Man Down

On Fox Media the description of 13 year old Adam Toledo is that of “man” while the 17 year old Kyle Rittenhouse was “boy”. This folks is white privilege. I think we think white privilege is about money and it is about skin color. It is about gender and whiteness. Then it trickles down to women who are pretty, sexually appealing and complacent. Any woman who does not meet those standards are further down the rung and that ladder is long when it comes to designing privilege in America.

As I have spent my life capitulating, defending and self deriding to make people feel better or safer or righter I am finally done with it. I have finally said “enough.” I have been too loud, too vulgar, I said this, should have said this, too independent, too sexual, too frigid, too much a bitch, not tough enough, not smart enough, too smart. Which the fuck is it? I am a Libra but even this makes me go WHAT THE FUCK? So whatever white privilege I had or have I am taking it. And I say this to any person of color, take whatever they offer free within reason as think of it as reparations as you won’t be getting a second chance. Qualify for Medicaid? Take it? Qualify for Food Stamps? Take it? Take the housing voucher, the affirmative action ranking, take whatever they have as that is the best if not only thing you are going to get. I lied to get my vaccine and fuck you I earned that right by surviving this mother fucker on my own. Not one person ever offered to help me, send me a card, give me a call or a shit when time passed. I have been good to many people and not one. So much for you are not alone. I was alone all right. But the lack of even an offer of kindess or concern was truly telling, more about them and less about me, but it told me I am done with it.

Adam Toledo died in an alley with his hands up facing a Police Officer but it was too late his fate was decided the minute his friend handed him that gun (as you know that is what happened) and the kid ran. I was stopped by the Police and I lay supine and threw my purse over and away for me when they asked what I was doing at a school I was going to work at. I had already had Police come to my home when Vanderbilt felt my anger about their asking about my private life and who was caring for me and I responded with rage, not an apology so that led them to make the call. And I had to subject myself to that interesting experience of a “wellness check” in my home when I did nothing to anyone except yell. (And when I yell I vent then I am done but if you don’t know me you would be perhaps disturbed but then again maybe the Police are not the answer, I mean I’m at the hospital, call a Doctor maybe?” ) So when I encounter Police I do it as if I am on an episode of Police Woman and I am the perp. Hands up, body down, and be afraid. Very afraid. And that is what Police want subjugation and deference.

So the little man-child, Adam, ran and was told repeatedly to stop. He tossed the gun over the fence and turned to face the Officer but again his fate was decided. The same with Duante Wright when he got back into the car, the Officer felt disrespected and disregarded and she wanted him to feel that pain and she ensured he did. Accident or Intent? Who the fuck cares she was determined to make him hurt. The same with Caron Nazario, who was in his fatigues, clearly indicating he was a person in service and because he did not pull over immediately and stop when demanded by the Officer he was going to pay the price via domination. It is what Police do. It is their training, their belief and their identity. It is their culture.

So when I read that once again the religious funding site, Givesendgo, is being used to fund Kyle Rittenhouse’s defense for his murder of two individuals in Wisconsin, where he at the time was a MINOR, in possession of an illegal gun, had crossed state lines to enter a community he did not live to offer protection or a service to those who did not contract, request or hire him to do so, is in fact if not criminal on some counts, bizarre on others, that donations are largely from Police Officers. Shocking, I know, not really.

And then we have a boy, not a man, he too 17, enter a school, with a gun, barricaded himself in a bathroom, get into a shootout with Police and subsequently was shot to death. The shooting in Knoxville is just a day’s work and the Officer who fired the fatal shot was declared a hero. Heard of Crisis Negotiators? Yeah they apparently did not either.

The shooting in Boulder managed to injure the suspect, but he is alive. He is not white but of Syrian descent. Is that white enough? What about Patrick Crusius, a 22-year-old from the Dallas suburb of Allen who authorities claim drove nearly 600 miles to target Hispanics; he allegedly posted a document online just before the shooting railing against immigrants and a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” He is still awaiting trial. White privilege there?

Or how about this one: Miles Jackson, a Black man, who arrived at a hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Officers had been searching him for weapons in preparation for a custody exchange over warrants he had out for his arrest. Officers conducting a routine pat-down him in a hospital emergency room found a gun in his waistband; Jackson began to struggle with the two officers after one of them felt the gun, spurring a struggle over the weapon and a standoff that ended in officers killing him, according to police body camera footage released Wednesday. Didn’t know about that one did ya?

And now there was another mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis and we know little about the shooter, the victims, or the motive. I am not bothering to speculate but let’s talk about what we do know. He had a gun, walked in, and shot people to death.

**ETA** Since this post this a.m., the gunman was 19, and is that a boy or man, man-boy or man-child? His Mother last year contacted the FBI thinking he was planning suicide by cop and he was a former employee of this FedEx facility which is why he went there as he knew the routine, the schedules, and the layout of the building.

This according to the Washington Post: According to FBI Indianapolis Special Agent in Charge Paul Keenan, the suspect was placed on an immediate temporary mental health detention by Indianapolis police. A shotgun was seized at his residence. Based on items observed in the suspect’s bedroom at that time, he was interviewed by the FBI in April 2020. No Racially Motivated Violent Extremism (RMVE) ideology was identified during the course of the assessment and no criminal violation was found, Keenan said.

The parallels to the Nashville Christmas Day bomber is not lost as that man was also reported by an ex as having bomb making equipment and the Police visited said residence and was sent away without so much as a citation or notation but a casual inspection. This folks is what is White privilege when it comes to men. Wives, Mothers, Girlfriends, Sisters call and ask for help and then they are the ones either found in a pile on the floor or cleaning up the mess. Ask the Sandy Hook Shooter’s mother, Nancy Lanza, about that. Oh, wait she was the first to die.

