August 27, 2020 - Universe, Your Serve...

“... I am running out of hope.  In the coming months and years, there will be more dead black people by police or their white vigilantes.  We will cry, then march and possibly riot.  Then, we will move on with our lives.  Only for it to happen again.  Shampoo, Rinse, Repeat.  I am almost empty on hope we will ever get there in my lifetime.  I will try my best to hang on to the “Almost” part.  Universe, I am begging you:  please prove me wrong this time...”

I wrote that on June 12th. Now, on August 27th, here we are again. Ahmaud Arbery is followed by Breonna Taylor, who’s followed by George Floyd, now followed by Jacob Blake. At least, this is when we have video.

I feel I have nothing else to prove on my U.S. Citizenship. I was born in Washington, D.C. in 1969 to a post-slavery free black man and woman. I began my education in this country’s public schools. When my parents were told, by the public school system itself, it was not good enough, they stretched their budget so I could be educated in private, religious schools. I studied the U.S. Constitution while majoring in Political Science at two universities. I have marched more times than I can remember for affirmation of “simple” civil rights (the right to live “free” and without fear - some historians might say “...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...” some rich white man reportedly wrote in 1776). And, I believed it all, despite history and reality’s moments of evidence to the contrary. Here is what I need:

(1) God bless the NBA. While one political party is engaging a daily propagandist spewing of troubled alternative facts and utter damn lies, the NBA is attempting to force the attention on the important “Why”. Why are their peaceful protests to begin with and NOT why there is a morphing into anecdotal “rioting” after day turns to night. What will our traditional arbiters of truth (“The Main Stream News Media”) put their live coverage and “YouTube-able” clip footage focus? How often will the fact that a black man, after being a peacemaker in breaking up an earlier altercation, was shot in the back seven times while his children watched in close plain view by police officers who didn’t attempt to deescalate, didn’t attempt to use less lethal means, and will be justifying this KILLING with every breath they take until their deaths? Or, will they engage in the whatdaboutism of fair and balanced journalism (What did Blake do to cause officers to shoot him? Do Black Lives Matter activists and Joe Biden support looting and rioting and, if not, why have they not given 39 national speeches saying so in the last two days? What did the BLM protesters do - beside being black and therefore potential looters and rioters - to cause a white supremacist Wisconsin police applicant to shoot them?). Yep, News Media, I’m watching you TODAY! (Who am i kidding? No, I’m not. But, today is still an incredibly important day for the non-Fox News media to do its job)...

(2) I have been almost ashamedly amazed by the majority of white people who left behind their past ignorance to history to, for the most part, embrace the BLM cause, and, frankly, lead the protest marching and civil resistance following the George Floyd murder video. Where will the enthusiasm be this time (and, unfortunately, every time this happens because it will again)? Or, will we all just be too tired? Summer is almost over. We are not as shut-in as we were when George Floyd was killed, so not as much pent up energy to release? Do Black Lives Matter less now with our kids going back to school and a less subtle than George Wallace president and presidential party replaying the 1968 hit, “Law & Order”. Or, will the majority once again show the capacity to think for themselves and raise their hand for the “right” right (as opposed to the “wrong” right of white fear and racism)?

(3) I will ask this of my own BMKARself: I will not engage in poll-centric day-to-day bed wetting. The Democratic lead may narrow, for a varieties of reasons. Republican lies may motivate 2016 Trump base voters to...Trump vote again. Black lives do matter, but this poor to middle class non-college educated rural (and some urban) white electorate does not. We know where black lives are voting (sorry Herschel, sorry Tim Scott)...they just must vote in as large numbers as possible.

There still remains THE issue of 2020: Corona/COVID. The Republican Convention will mention it as little as possible - and, when they do bring it up, they lie completely - but, get ready: it is coming back and big. Flu season is arriving, bringing COVID Wave 2/3/4 with it. School is beginning with the following rise in COVID cases upon us with swelling numbers to come (despite Trump’s CDC and other agencies attempts to minimize the severity of the country’s miserable numbers). And, THIS time, the uptick of new cases will involve more children than ever before since schools were shut down in March. Let’s see how “acceptable” that is. Again, this cannot be spun successfully by the president. This cannot be lied out of by the president and his cult...ahhh, party. The illnesses are real. The deaths are real. The coming re-quarantines will be real. They cannot get out of this. In the Senate, Maine and Colorado will fall. But, not only them. So will North Carolima, Georgia (both seats), Iowa, and Texas. South Carolina and Kentucky, don’t think I am not looking at you too.

That’s all. Universe, your serve...