Don't Say My Name

I don’t want you to say my name. I don’t even want you to know who I am. I don’t want you to recognize my face, or hear from my friends. I don’t want you to protest in the streets, loot shit that doesn’t belong to you, fight the cops, or get arrested trying to make a point and defend anyone - and everyone - just like me. 

Don’t say my name. 

I don’t want my mother forced to go on camera, at a press conference, after I’ve been shot and killed.  I don’t want my spouse to relive my tortured screams captured on the body cam of the man or woman or veteran or rookie or partner or trainer who killed me stemming from a knee-jerk reaction or what they were ‘trained’ to do.  I don’t want my face dragged across any news channel or website or magazine or newspaper or political fundraiser. I don’t want the president to stand before a podium and lament the fact that I was taken far too soon, and that it will be his or her mission to see that I’m the last one cut down in the prime of his life. 

Don’t say my fucking name. 

I don’t want my friends to tell reporters or newscasters what a great guy I was.  I don’t want people questioned about whether or not I goddamed complied or sat respectfully or had a legal right to own a firearm or shouldn’t have been walking or running or playing somewhere I ‘shouldn’t have been’ or that I fit a motherfuckcing description or I seemed suspicious because of your upbringing or biases that you feel but only acknowledge when you think you’re threatened. 

Don’t fucking say my name. 

I don’t want to know that my child - minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years after I was killed - has to live that day over and over again until therapy or time or self-medicating or anger or the fact that he can’t escape his own thoughts cripples him and his ability to flourish and become someone magnificent and world-changing.  I don’t want my family to have anything to do with the civil rights attorney of the moment, spewing platitudes and niceties. I don’t want to hear conservatives or Second Amendment advocates or any asshole who automatically victims shames and blames.  I don’t want my wife to endure a trial or sound bites on the steps of a courthouse knowing that my killer is protected by the kind of immunity which lets them violate the next person with an impunity more dangerous and oppressive than the good ones can imagine or defend or stop or mitigate or eradicate. 

Don’t say my fucking name. 

I don’t want to turn on the TV or fire up my news apps to read that I’m one person closer to being unjustly harassed or assaulted or murdered.  Because every day I AM just one person closer.  To being harassed.  To being assaulted.  To being murdered.  To never being in your life. Or in my child’s life. Or in my family’s life.  That’s probably not the kind of daily scrutiny you’ve contemplated.  You’re probably not in a position to comprehend looking over your shoulder every time you aren’t in your own home - and sometimes even when you are.  You don’t know what it feels like to be paralyzed in this society that is never going to be post-racial.  I don’t want you to know who I am.  

Don’t say my name.  

Better training.  Better pre-employment vetting.  Better ability to deploy the right resources to the right problem.  Better protection against unions.  Better communication skills and de-escalation skills.  Better identification and punishment of bad cops.  Better and more support for cops who are doing the right thing and truly benefitting their communities and are freed from whatever interdepartmental bullshit keeps them silent and hidden and protects the shitbags who give them all a bad name.  Better whatever it takes to bring this to a stop.  Better I don’t care.  

Tomorrow is a new day.  It doesn’t have to be my last.  I hope it isn’t.  

Fix this. 

Don’t say my name. 

To A Mouse

In 1786, Robert Burns penned a simple poem, “To a Mouse”.  It is an apology written to an anonymous rodent for upturning his nest while Burns ploughed his field.  “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/ Gang aft a-gley (often go awry).”  Elegant, and often misquoted, those two lines of prose capture perfectly the human struggle and our seeming inability to find within each other that which would peacefully bind us together.  Where one man wishes to have peace, another engages in hostility for no other reasons than to prove his enemy wrong or to take from him what he wants.  War, we have found, is not always the best answer.  Politics – and politicians – are not always the best voice. 

It is ironic then how similar war and nation-building are to running for president of the United States in the modern era, don’t you think?  In war, your objective is (or, at the very least, should be) the complete and utter, yet not quite inhumane destruction and intimidation of your opponent.  In the race to become the next leader of the free world, your focus is the same, albeit with fewer casualties.  Typically described as ‘campaigns’, both are gross misappropriations of confidence, one side firmly believing their strength and cunning are enough to disengage their enemy (and assorted supporters).  The hoped for outcome of each is the toppling of insurgency, the dismantling of that which propaganda tells us is evil, and the introduction of one’s superior beliefs into an otherwise uncivilized and unsophisticated culture. 

The planet is dotted with red states and blue states, no matter the country.  Confined within every border and woven internationally, as well, there has existed in man for millennia the desire to best his enemy.  War and politics drive the building of nations, yes.  They are the visible spectrum of light used to illuminate both progress and oppression; their voices shouting mightily through the loudspeaker touting their triumph or loss in an effort to win sympathetic allies.  But it is their beastly undercarriage which scratches indiscriminately below the surface being ploughed, an undignified chumming of the waters, which polarizes and turns those who would be friends into enemies.  An apology for that on any level is rare.

