This is how they win. Sowing division among wonderful people.
Fun fact – Facebook isn’t going to resolve systemic racism, police brutality, find a cure for the common cold, or give you a free taquito at QuikTrip under a pandemic. That’s not what Facebook is for. Facebook is for collaboration and communication.
In this binary world that we live in, communication is next to impossible. You’re either FOR “Blue Lives,” which makes you AGAINST “Black Lives.” You’re either FOR ending racism, which means that you’re AGAINST police brutality.
That leaves dum dums like me in the middle watching the world’s worst game of tennis and wondering how in the hell I’m going to make Thanksgiving dinner for my polarized family because I remodeled my kitchen for the sole purpose of having my polarized family over for turkey and fellowship.
This is what “they” want. “They” want us to be too busy fighting on social media to help the problem along. There are very real elements that want to succeed while others fail and if they can move that chaos along, so be it.
The problem of police brutality spawned by cultural racism and the black community’s response is not a one or a zero. It isn’t something you are for or against. We have got to start treating each other respectfully when we disagree and facing up to the truly awful acts like sitting on a person for eight and a half minutes until they were dead is an unconscionable crime regardless of if that person is wearing a badge or not. Whatever the cause. Whatever the reason. This is awful.
If there is something any of us can do to change that so that it never happens again, we should do it. And, likely, we would if we weren’t so busy pissing in each other’s corn flakes on Facebook.
This is a country that torpedoed our economic success so that 100,000 dead wasn’t 100,001 dead. We want to do the right thing to help our fellow man even if it brings us distress. We value each other at our core even when we’re too myopic and proud to communicate it on Facebook.
We can make things better so that nobody – black, white, purple, or green – dies when they didn’t need to. And we can all respect the badge while still hoping that the blue line that protects us will protect all of us equally.
I love you all deeply. We are all better than this and we all need to find a way to be part of the solution – even if it’s just being decent to each other. Because this whole problem won’t simply go away like that patch of dry skin on your back.
(Chris Kamler won’t go away, and we’re happy about that. Find him on Twitter where he is known as @TheFakeNed and watch him on Landmark Live at the new plattecountylandmark.com)