It feels like a civil war is coming

It feels like war is brewing. Everything on my timeline is about how Black Lives Matter. Names keep filling my screen. More protests now than in the past 100 years calling for racial justice basically asking that our people not be murdered at the hands of the people sworn to serve and protect. It feels like people in my immediate circle get it. My friends, family, many coworkers though not all. It seems that those I follow on social media get it, though not everyone. I live in Philly. A big city with big city ideals and issues. Where people openly criticize the utter gaw and disrespect of 45. People call his judgement into question all the time in the places that I frequent. It's normal here, but MANY if not the majority of people within our country feel completely differently from the way I do about respecting Black lives and the need to defend them. Many support 45 and his policies about law and order, immigration and the way in which he engages with and speaks about people of color. Many do not believe that racism still impacts lives daily. Many do not believe in white privilege and the unknowing benefits that have been granted. The oblivion that exists is vast and scary.

 

I believe that there will be a civil war in this country in which race will play a particularly notable role. I feel the tension whenever a system is pushed. Whenever someone questions the police. Whenever police brutality is explained away as necessary force. Whenever someone shouts "all lives matter" in response to Black Lives Matter. As if we have the audacity to claim that black lives matter in a way that usurps their freedoms. As if saying that the mattering of the lives of Black people takes away anything from anyone. Whenever respectability politics are brought up in response to why GeorgeFloyd/SandraBland/OscarGrant/FreddyGrey/TamirRice/TrayvonMartin would not have been killed if they just would have complied or been kind or been submissive or did what the officer said. But what about BreonnaTaylor/AtatiyannaJefferson/BothamJean who were in their own homes? What about when people weaponize the police against Black bodies like Christian Cooper? or even MikeBrown/EricGardner/AltonSterling suspected of committing a crime so its ok to kill them? Where is that in the Constitution? Protect and serve? Law and order? Innocent until proven guilty? Where? For Black folks? I think not.

 

How about this? If someone is committing a crime arrest them don't kill them. That's what the criminal justice system is about right? Why is it acceptable to assume that if someone is not following rules that it is acceptable for a law enforcement officer to kill them. Now I understand the intricacies, fallacies and falsehoods of the criminal justice system and have had plenty of people that I hold near and dear become victims of said system, but they are still alive. We are asking for a basic right. Don't kill me because you're scared and I'm Black. The heighten fear around black skin is so real and it frightens me. I'm constantly scared for my loved ones and students because they are Black they are seen as a threat in many instances. I've gotten a gun pulled on me twice by the police and both times I feared I would be killed. Not arrested killed.

 

When looking at the "patriots" out at Macaroni Plaza in South Philly with their rifles standing guard in front of a statue of Christopher Columbus and thinking of how if a group of black men were to stand openly in front of ANYWHERE with rifles claiming to be protecting something the outcome would have been different. The narrative would have been different. Arrest would have been made. Blood likely shed. I'm sick of the double standard, but it does not surprise me. It doesn't surprise me when coworkers current and former express their disdain for the looting and burning and proclaim "blue lives matter" but are silent to the reasons that people are standing up in the first place. They are critical of the revolution and the aftereffects, but not of the racist system that has killed, imprisoned and otherwise disadvantaged countless Black people. This is not about all lives. This is not about all people. This is also not about the fictitious Black on Black crime. This issue is about police brutality and how it is acceptable to kill Black people when they get out of line because we are deemed inferior.

 

The pandering is bothering me as well. I just don't want to be racially profiled and potentially murdered by the police. I want that to stop. I don't need or want emails and commercials from every company I have ever patronized to send me messages about how great Black people are. A day off for Juneteenth? Great. Black is beautiful beer? um ok. Martin Luther King crabs? sure. Reparations punch.. I'm not here for all of that. I just don't want the system to be against me or to kill my loved ones.

 

I feel a civil war coming.

 

Why should Black people shoulder all of the effort to explain why Black Lives Matter? There is no way that someone who does not believe in my worth as person will listen to me try to explain the value of black lives and how systematic racism is affecting our entire country. I don't mean anything to them. I'm just a Black woman with an agenda. I'm one of them loud mouth, big lip stupid n...ers. I can't stand up to someone who doesn't see my value. if people have a belief that black people are inferior whether blatant or implicit then documentaries and movies can not help. They will not engage in that material. This work is two fold. There are places I can not go  because I am not welcomed due to the color of my skin. Not outright of course, but implied. There are counties in PA and dinner tables and country clubs and shore houses and mountain houses that are not places for me and I know it. You know it. I am not wanted and do not belong. I can not infiltrate these places with my logic and speak of equality and equity for Black people. My allies can though. This is the time in which anyone who supports the message of Black Lives Matter can speak to those who look like them and help bring about real change. Conversation. Understanding. or at least make a stand in the face of racism.

 

I do see people wearing thin. The lady in Central Park who called the police on the Black man to weaponize blue against black, the lady who painted over the Black Lives Matter mural in California with her sidekick screaming All Lives Matter and we're sick of Black Lives Matter, the trump rallies full of hate towards the cause, the political commercial antagonizing the defund the police campaign. Many people want this to go back to "normal". there is a want for this all to "die down", for the "Black Lives Matter folks to stop being so radical." It's safer when everybody is kind and calm and not protesting and just smiles and nods. People are tired of being called out for their racist behaviors especially when they didn't perceive themselves in this way in the first place. They didn't know. They shouldn't be punished. I see the hesitation when people are engaging with people of color. People do not like being identified as racist. People do not like having their views judged. There is a silent majority not making waves either way. Just staying silent hoping this too blows over. Like the LA race riots, like the 1964 Philadelphia race riots, like the Civil Rights era protests, like the sit-ins, like every other time that black people have stood their ground it has gone away eventually. 

 

I've heard white people say "why can't people be more like Martin Luther King?" I say what's the difference, they killed him too. What's the difference in the Black Lives Matter approach? If your life or the lives of your loved ones were being threatened by those supposedly meant to protect you wouldn't you do whatever was in your power to stop them? 

 

I really don't think that people understand what is taking place. This time feels different. It feels like there are clear sides and people are taking a stand. Be ready.

 

It feels like a civil war is coming.