“Man is the only animal that deals in the atrocity of atrocities, war.  He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind.  He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out….and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.  And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for ‘the universal brotherhood of man’ – with his mouth.”  Mark Twain wrote that, and it can be appropriately applied to both war, as well as the business of politics in this country and abroad. 

Shouldn’t we applaud the building of nations and the uplifting of the citizenry which may have once been oppressed?  Shouldn’t we support the desire for change promulgated by the disenfranchised and underrepresented?  And shouldn’t we encourage the dissenting opinions of those who simply want to be heard?  I think so.  Whether by ballot or bullet, change is the only certainty the world can count on.  Men will war in search of peace until the end of civilization as we know it; democrats and republicans will do the same for the next eight months.  Someone once emphatically shouted, ‘Yes We Can!’

That’s all well and good if you’re the farmer.  But what if you’re the mouse?

I'm Tired

I’m at a point in my life where I find myself unable to understand so many of my fellow earthlings. I am not the smartest, or most creative, or learned, or charismatic, or empathetic person on the planet. But I’m fairly good at not being an asshole. There’s too much of that going around – and has been – for me to try and stomach or explain away. And to be honest with you, that hurts.

Yesterday, someone in whom I find an unfettered goodness, and someone whom I love very much not only for the kind of person he is, but the kind of intent and goodwill and sincere humanity he leaves in his wake, posted something on Facebook relative to crime and what might be considered an impending invasion of the National Guard into Chicago. What could be the causes of the crime, what might we be able to do to stem the tide of chilling murders of the innocent (and criminal, alike), at whose feet does the blame rest, etc.? Heavy and important and critical questions, all. None, however, with answers sufficient enough to gather what is required to stamp out the scourges behind the systemicism plaguing our country. There can be no answers provided we can use as a silver bullet to cull the horde of greed; it is too advanced and too entrenched.

In the comments section of his post, I inserted myself only after having been complimented in a way I didn’t deserve, deciding to let this subject sit a moment before I opined. The reason I started this blog so many years ago was to provide myself with an arena of mental combat and intrigue for anyone strong enough in their conviction to read, and anyone brave enough to challenge the ramblings of a crazy man to what end I did not know. My mind is something of a mine field at times, and you never know what you’re going to get. Give me the ability to say absolutely anything I want without the threat of recourse and you’re doomed at the outset. Disclaimers are not required, nor are they encouraged on the page. Friends and acquaintances, the few who have scrolled my entries, as well as strangers who happen upon what they might describe as drivel or the incoherent stitchings of a mad man, politely excuse themselves to more interesting pastures as opposed to asking more about that which frightens them. And that’s fine. To believe as I did decades ago that posts sway anyone to or fro, you are only setting yourself up for a personal defeat you aren’t able to communicate to anyone but yourself via whatever internal monologue you think you have.

The last time I posted something on this blog, my treasured and inexpensive therapy couch, was in January of 2023. It must have been around that time, or shortly thereafter, where I realize I was yelling into a well. No one was listening and I’d found myself angrier and angrier with the world around me. The expression of my mind’s eye into this blog turned to an obsession with Facebook and TikTok – I craved humor but couldn’t escape from the urge to forward clips and posts of what I thought should compel those around me to act in a way that wasn’t normal. Not that they, themselves, were complicit, but more that I could see facets of what I was railing against in their behavior, their tone, their votes.

Reading my friend’s Facebook post yesterday, along with the comments underneath, and sitting with my words, I informed myself first and him later that I wouldn’t be contributing my opinion. To what end, I asked myself, would baring another part of my injured soul do anything to answer the questions to which he was seeking answers. It is the same moment when I admitted to myself that I am simply tired.

I wrote a piece in 2014 which I linked in his comments section. I’d let him know the only space I felt it appropriate to blather on would be my seldom-used blog. To my surprise and delight, he said he looked forward to what I might write. As an appeasement, I sent a link to an earlier piece called ‘The Accident of Birth’. You’ll have page back a little bit to find it should you be interested in its content.

Deep breaths were once needed as I sat at my desk composing lofty paragraphs about the country and what ails it. I don’t take deep breaths now, and if I can cajole my willpower from today forward, I never will again. It isn’t worth it. The fight I fight as a black man is different. I’m tired of excusing my outlook. I’m knackered from the constant effort required to be a human outside of my house. Every day. Black fatigue is a buzzword or catch phrase popular with those who haven’t the ability to empathize and see only constant references to struggle and inequity and powerlessness and want to somehow wish it away, to marginalize the feelings of the marginalized as a salve for whatever it is that I cannot imagine is so awful that ails them.

What drags me down and reduces my very existence are the very subjects no one wants to address in polite conversation, in open communication, and with a true passion – and intent – to resolve.

Racism. Religion. Systemicism. Greed.