When women get shot we get “he was having a bad day”; when women get shot as they were at a Yoga studio the suspect had a “history of sexual misconduct that started in grade school.” The Isla Vista killer had a history of stalking, had a manifesto ranting about his loathing of women and his sexual frustrations, telling Police who arrived on a wellness check that was fine only to go out and later murder six people, three of them women. He is now released from prison as he was declared insane. I guess he is well now. He was white and of privilege. Go figure.

So is this racism, white supremacy, misogyny, mental illness or is this about guns, access, availability, and intent. Want one, you get one, and then you use it. Wow just wow. I am not sure I am lucky or privileged as I don’t want to be in that situation and yet it seems we are all coming perilously close. Guns are the real problem that contributes to the highly charged debate and political histrionics about them. And of course why the Police enter each situation armed and ready to kill. That is their fear factor, be afraid, be always afraid and that is your defense, excuse, explanation, and justification. And it has worked repeatedly.

And we could go on with the differences between those wellness checks on many who were of color and they ended up dead, at the hands of the ones sent there to check on said wellness. And that is why I was angry and pissed at Vanderbilt which is the right source of anger and kept my cool with the Police as I asked in my own home can they wait while I call my Attorney who will meet them at the door and we can proceed with said check when he arrives. They left and filed no report as those reports are filed and can be used against you. Again is that white or privilege or both? I am educated, informed, and keep calm in a crisis, that is my training. That training came from watching all of this and being informed, I don’t think anything about my skin color prevents me from being exempt from the madness of the Police and I have the trial records to support that. But that is for a long long book, not a blog. And ask Justine Diamond about her encounter with Police she called, only you can’t. They killed her too. Another Minneapolis shooting. Did they take to the streets about her?

So are we actually going to compete over who has it worse or are we going to do something about guns? Start there and then we can maybe work with Police about how that every encounter needs to not end with more dead. Try that.

Didn’t Get the Memo

I have been only reading the daily reports on the Chauvin trial, I truly do not need to see the footage, the photo or hear endless recaps of what ostensibly has become a snuff film. The man was killed on the street at the knee of an officer who restrained him in a technique that has contributed to numerous deaths in the past and regardless of their health or drug use this is abuse regardless. And I never want to hear the expression “take a knee” again as that only serves to bring that image up and not the one Colin Kaepernick intended as an act of protest. Let’s go back to raise a fist that came of age in the Mexico Olympics in 1968 to show a gesture of protest and unanimity.

And with that one would think that Police across the country would at least attempt to show some attempt at a new kind of restraint, and try to lessen their need to pull out guns and other tools to demonstrate their power and position in society. Given that the Chauvin trial for the first time has demonstrated that the Thin Blue Line is now fracturing, I am sure the dog whistle is out on what to do in encounters with Black suspects. I would say pull out their dicks but today brings a new element to the debate – how women police. Well it appears they do the same as the male. We saw this in Texas last year when a Police Officer went to the wrong apartment and went ballistic thinking a black man was in her home. And we have some women Officers who have also used guns to shoot suspects as they have an inability to wrestle some suspect down to the ground and shove their knee into the windpipe of a suspect. So tase away or shoot whatever that works there lady. And in of all place Minneapolis a woman Cop did just that. She “thought” it was her taser but whoops it was her gun. And now Duante Wright is dead. They will blame that he crashed his car after driving off, after he was shot, so that is why he died. See how that works there?

Oh that taser thing was what led to the death of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta at Wendy’s where he was sleeping off his drunk; but when he took the Taster and took off running, I mean shit that could do what to whom where and when? Well nowhere as it was now out of commission but fuck it, that asshole needs to die! I get that way over the last piece of pizza so I get it, I really do. The Officers were fired and are pending trial. I am sure that the drunk thing, then running off with a stolen taser will be the defense, trust me it is always the victim’s fault. I get it, I really do.

And then we have the Cop in Virginia who went all mental head case over a young Reservist, Caron Nazario, temporary tags that he could not see on the vehicle he was driving, and because the man is of mixed race he did what we should all do really, drive to a well-lit area a couple of miles up the road to a gas station. Fuck this if a Cop is going to pull me over I am going to drive 5 miles an hour to the nearest Police Station to get cited. Again this was not a high-speed chase it was for safety and security, irony even for the Cop. But fuck that fuckers we are not having it. That was one video that I threw up my coffee watching. The Reservist had the sense to tape the encounter but the dash and body cams were actually running and this was as if I watching a bad Bruce Willis movie. Pepper sprayed then forced down to the ground with the threat of the electric chair. Okay, overreact much? Well with Duante it was for those absurd air fresheners that hang from the rearview mirror and then when she ran the plates there was the outstanding warrant and from that point on it was game on and guns out. A young kid with his girlfriend in the car is the next Bonnie and Clyde, only black. But then if you ever look at the photos of that scene you can see Cops love guns and love shooting the shit out of people. Just now they do it to more Black/Brown people. Times change.

And yes we can say that Police do have dangerous jobs and a recent shooting death OF a cop during a traffic stop in New Mexico demonstrates how highly charged these encounters can get; however, they are not as common place as one believes. If you are curious as to how many Officers are killed annually, the FBI keeps that data. They don’t with regards to civilian casualties. IN 2019 48 were killed. In 2019 civilians were killed at much higher rates as according to the Washington Post who have been accumulating that data for the last few years and it was holding at 1,000 with 985 last year. Wow, just wow.

Yeah I don’t like Police and I don’t want to have anything to do with them. But they can be trained and educated and in turn work to get guns off the street and in turn that will end the overall violence that has enabled if not permitted them to go into these encounters with guns up. Let’s raise arms, just not those kind.