so I'll just let it come out.  I'm so angry and fed up at this point.  I'm no longer shocked, I'm no longer sad, I'm no longer surprised.  I'm just fed up and tired of it.

What am I fed up with?  Another senseless shooting and even more senseless people defending their "freedoms".  Two people were assassinated on live TV and the first thing I have to hear is people defending gun rights.



This conversation is no longer and has never been about you.  It's never been about your fucking right to hunt, to sport shoot, or even to own a gun (or ten).  Your greedy defense of the second amendment in the name of freedom means nothing to the two dead reporters, the nine dead churchgoers in Charleston, the twenty dead six-year old's from Sandy Hook, the twelve dead movie goers from Aurora, the endless dead at the hands of police violence, etc. etc. etc.  Your defense of your so-called "freedom" is meaningless, greedy, selfish, and makes you a pitiful and awful person.  I don't care how you feel anymore.  Your feelings mean nothing to the over 30,000 American's killed each year by gun violence.  And that's a low estimate.  So put away the constitution for one fucking second and have a fucking heart.

The next person who says any of the following or anything along these lines...

• "People kill people, not guns."
• "If a person has the intent to do some harm, they'll do it if they have a gun or not."
• "Regulations and tighter laws won't do anything to stop a person from getting or using a gun to commit harm."
• "I'm not doing anything wrong with my guns, why should I be subject to tighter laws?"
• "What's next?  Arresting people who have knives?  Who post pictures on facebook with knives?"
• "Cars kill more people than guns, should we ban cars?  Should we have even tighter rules about cars?"

I no longer want any association with you.  I no longer will try to convince you of your stupidity, ignorance, and selfishness.  30,000 dead every year at the end of a gun barrel is a public crisis and unique to the United States.  And it has nothing to do with you, especially if you can't see beyond your own self.

Why am I so mad about this?  Because its personal.

Let me talk to you about Rey Dorantes, 14 years old, freshman in high school, shot and killed on my block in a case of mistaken identity.

How about Sergio Oliva, 15 year old high school freshman student of mine, shot and killed in a gang dispute.

Let me tell you about Walter Wright, a 17 year old high school junior or mine, shot and killed.  He was lucky to make it to his junior year of HS.

Or how about Julius Campbell?  Or Demetrius?  Or the others that I'm embarrassed to say whose names I don't remember.

Tell me how tighter rules and enforcement of guns matter to their souls or their families.  Tell me the same about the two people murdered on live television today.

If you tell me one more time that more rules, tighter regulations, and gun limits "won't keep guns out of the hands of bad people or off the street", I will lose my shit.  If you tell me one more time how "freedom has a cost", I will lose my shit even more.

And after I do that, I will have nothing more to do with your selfish ass.

p.s.  Sorry about all the cursing.  I'm so angry.

The Trayvon Martin "Lynching"

Make no doubt about it, Trayvon Martin's murder (let's stop calling it a "death") was a lynching.  Once lynching's went out of fashion because they were "frowned upon", folks had to find a nicer, cleaner way to kill blacks.  You can't really call a lynching a "self-defense".  You can't really defend a lynching and say it was an "accident".  But the intention is the same.  Kill the black man or woman, publicly murder the black child, and intimidate an entire neighborhood or population; instilling fear is the goal, guided by racist motivations, desire to have power, and desire to have control.

Trayvon Martin was defenseless.  He was a child murdered by an adult.  The adult decided Trayvon was "suspicious" and hunted him down, motivated by the fact that "those assholes always get away with it."  Then he murdered Trayvon in public when all he was guilty of was walking while black.

He may not have been hung up in a tree, but he was essentially lynched.  No surprise knowing Florida's history of lynching blacks.

Anna Brown, a homeless woman from St. Louis, was also "lynched".  

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Anna Brown was homeless and had so much pain in her legs that she couldn’t walk.

When Brown, 29, refused to leave the emergency room at St. Mary’s Health Center in Richmond Heights, Mo., a suburb near inner St. Louis, the police thought she was on drugs and arrested her for trespassing. She’d already been examined, and a doctor said she was healthy enough to go to jail.

The police carried her into a jail cell by her arms and ankles, her body slackened. There were a couple of beds in the cell, but they left her on the concrete floor. A couple of officers stood by the door as she writhed and moaned, and then they walked away. “They thought she was a drug seeker,” an officer said later.

She had stopped moving within 15 minutes and was pronounced dead a short time later.

 The hospital claims they "acted appropriately".  It was much easier to think that she was a drug dealer, a hooker, or just trying to game the system; those sneaky blacks.  Easier to just take her to jail, ignore her, and then let her die.  How safe would you feel going to the hospital, knowing that others of your community would end up dead there?

But what about the police?  They wouldn't lynch a black man or woman, would they?  Often times, it was the police who were the ones arresting "suspects"... I mean "assholes"... who were suspected of committing crimes against whites.  Wouldn't want them to get away with it.  Justice by lynching; justice by ignoring them health care.  This was a murder, plain and simple.

Kenneth Chamberlain, a 68 year old marine veteran, was also "lynched", this time by the police in his own home.

Kenneth Chamberlain Junior has called for the prosecution of the officers who killed his father. After the meeting, he criticized police for refusing to release the name of the officer who fired the fatal shots. The police had responded to a false alarm from Chamberlain’s medical alert pendant. The officers broke down Chamberlain’s door, tasered him, and then shot him dead. 

Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr.: "You hear him asking them why are they doing this to him. He says, ’I’m a 68-year-old man with a heart condition. Why are you doing this to me? I know what you’re going to do: you’re going to come in here, and you’re going to kill me.’ You also hear him pleading with the officers again, over and over. And at one point, that’s when the expletive is used by one of the police officers." 

Amy Goodman: "What did they say?" 

Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr.: "Where they say, 'I don’t give a F.' And then they use the N-word. And then, as I said, ultimately, they bust down the door."

A 68 year old man, shot to death in his own apartment.  They may not have strung him up in public, but they sure as hell made his death public.  They decided his heart condition, combined with his being black, was enough reason to kill him, all the while using racial slurs.  And again, this murder, this assassination, was carried out by the police.

**********

With Barack Obama being elected president, and with the civil rights movement in our past, apparently we are in a post race world (*cough* bullshit *cough*).  Racism is alive and kicking its ugly head in violent, frightening ways.

And we want to talk about how American's aren't racist anymore since they elected a Black president?  We want to talk about how racism is dead?  How about the dead Trayvon Martin?  Anna Brown?  Kenneth Chamberlain?

They may not have been hung by a mob, but the end results were the same.  And the mob is defending George Zimmerman; the mob is defending the hospital staff; the mob is defending the police.

A new century, and the same old tired shit.