Some people hang America’s first sin on the institution of chattel slavery. I do not agree with them. This country’s original sin, and one that has been brutally and disgustingly perpetuated is white supremacy. If you’ve found this piece, somehow, and you don’t know anything about me, and have an outlook counter to mine, I believe I can imagine the scoff you’ve just scoffed. If you stop for a moment and consider the true history of this country, the barbaric nature of white advancement will be of no surprise. From the moment this land was removed from Native American control, there began an effort to subjugate non-white peoples. I’m not interested in, nor do I have the mental attention, to delve into every detail. The people brought here and those who managed to escape into this country have never received treatment equal to the rights so deftly debated and codified for white men (specifically). Read any paper or listen to any news program or doom scroll current events and what’s old is new again. White people in power in this country are destroying black and brown communities with impunity and the law is behind them. At the very least, it is doing fuck all to help the targets of ICE raids and the like to protect themselves. Due process, as memorialized in the Constitution so many of the conservative SCOTUS justices swore an oath to protect, may as well be a fantasy. The wealth and job gaps are widening – unless you’re a white farmer in the Midwest as of September 9, 2025. They’ve moved from blatant redlining of black neighborhoods to prevent the ability to provide generational wealth, to blatantly redrawing voting blocks to ensure white power remains the name of the game. North Carolina was the first, and Texas – at the behest of the goddam president of the United States – followed suit, along with a handful of others testing the proverbial waters. Tell me the game isn’t rigged against me. Create an environment that traps generations of citizens, actively works against providing not only the equality they need to rise above, but the most meager of social programs to empower minds, spirits, and economic mobility required to remove oneself from a life of crime, poverty, substandard education and a preordained residence in some form of the prison industrial complex.

The same power-hungry people actively fracturing families and putting innocent people on planes to CECOT or even countries to which they have no allegiance or history, sit with their hand on the Bible and with full chests espouse teachings of Christ. I do not believe in God. I used to. But I don’t, anymore. I cannot. The loving God I learned about as a child would do this? He would put me in this position? He would allow others to be persecuted by mad men and their ilk? He is either all-knowing or all-powerful, but he isn’t both. God would create man, tempt him, punish him, and demand affection or into the pit of Hell you’re destined to live out a painful eternity? He created someone and at birth gave them cancer? He knows and has written everyone’s story knowing their beginning and their end, and is content with the suffering and misery he has created for them? Can’t be. Makes no sense and I refuse to believe someone I’d been told my entire life would be so cruel as to engineer such a shitty existence. The accident of birth is just that, and God has nothing to do with it. If he loved everyone, if he has the power to create beauty and magnificence, he has the power to ensure that all of his children are free from suffering. He has the power to direct our government to use their powers for good and not to explode into contemptuous and disreputable behavior. He has the ability today to stop the hate engulfing every part of this country. He has the ability to never again have a woman raped by her father, to never again have anyone from the LGBTQ community murdered and tied to a fence because of whom they love. He has the ability to see every baby born fed and cared for. He has the ability to put into the hearts of every criminal who has plans to take the life of anyone whether in Chicago or Charlotte or Boise and prevent another single death. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, the charlatan faith leader of the current administration, and the complete and total piece of shit president who would rather grift an old Christian woman for the sake of his campaign as opposed to finding it in his heart to grant her whatever time she might have left to live in comfort and without financial or medical stress…all and more should be ashamed of themselves.

I do not abhor the concept or practice of religion. I wish those who believe the tenants of whatever they practice to find solace and comfort in their spiritual leaders, both physical and metaphysical. What I do not appreciate is those ideologies having anything at all to do with how I live my life. I am not a good person because God has commanded me to be so. I’m good person because I know that being a dick to another person is just wrong.

The systemicism that bonds both racism and religion is deep, it is powered by an invisible passion, and it is entrenched in this country in a way that cannot foresee any other path than that which we are on today. From the invasion of this continent by Spanish Conquistadors and others to this exact date, scorched earth has been a practice and a way to horde power and influence over those who have somehow been deemed less worthy. To even invent the Three-Fifths Compromise, you have to be one of the worst kinds of humans. To support States Rights as a way to continue the chattel enslavement of GENERATIONS of humans, you are as much complicit today as they were beginning in 1619. To block the education of children on subjects so critical – and decidedly horrific – to the history of the development of this country because you find the subjects uncomfortable to the point you encourage the censoring of museum contents, is unimaginable. But to have the power of the systemic oppression of those groups at your back and the wind in your oppressive sails is all you need to justify the continuation of a system white folks claim to have had no hand in benefitting from. I didn’t own slaves. I didn’t prevent black or brown people from getting bank loans. I didn’t murder Native Americans or force them from their lands. I didn’t do anything to contribute to where we are today. But what you don’t stand up against you will have no chance in preventing, and certainly no way to reverse public opinion or practiced ideology.

