so much more that should have been done

Good morning Mike. So, day 7 of protests here in Seattle, and today it looked like DC in '88 (and stuff I've seen and been told about from '87) - the protestors, most are young people who live in Capitol Hill, holding the line at 11th and Pine 24/7 now. Last night there was music, dancing, poetry, and light projections. The signage has been creative and plentiful. The kids are supplying each other - they are definitely taking their cues from the kids in Hong Kong. The cops are on a shorter leash, but still getting caught displaying their disdain for dirty hippies. And by dirty hippies, I mean anyone who doesn't look like Molly Ringwald and Emilio Estevez in Breakfast Club, or those loons from Duck Dynasty. That being said, there is a definite commitment I haven't seen before, and I have to guess it is coming from being in lockdown for so long. This is gonna be a summer for the ages, for sure. The soundtrack is a bit different, but the anger, the frustration, is real. I'm starting to have uncomfortable conversations with people - white friends, neighbors, people who consider themselves "not racist" and are "shocked" that anyone could "still think those things in this time". It's got me thinking a lot. As if my brain isn't jam-packed with shit already. I have been aware of the systematic racism and it's affects for a long time, since high school at least, since finding out about Apartheid, since college, since studying and being encouraged (and informed to a certain degree) with you. You pointed me at this problem in a way that set me in motion, and I wish I had realized that part more clearly before you were gone. I thanked you generally, and I hope you knew that my political blosseming (not awakening, but definitely me coming in to action and understanding) was nurtured by you. Then, following you to DC, making my own friends in jobs like at The Wiz, meeting Latonya from Texas (who I got a real-world lesson on black hair politics from among other middle-class black family struggles), Tesha from Baltimore (I think, though she might have been local to DC), Gerald, our classical guy who was young, black and from NYC who shared a love (and actual experience) of Keith Haring with me. They were young black people who opened up to me so much, I learned so fucking much being with them every day (and sometimes hanging out, like when Tesha Tori and I went to see the Busboys, and got on their bus!). Or at Common Concenrns, a fucking revolutionary hub, I was so lucky to meet and be friends with Linda, a mature black woman from Philly, who educated me on the MOVE protests, and just how it was to be a black woman in the late 80's on the East Coast. Or the delightful Jon Loggins, Fishbone cohort, Cali native, and fucking just a rockstar. Sharing time and experiences with them changed me, and steeled my understanding. Meeting Sue (who I'm still friends with on FB!) and Rodney (ditto!) who played and travelled with us (to NYC, another transformative trip) hearing them talk, listening to their realities. All the customers at Common Concerns...I met genuine cultural giants. So lucky to have been a part of all of that. Even the brushes with people - Fred Freak, Butch, our first DC drummer Rob. I remember going to his mom's house in Maryland - and noticing the differences, and similarities of my own family home. Fucking changed me, and in a good way. However, I'm realizing now, that it also made me feel like I knew what was wrong. I worked hard for South Afircan's freedom, but not hard enough on my fellow black Americans. Because it didn't seem like a crisis on the surface. I still was only seeing the surface, and like Amber Ruffin said recently, black people are taught to not talk about their day to day struggles. Yesterday, while talking to Karen, she mentioned that black people "have chips on their shoulders" and my response was "where do you think that comes from?" and she reeled off a list, and the first one was that they were "taught" it. And I again said, "by who though?" and then the conversation digressed, and I'm now turning it over and over. Because black people are finally saying the shit out loud. The middle class black folks that I have been most familiar with, who I have loved and laughed with are telling me shit they haven't said before. I think I assumed it was only people who presented "ghetto" who got that kind of shit - which is wrong as well, obviously, and the systemic part of the racism tells you that "well, if they didn't express themselves like that, the cops would leave them alone" is wrong on the basic level that enraged me about apartheid. What we are finally seeing because people have cameras to record it is that the dehumanization is happening to ALL black people. And I have not been active or outspoken enough. I have been outspokem, but have also let shit die rather than wrestle with people over their passive-agressive attitudes. It's gonna stop. Today. Now. I may be too old to be in the streets (though I watched a 75-year old white guy in Buffalo get shoved to the ground and have his head busted open for simply questioning a cop so I guess I'm a fucking baby) but every damn day I'm going to treat this place, this "liberal bubble" of Seattle in the way it deserves: black lives matter - we have to say it because not everyone believes it, or seems to want to tack "more" onto it. That's not the message. The message is black lives matter. American culture would tell you that their lives don't matter, that they aren't important. But they are important. Everyone should have the same opportunity to not be fearful of being shot by police. What is going to happen is either we are ALL going to get shot by police, or we are gonna fix this bullshit. I'm hoping for the latter, but expecting the worst. There is a blueprint for this stuff: you dehumanize a population one segment at a time, and the corporate monsters in power are hitting the gas pedal on the opression and control hard now.