I’m tired because I make good money, I have a great home and family, I’m smart as shit (unless we’re talking about math), I am cultured and appreciate the arts, I am well-traveled, and I am free to move about the country, but I will never have the same standing just based on my appearance as some of my friends who are white. I’m tired because the content of my character is less-judged than the color of my skin. I’m tired because the truth, apparently, will not set you free. I’m tired because even when 92% of black women vote for the most qualified presidential candidate in history, white supremacy dooms us to a future filled with intimidation and insanity. I’m tired because I don’t give a bag of dicks that my closest friends don’t like what I post on social media. It’s very likely none of them will even read this as the only person I plan to even introduce this piece to is my friend I mentioned in the beginning. No one challenges me on my views and I don’t have political conversations with my closest friends and I’m not sure why. I know they are Trump voters. But I am juxtaposed between hating their views and loving them as family for the last thirty years. I’m tired of explaining myself to people – white or not – who don’t have even the most basic ability to see a picture from another point of view. I’m tired because everyone who has ever lived and died is on this goddam rock floating in the middle of the Milky Way in a galaxy that is part of something so unimaginably immense and never-ending that I don’t understand how we can find even a morsel of disagreement among us knowing everything we don’t know.

I’m tired of being a number. I have a keep the lights on job, and passions. I could be replaced in a nanosecond by my keep the lights on job and no one would care. I make someone else money and for that, I am supposed to be grateful. I am a cog in the economy lorded over by the uberwealthy and most days it feels like my only task is to make them richer. Begrudgingly, I admit that life wouldn’t be the same without my technological overseers. I love the convenience of Amazon, the pocket-filling brain power of Apple, and whatever it is Google is doing for me in front of and behind the curtain. I know Alexa is listening to me and I don’t give a shit anymore. I have friends who won’t use TikTok for fear of China getting their data, but don’t seem to comprehend what information our government has the ability to mine, or bury. And I don’t care. I’m tired of putting up a defense for the powerful, the greedy, and the power hungry. I don’t hate billionaires. Hell, I spent $8 on lottery tickets last week trying to be one. But I don’t think they should exist at the expense of a mother who works full time but can’t feed her kids. I don’t think they should exist at the expense of people killing one another with their products. I don’t think they should exist at the expense of school districts not being able to adequately feed and educate all children. There are a lot of things the inequities of wealth can stem the tides of, but unless and until those with the means are made to do so, they aren’t going to do any of it (in large part…I see you MacKenzie Scott formerly Bezos, and I thank you).

The greed (the last of the four, if you remember from many paragraphs preceding this one) is cancerous and has grown unchecked, having metastasized into a monster not even Jules Verne or Stephen King could have conjured. And to be sure, greed comes in many flavors, not concentrated solely in the financial realm. We don’t have universal healthcare in this country because when it was originally proposed by the Truman administration, there were fears that black people would benefit from it and lift ourselves out from under one of their mechanisms of subjugation. College was more affordable until political luminaries like Reagan complained that we were in danger [because of affordable tuition] of creating an educated proletariat, moving the privilege of a higher education to the privileged, themselves. He cut state funding of colleges and universities in California by 20% when he was their governor. Anyone who speaks highly of Reagan doesn’t understand what he unleashed on this country both economically and socially. He was great for the wealthy, but bad for minorities and the also-poor.

Greed moved the tax brackets and loopholes for said taxes on income to prop up the rich and handcuff the broke. And it keeps getting worse. I love those videos of Trumpers complaining about the taxes they pay and lose their minds trying to get out from under the fact that they’re paying Trump Tax Plan taxes. He’s as greedy as the rest of them and he’s creating the same kind of pathetic grifters coming behind him, whether related to him or not. And that greed is proliferated into all corners of society. I didn’t vote for him, they’ll tell you, because of his social policies – but I’ll tell you his impact on the stock market has been great and holy fuck am I making a lot of money because of it. Gotcha. People suffering is less important to you than your goddam portfolio. Wonderful.

I’m tired of waking up every day since he was elected and wondering what kind of embarrassing bullshit he’s gotten into overnight.

I’m tired.

I’m tired of having to defend myself. I’m tired of the racist assholes who troll Bubba Wallace (random, I know). I’m tired of loving country music and being so fucking mad at the way the industry treated Beyonce after she recorded a BANGER of an album. I’m tired of being looked at. I’m tired of side-eyeing people. I’m tired of not being able to laugh out loud at the misery of Trump voters who fucked around and are finding out.

I’m tired of typing.

I’ve decided that I’m going to love my friends no matter their political views. I’m almost 53. My big brother died when some motherfucker ran into him as he was talking a walk a couple days after Thanksgiving in 2012. He was 46. Thanks, God. I have no idea how much time remains, and I want to do what I can to enjoy as many aspects and experiences as I can. Maybe I’ll live to see grandchildren. I don’t know. But I’m tired of being mad. I have no answers for society’s ills that anyone will put into practice. I’m going to exist in my space, love my friends, keep the lights on, indulge in my passions, and refrain from being an asshole (as much as possible). Until there is nothing else. 

All Gas & No Brakes!

 Y'all....

That's the way I typically start out a Facebook post or anything where I want to make sure everybody knows what I just discovered.  LOL!  I think it cracks me up more than anybody else, but I'll keep using it until otherwise notified.  :-)

I found a blog that I'd started a couple of years ago that I've done absolutely NOTHING with!  It's called 'Say What?!' and was evidently going to be used to dole out witty repartee and other information on the subject of commercial copywriting - my other gig separate from the bank where I work.  I'd completely forgotten about it until today when I was rummaging through some stuff online - that I can't remember - when I stumbled across it.  Lord.  I think I start too many things with the intention of adding them into my routine - like working on my core - and it never goes anywhere.  

I think I might be borderline OCD, I swear.  

Started looking up something on Norton because I wanted to see if there was an alternative to the antivirus I'm using and found myself down a rabbit hole that had zero to do with malware, finally landing on a website where I ordered a piece I need to add the ride on/ride off center stand to my motorcycle.  I went back and updated the Norton information (added another year to my subscription) and then I remembered I was hungry so I ordered Panera.  I had a fraternity meeting at 3:30 today, so before I got on that call, I looked at more ish on the Internet (updated my expiration dates on a couple of debit cards, got some clean up done on my Twitter and LinkedIN profiles, changed some stuff on my password database, added myself to the fraternity Internet page, and a couple more things).  Got off the call and moved right into texting an old friend to see how his back surgery recovery was going, and then decided to look into this mystery blog I've let languish.  THAT made me think about turning the Magnolia Rambling blogs into a Tik Tok post.  And THAT made me Google 'teleprompter app for iPhone'.  Brought me back to Blogger when I decided to put this together, and now I am thinking about how I can record content on my Tik Tok channel under a different name.  Jesus.  This brain is absolutely all gas & no brakes.

I have a million things I need to be doing, and writing this isn't one of them.  Finishing the return of my Christmas decorations to their rightful resting place, however, IS one of them.  It's January 15th, I know.  Don't judge me.

It's the start of the New Year, and I'm jazzed about all the stuff I'm telling myself I want to focus on this year.  I'm going to remain committed to not writing any of them down because I have zero intention of being called on the carpet for not completing them.  But who cares?  They're just for me.  I don't do resolutions.  I mean I do, but I don't call them that so I can be aloof and pretentious and so I can avoid failure.  :-)  2023 is the year of self care for me, and I'm going to take it to heart.  Gotta find a therapist.  Gotta get a pedi quarterly (I'm too cheap to do it more often).  Gotta think about considering to attempt to write another book.  [Probably a good subject to discuss with my to-be-found therapist: getting back to writing for me and not for an audience...it's harder than you might think after three books - subtle flex.]

If it happens, it happens.  I've got more to do than I will accomplish, but I figure that's better than not having any goals at all, right?  I don't know.  SMH.  I could be full of shit or just lazy.  

Right now, though, the only thing on my mind is popping open a beer.  So I'm gonna go do that.  Fingers crossed I drink the entire bottle before something else grabs my attention.

Systemicism

 

Sometimes I know where I want to start.  And sometimes I just don’t.  Sometimes I know exactly what I want to say to you all – or no one.  And again…sometimes I just don’t.  I guess that’s the beauty and the beast when it comes to blogging.  Whatever comes to mind is what I can put down.  You can read it or not.  You can like it or not.  You can agree with it or not.  It’s subjective to a high degree.  Whatever.

I don’t know if I’ll post the link to this entry.  It’s funny when you think about all of the shit you see and read on Facebook.  I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I pay attention.  I don’t have any illusion that what I say/write will sway someone’s ideological positioning.  People are so amazingly and deeply entrenched in their own worlds and points of view that seldom, if ever, are you going to pull somebody over the fence by giving them facts or real-world experiences illustrating your position.  They’re going to believe what they want, they’ll understand the world around them in the manner they’ve been exposed to it, and they’re going to keep it moving.

I was thinking about just that when I came up with ‘systemicism’.  It’s not even a real word.  I know because I Googled it.  LOL!  I had posted something super snarky in response to all of the posting about the student debt loan forgiveness not being fair – or the equivalent of that asinine position.  There were many comments about the program that ran counter to what a lot of them cling to with respect to their Christian faith – the spirit of helping others doesn’t seem to be Christ-like enough for them to capitulate and recognize when someone needs a hand.  What would Jesus Do?  #Laughable

We’ve got so many ‘isms’ these days that another one added to the fire won’t matter. You’ve all seen a word cloud.  You know those images of words which represent most-used words, with the winner being printed in the largest font size and probably either bolded or in another color to show how far and away it wins?  To me, that’s a tie with racism and whataboutism neck and neck.  Racism fucking sucks.  And whataboutism is just as bad, in its own way, and it’s the worst comeback anybody can have when they’re trying to win an argument.  It’s like answering a question with a question.  And then there’s systemicism.

Let me explain.

From the comments on my post about the student loan debt forgiveness situation, I was unsurprisingly reading a lot of bootstrap comments, and ‘that’s not the way I was raised’ and ‘why do my taxes have to pay for someone else’s laziness’ and ‘the system is screwed up and benefits people who don’t want to work’, ‘what about how I paid my own loan’, ‘what about how I saved and so-and-so is getting free money’, on and on, ad nauseum.  It’s gross, really, to hear these comments.  So many Americans think with their full chest that this is the greatest country in the world.  Period.  Periodt, as Madea would say.  But it isn’t.  It.  Isn’t.  Are there a lot of things about America that ARE the greatest in the world?  Absolutely.  Try writing this blog in China.  Or Hungary – the new darling of CPAC and the GOP.  Or pick a fucking country.  Good luck not getting tossed in prison while you await trial.  Nope, freedom of speech is fantastic, and I relish its protection every time I sit down to opine.  But if you stop and seriously examine the way Americans treat other Americans, let alone immigrants, you should find yourself nauseated and ashamed.

No one, no population, no subset of a population, a populace, a citizenry…whatever…is going to treat all participants equally.  I should level set that right there.  There will always be a caste or hierarchy that separates and segregates people, whether it’s socially, economically, or the combination of the two (or more).  But if the first rule of Fight Club is that you don’t talk about fight club, the first rule of systemicism is that don’t talk about systemicism.  Those ideologies which underpin the systemic segregation, disenfranchisement, genocide, and oppression of ethnic and economic minorities are glaringly evident – if you open your eyes – but they’re never talked about in ‘polite society’.  The historical record is chock full of examples where the haves have shit on the have nots for various purposes.  And they’ve done so with legal and socially-acceptable morality defenses at their back.  You cannot maintain dominance over others by using piety and equivalence.  You need only look at the way America committed spirited and long-lasting genocide on the Indigenous people of this continent.  There is always a heavy hand in the manipulation of those perceived to be underneath the powerful, both proverbial and situationally, and it manifests in different ways all over the board.  South Africa, I'm looking at you.

But you have to be willing to see it.

America has a huge problem with racism.  And it’s systemic.  America has a huge problem with financial inequality.  And it’s systemic.  America has a huge problem with the treatment of women.  And it’s systemic.  America has a huge problem with the LGBTQ community.  And it’s systemic.  America has a huge problem with gun violence.  And it’s systemic.  America has a huge problem with the approach to social entitlement programs.  And it’s systemic.

But you won’t recognize that reason in any of the responses from people who are arguing their side of a cause.  For example, I love it when people twist themselves into knots trying to explain why they don’t want CRT taught to their first-grade child.  Just hearing that, you should automatically realize this person is uninformed and they’re getting their talking points from an unreliable source.  What they’re trying to say is they don’t want their children learning about the horrific treatment of BIPOC over the centuries at the hands of white people.  A system of inequality and oppression was set in motion hundreds of years ago, which no one alive today is responsible for kick-starting; it was and remains  unflinchingly egregious.  However, it’s one which white people perpetuate and from which they are benefitting today, while BIPOC continue to be negatively impacted.  

No one wants to speak to the systemic racism which has contributed to the wealth gap, the education gap, the employment gap, the mental health gap, etc., which has brought us to where we are today.  Black people didn’t have the same rights per the founders of this country.  After fighting for those rights, black people were continually harassed, harangued, tortured, and mistreated.  The system of that treatment was used to indoctrinate children at a very young age, perpetuated throughout their lifetimes, and celebrated in certain communities.  And for anyone saying, I wasn’t raised like that, what you have, in fact, received is the benefit of that systemic oppression of blacks because of the opportunities your families had access to where black families did not.  White families weren’t redlined and declined the ability to begin building generational wealth.  White families weren’t yoked to low-paying jobs which inhibited the ability for their kids to get college educations.  White families weren’t subjected to domestic terrorism which inhibited – or eliminated – any interest in voting to improve their lot, or even running for office to represent their communities without fear of reprisal or violence.  The benefits derived from the system meant to hold black people down come in many forms – from life, itself, to a more prosperous and wealthy existence.  And it is systemic in that the treatment and disadvantage continues.  But that’s never acknowledged in debate or Facebook responses or comments.

White people are not bad.  Trust me.  Hear me.  Believe me.  I’m not saying they are, and never ever would I cast a shadow or make a blanket statement that insane.  There are plenty of BIPOC who vote against their own interests.  Or even worse, they’re single-issue voters hell bent on protecting their wallets and bank accounts and position.  Read a book titled, "Our Kind of People," by Lawrence Otis Graham for more information.  Or you can read my novel, "Chief of Staff" for similar insight into the insular world of the small but affluent class of blacks in America.  If you still don’t believe me, look at this abjection of a senate candidate, Hershel Walker.  He panders to voters who wouldn’t have him over for dinner.  He is being used by a voting block who needs his body in the senate chamber to cast votes he will not understand at a cost to BIPOC he cannot fathomably calculate.  I have said it before that neither black people or white people exist as a monolith.  In the same breath, rich people are not bad, either.  I never understand when people get on their left-leaning high horse and proudly exclaim that billionaires shouldn’t exist.  What?!  Are you out of your goddam mind?  It’s the innovation for me.  It’s the creating jobs for me.  It’s powering a global economy for me.  It’s looking at all of their fancy, shiny, expensive, out of reach stuff for me.  If I could be a billionaire tomorrow, I’d do it in a heartbeat.  Kuh-Ching!

But what’s gutting to me about billionaires – at least in America – is that the system that allowed them to get so damn rich comes at the expense of the lower and middle class.  And I’m actually talking about everything from capitalism, itself, to wages and work-life balance to the holy grail of everyone’s pocket, taxes.  Billionaires don’t pay enough taxes juxtaposed against their income/wealth, and that burden falls to everyone underneath them.  It’s systemic because of the hierarchy previously established which does absolutely everything it can to protect that class (the super- and ultra-wealthy) because they have the power and position to do so.  It wasn’t the common man, the blue-collar worker, the manual laborer, the kindergarten teacher, or the freshly minted naturalized citizen banging for the Supreme Court to side with Citizens United.  Corporate America, led by rich white people and profited from by rich white people clamored for that ruling because they wanted a financial voice in American politics.  And that additional voice, beyond their own, is used to contribute ungodly amounts of money – in the form of free speech, most ironically – to political candidates who push the causes that that money funds.  Federalist Society, your table is ready.  That access writes the laws, confirms federal judges and ‘right’-sizes the SCOTUS, it lobbies the senators and congressmen/women, and impacts your daily lives on a local, state, and federal level.  It is systemic.

Look back at the document comments of America's founders with respect to religion in America.  ZERO percent of them say or imply or suggest or hint that this is a Christian nation.  In any way.  Yet today we’re run by group of individuals who amount to a theocracy based on THEIR RELIGION alone.  They set policy, influence laws, dictate morality-based intent, etc., in direct violation of not only what the founders intended, or the concept of separation of church and state, but what they wrote in that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.  Hindu?  Jewish?  Buddhist?  Atheist?  Everybody can fuck off unless you’re some form of Christian.  Don’t believe me?  Christianity is on our money.  It’s in your bedroom.  It's in your schools.  It’s lording (pun intended) over women’s reproductive rights.  It’s even allowing someone to say whether or not they’re going to bake a goddam cake.  It is systemic.

Systemicism is permanently entangled in our society, and it’ll never go away, it won't be voted out, and it can't be shouted down.  Just like racism, you have to come to grips with that fact.  There will always, always, always be people who hate me simply because I’m black, or think I’m less than because I’m black.  Those are the same people whom I cruise past on a jaunty spring motorcycle ride and wonder how they can have a Trump flag on their shitty little trailer homes and laude his every move, to include not returning Top Secret documents which could put American and allied spies, alike, in mortal danger.  He doesn’t give a damn about any of those people.  None of them.  All he wants, and has gotten plenty of, is their sucker money.  Lyndon Johnson said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket.  Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."  It's the systemicism that links them to Trump (and his ilk) in their minds that is enough to continue to embrace a disgraceful opinion and view on BIPOC, and continue the miseducation of their children (which leads to banning of books, harshing the mellow of the LGBTQ community, supporting candidates who seek to whitewash American history or make it harder to fucking vote, or give the ability of a state legislature to decide an election, and contributes to the deepening divide between races).  Do you see where I’m going?

So somebody is getting relief from their student loan debt.  Big whoop.  That doesn’t impact you.  It isn’t being unfair to you.  (How about paying taxes in the 60s for city and community amenities you couldn't rightfully enjoy, like parks and pools and water fountains?)  And your life isn’t going to change.  Instead of bitching and moaning about having 'paid their fair share' while somebody sits on their ass, why aren’t those people pissed that Trump’s tax plan is raising their taxes by removing a host of deductions for the middle class and repealing things like the alternative minimum tax for wealthy individuals or eliminating the estate tax?  Why aren’t they complaining about the inequity in education in urban and rural communities?  Why bemoan the infrastructure repair and increasing access to affordable healthcare and housing?  Surely leveling up in those areas would make for a more competitive and productive workforce, contribute to catching up on the salary and wealth gap, right?  How about recognizing the politically-expedient dominance of any certain religion and its stranglehold over whether a pregnant teenager carries an unwanted child to term?  Bet they’d be screaming their heads off if Muslims crafted laws that prohibited their free exercise of bodily autonomy.  Want to prevent second graders from being shot in the face at school?  Or is the greater concern the ability for some nut job to exercise his 2A rights to buy an assault rifle?  Ten grand to a teacher buried under student loans while going into her own pocket to provide school supplies for kids in a low-income neighborhood school sickens you.  But you’ll gladly scream Let’s Go Brandon and display FJB on your car and clothes.  And you’ll listen to a pastor or a boss or your neighbor talk about how they’d like to get back to when America was great.  All the while  you don’t understand how the world is moving on without you toward inclusion and diversity of all kinds.  And you fight and claw and scream and complain to support the divisiveness in a country where you continue to benefit from whatever form and function of the pervasive systemicism that checks your personal boxes.

But $10,000.  Because it doesn’t seem fair.

Mm’kay.

Hands up!

I don't get it. I'm pretty sure I'm depressed in some form or fashion, and it's all because of the world I live in. Most days, people fucking suck. They do. Why are we so evil to one another? Why can't we just leave everybody else the fuck alone? I hate bigots and racists and homophobes and the exclusionary and evangelical dicks and misogynists and anybody else who feels the need to propel their needs and interests and morality and superiority above anyone else. I just want to throw my goddam hands up and quit! 

I stopped writing this blog a while ago. And I don't know today that I'm going to pick back up where I left off. Ironically, or not, that was the exact subject matter of my last entry: write or stop. I clearly haven't answered that question. But I have decided one thing: you're going to have to find this blog if you want to read it. No longer am I going to post entries on social media. Makes me mad on another level when I put something out there that nobody comments on or pays attention to. I have to laugh at that. So completely narcissistic. Ha! Like I said before, if you don't love what you write, and have that expectation of others, what's the point? This isn't journalism. It is digital ranting, yelling into a cyberspace-shaped megaphone, the yeeting of your most introspective thoughts into a chasm of deep space dark matter. It is pointless other than to give me an outlet for my rage and hopefully medication enough to move through to the next day. 

NOTE: Don't take the above as some kind of fucked up secret way to say that writing keeps me from killing myself. Holy shit, no. Nobody is worth me killing myself. Nobody. Besides, have you ever SEEN a Ferrari? Or touched a lion? Or had a dog? Or loved someone? Or ridden a motorcycle? Or felt the sea roll up your foot while you stand on the beach? I don't get suicide. But that's another blog, completely. I hate that some people are pushed that direction, and I have some strong feelings about suicide that don't matter to anyone who's been through it. I'm just saying I'll never do that to myself. I'm just moody. :-) 

I forgot where I was going before that suicide rant. Lovely. 

Oh yeah: (most) people suck. 

I cannot tell you how much joy I've squeezed from Tik Tok in the last couple of years. It is a magnificent escape from the rigors of life and dealing with people you'd like to see disappear. So many funny people, so many great singers, so many people with crazy talent that never would have been exposed were it not for something as horrific as the pandemic, pushing everyone to the app for some respite and joy in a shitty day. I shudder to think where I'd be mentally without those 1- and 3-minute videos. 

There was a school shooting in Texas not too long ago, and I got so fed up with the absolute bullshit of thoughts & prayers that I stopped watching the coverage for days. I'm still not fully back on board, and that's fine by me. Politicians coveting their NRA funds or the votes of dicks with 2A tattooed on their foreheads make me sick. I wish they would just say they're in it for the money and the notoriety. They're certainly not genuine on any level. That goes for the GOP and the Democrats, but the greasy GOP assholes are just more blatant with their greed and refusal to help their constituents in the face of corporations floating their endless campaigns and glad-handing. I stopped watching the coverage because everyone is lying WHILE THEY'RE AVOIDING THE QUESTIONS people need to have answered. If everyone responded to a question in their every day lives with some kind of nonsense 'spin', we'd never get anywhere. People used to be more honest. At the very least, maybe the rest of us were more terrible at figuring out we were being lied to. One way or another, a lot of us are fucked, and it's only going to get worse. 

Nobody is able to tell a grieving parent that their OTHER kids aren't in danger of getting shot up at school because nobody is willing to do anything substantial about guns in this country. Nobody is able to tell their daughter that she doesn't have to carry a rape baby to term if Uncle Dirtbag gets handsy and takes her to bed. Nobody is able to tell their mother or sister or aunt or cousin that she has the right to make her own decisions about her body because the autonomy we should mandate for her isn't represented in the Constitution. Give me a fucking break. And as privacy rights get chucked...just wait...there goes the right for a man to marry another man, or a Chinese woman to marry a white guy, or adopt a baby of your choosing. It's not a leap to go from knocking down Roe to eliminating Loving and erasing Obergefell. 

One of my fraternity brothers (from whom I'm actively distancing myself), told me I should calm down. I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but I was more polite about it. He's been a dick to me on Facebook a couple of times, and I've always come back and told him he was a shit for saying what he said. I'm not fucking with him anymore because I have insight into his real demeanor and outlook. I don't have time for that. And I won't calm down on this issue or others. We're standing at the edge of a precipice in so many ways. And so many people aren't paying attention. Or worse, they're complicit in the various ways society is being destroyed; hey, democracy, the call is coming from inside the house. I have lifelong friends who will vote for Trump if he runs again. After EVERYTHING FUCKING THING we know about him and what he's done to the country, he'll still get their vote. They'll never tell me that to my face, but I know it to be true. And that's sad. And, quite frankly, it's gross and irresponsible. But they're never going to change, and I'm not going to waste my breath or time engaging in conversation to try and sway them. I used to spit into the wind until I realized it wasn't worth it with some people. 

So, I'll keep my hands up. I'll continue to be irritated by the outside world and its refusal to do what's right. At the same time, I have to do what I can to get out of this depression, to stimulate my brain, to lessen the hatred I have for asshole members of our society. I don't know. Maybe I'll keep writing. I've got this blog and at least two novels I could work on. We'll see. If it happens, it happens. And unless there is some setting I'm not aware of which automatically notifies my 7 followers (haha, I'm number 8), nobody will know, anyway. 

Ramble On...

Test

I've been curious of late to understand how my seven followers know that I have posted something new. As such, this is a test of whatever notification sustem there might be.